Should Literotica have a blog feature for authors?

[PastMaster]

Are you sure about that, that you can't link or refer to your profile? I think I've seen it happening a couple of times, in the postscript of stories. There should be no issue with links that lead to Lit's own website.

dead certain.

I just had a story rejected for that very reason.

I have a story series which one of the installments was rejected by Lit. I disagreed with their reasons for rejection and refused to change the story. The series is posted without that particular chapter.
I have had several comments asking where that particular chapter may be read. There are directions as to where it may be read in my profile, and directing people to read my profile got a subsequent story rejected.

Another reason for having a blog is i get on average a couple of emails a week asking questions, and yet they are sent using the 'anonymous' sender function - how am i supposed to reply to those? Having a blog would enable me to post the question and it's answer.

KR

PM

 

[PastMaster]

Obviously, I don't know the details, but... Your reply makes me wonder if your story was rejected because you tried to tell your readers to find a link to the 'missing' chapter in your Profile. If that's the case, the issue would not be that you're telling people to look at your Profile; the issue would be that you're actively trying to route people to another website. Again, I don't know the details, but if that's the case, then I'd agree with Lit's decision.

It makes no sense. If they allow it in the profile - then why shouldn't we tell people to check our profiles?

Also why is - 'check out my discord on https.......' banned and yet,
'thanks to everyone who signed up for my discord on https....' allowed.

 

[onehitwanda]

Also why is - 'check out my discord on https.......' banned and yet,
'thanks to everyone who signed up for my discord on https....' allowed.

pattern matching.

 

[PastMaster]

pattern matching.

So all i need to do is figure out the patterns and I can get away with stuff that's good to know

 

[AlinaX]

Medium is home to a fair number of erotic authors, and they are integrating now with the Fediverse:

With so many Mastodon instances to choose from, we plan for me.dm to have a few important benefits out of the gate: reliable infrastructure and moderation, a short domain name to make sharing your username easier, better onboarding for new users, and an interesting local feed.

Obviously, integration like this requires active moderation, but making it easier to link to authors' social media seems like a sensible idea. Twitter is listed as "coming soon" in the FAQ, and there's a website in the options, but it should be easy to add a number of social media links at the end of a story.

 

[lilshymynx]

It makes no sense. If they allow it in the profile - then why shouldn't we tell people to check our profiles?

Also why is - 'check out my discord on https.......' banned and yet,
'thanks to everyone who signed up for my discord on https....' allowed.

Plenty of authors here have links to Patreon, Smashwords, etc...that's not the likely issue here.

You aren't just directing readers to another site to read other works - you are redirecting readers specifically to a story that was rejected by Lit.

 

[gordo12]

I realize the Literotica owners have a lot on their plate already and various Site changes and updates in the works, but I've wondered for a while if a Blog feature would be a good value-added feature for the site. It could be linked to the Author's visible page, and it would allow the author to post regularly about story ideas or story progress for the benefit of the author's followers and readers.

I know there are some Lit authors who already have such blogs on other platforms. I've thought about doing something like that, but my thing is, I'm extremely lazy when it comes to taking on new online or technological challenges. Unlike some, I have no erotic story activity on any other platform. But if Literotica had a blog feature, I'd probably use it. It seems to me it would be a useful feature from Lit's point of view as a way of keeping authors primarily anchored here, as opposed to somewhere else. Authors would benefit because they would know they'd have a better chance of reaching out to blog readers here than anywhere else, because of the higher amount of traffic this site gets.

I don't imagine setting it up would be that technologically difficult.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I've seen many of the chat sites that have blog offerings for the more involved patrons. Usually, it seems they start out strong and then taper off before finally disappearing. I doubt it would be different here.

 

[PastMaster]

You aren't just directing readers to another site to read other works - you are redirecting readers specifically to a story that was rejected by Lit.

Sooo not only are the imposing their values on their own site - they want to impose them everywhere? Tyrannical much?

 

[SimonDoom]

Sooo not only are the imposing their values on their own site - they want to impose them everywhere? Tyrannical much?

I don't think this is a coherent way of looking at things. They own the site, the same way the owner of a house owns the house. If the house owner tells you, "You have to take off your shoes before you come into my house" because they don't want dirt on the carpet, it's not an act of imposing values or tyranny. It's a voluntary, consensual exchange: you get to enter the house, but on their terms. You have no right to enter the house in the first place.

Same thing here. You have no right to use this site. It's not a public forum. It's understandable that a for-profit enterprise would condition the use of its service on the acceptance of certain limits on your ability to do things that might draw readers AWAY from the site. That's not unreasonable. It's certainly not tyrannical.

 

[KeithD]

I haven't observed blogs being worth the effort in getting followers and sustaining themselves no matter who sponsors them. Seems there are a whole lot of things Lit. should be doing with its site before getting around to sponsoring blogs. My publisher insisted I have one--which he maintains--but he's not keeping up with it. I gave him two years of material to run and there's practically nothing posted or anyone looking.

 

[PastMaster]

I don't think this is a coherent way of looking at things. They own the site, the same way the owner of a house owns the house. If the house owner tells you, "You have to take off your shoes before you come into my house" because they don't want dirt on the carpet, it's not an act of imposing values or tyranny. It's a voluntary, consensual exchange: you get to enter the house, but on their terms. You have no right to enter the house in the first place.

I don't think this is a coherent way of looking at things. They own the site, the same way the owner of a house owns the house. If the house owner tells you, "You have to take off your shoes before you come into my house" because they don't want dirt on the carpet, it's not an act of imposing values or tyranny. It's a voluntary, consensual exchange: you get to enter the house, but on their terms. You have no right to enter the house in the first place.

Same thing here. You have no right to use this site. It's not a public forum. It's understandable that a for-profit enterprise would condition the use of its service on the acceptance of certain limits on your ability to do things that might draw readers AWAY from the site. That's not unreasonable. It's certainly not tyrannical.

One thing you have to remember is that without the authors - who post to the site - it would not exist.
We are putting hours and hours of effort into producing content, for which the site owners give us nothing at all.
I personally have over a quarter million views of my work, which is earning for the site. Some reciprocal consideration in allowing us to post links to stories, or chapters of stories, that they do not wish to publish, because of an inaccurate interpretation of their rules, would be appreciated.

 

[SimonDoom]

One thing you have to remember is that without the authors - who post to the site - it would not exist.
We are putting hours and hours of effort into producing content, for which the site owners give us nothing at all.
I personally have over a quarter million views of my work, which is earning for the site. Some reciprocal consideration in allowing us to post links to stories, or chapters of stories, that they do not wish to publish, because of an inaccurate interpretation of their rules, would be appreciated.

I'm very aware of this. I assume the site owners are as well. I assume they have taken this into account and decided that in certain cases the risk of not giving some authors what they want is less than the risk of giving authors the ability to redirect traffic to other sites, or to do other things that adversely affect the reader experience, or adversely affect the site's bottom line. At this point, the site has a library of well over half a million stories, accumulated over 22 years, and I imagine the risk and cost of a disgruntled author leaving the site seem fairly small to them. It may be annoying in some cases, but it's not tyrannical.

 

[oneagainst]

Past discussion ran as follows, from memory: no external links from stories themselves because (a) linkbaiting and (b) the stories can be here for decades, right... who knows if your ref will still be active in 10 years. I tend to agree and have found no issue linking back to my Story page at the bottom of everything I write. It's the equivalent of Amazon's "people who liked this also like this" link and I think it benefits everyone.

Re an actual blog... nah. The people who would care are the ones who follow you so therefore I use updates to my Profile page to alert on upcoming stuff, etc. since they get notified in their feed. Also forces you to be to-the-point rather than meandering.

 

[lilshymynx]

Some reciprocal consideration in allowing us to post links to stories, or chapters of stories, that they do not wish to publish, because of an inaccurate interpretation of their rules, would be appreciated.

You act as if the site does nothing for you.

You are allowed to post links to things like Patreon, Smashwords, etc, in your bio.

There is a pinned thread in this very forum where you are allowed to hawk your published commercial works.

There is a pinned thread in this very forum, started by one of the site owners to help authors whose works have been stolen and published on Amazon.

Just because you bring them traffic doesn't mean they have to let you do whatever the fuck you want on THEIR site. They aren't telling you what to do on other sites, they are telling you what you can and can't do on THIS site. The idea that someone would say "you can't post that here", but then let you tell people where they can find it is ludicrous. What next? You want to write an underage story and they won't accept that so you expect them to let you tell people where to get it? What about snuff writing? What about beastiality? Where does the line get drawn?

 

[ElectricBlue]

We are putting hours and hours of effort into producing content, for which the site owners give us nothing at all.

What, the use of the free publishing platform isn't good enough for you? What an extraordinary statement to make, "give us nothing at all"!!

 

[PastMaster]

What, the use of the free publishing platform isn't good enough for you? What an extraordinary statement to make, "give us nothing at all"!!

I'm sorry - I was finished with this thread - because i didnt feel that we were going to ever see eye to eye on this, but i just had to answer this.

They are not giving us a free publishing plaform, they are making money. pure and simple. It is a symbiotic relationship certainly. they make money - we have somewhere to publish our stories - but you make it sound like it is some kind of altruistic endeavouor which I just don't accept.

To be clear, i have no issues whatsoever with them making money. My biggest, and to be honest only issue with Lit is that they are not consistent with the application of their rules and how they accept or rejcect stories.

My first publication on here was rejected three times, due to punctuation issues. something to do with how the punctuation was formatted around speech, and yet there are many stories on here that are barely recognisable as being written in English.

 

[gordo12]

Just because you bring them traffic doesn't mean they have to let you do whatever the fuck you want on THEIR site.

He doesn't bring them traffic at all. He's getting the advantage of the site traffic to read his stories and offer opinions via votes, favs or comments.
When I was a new author those advantages helped me enormously and I'll always be grateful to Lit.

 

[Voboy]

To be clear, i have no issues whatsoever with them making money. My biggest, and to be honest only issue with Lit is that they are not consistent with the application of their rules and how they accept or rejcect stories.

My first publication on here was rejected three times, due to punctuation issues. something to do with how the punctuation was formatted around speech, and yet there are many stories on here that are barely recognisable as being written in English.

...you're aware there are plenty of other places you can go to post your stories, yes?

You choose to post here. That means you also choose to abide by their rules. I'm not sure why that's a difficult concept, honestly. Their rules will only bother you as long as you stay here. Want to stop being bothered by their rules? You could stop subjecting yourself to them anytime you choose to do so.

 

[PastMaster]

...you're aware there are plenty of other places you can go to post your stories, yes?

You choose to post here. That means you also choose to abide by their rules. I'm not sure why that's a difficult concept, honestly. Their rules will only bother you as long as you stay here. Want to stop being bothered by their rules? You could stop subjecting yourself to them anytime you choose to do so.

And so i'm not allowed an opinion? the rule is shut up or fuck off?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm sorry - I was finished with this thread - because i didnt feel that we were going to ever see eye to eye on this, but i just had to answer this.

They are not giving us a free publishing plaform, they are making money. pure and simple. It is a symbiotic relationship certainly. they make money - we have somewhere to publish our stories - but you make it sound like it is some kind of altruistic endeavouor which I just don't accept.

The fact remains that you don't pay a cent for the service the site provides. It's a publishing platform for your content, for which you pay nothing. That's a free service.

Whatever business arrangements the owners might have are irrelevant. So what if they make money? They need to eat, pay for the server infrastructure, the power bill. You're paying nothing, yet you still think the site owes you something?

You need to decide what your grievance is. By the sounds of it, you need to punctuate dialogue correctly, and that's the most common problem new writers have; but that's your issue, not the site's, to solve.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And so i'm not allowed an opinion? the rule is shut up or fuck off?

Of course you can have an opinion, but you seem to be blaming the site for a whole bunch of stuff which is yours to solve. Learn to punctuate correctly, done. That's your problem, solve it (just like the rest of us did).

 

[PastMaster]

The fact remains that you don't pay a cent for the service the site provides. It's a publishing platform for your content, for which you pay nothing. That's a free service.

Whatever business arrangements the owners might have are irrelevant. So what if they make money? They need to eat, pay for the server infrastructure, the power bill. You're paying nothing, yet you still think the site owes you something?

You need to decide what your grievance is. By the sounds of it, you need to punctuate dialogue correctly, and that's the most common problem new writers have; but that's your issue, not the site's, to solve.

my point with that example was not that I needed to improve my punctuation - but that others, whose writing was so much worse , not in content but in grammar and spelling was published. Surely such rules should be applied consistently accross all authors.

 

[Voboy]

And so i'm not allowed an opinion? the rule is shut up or fuck off?

You do you.

But your opinion was clear several posts ago. At this point, it's just bitching. It's undignified.

It's within your power to act on this thing you're complaining about. You are choosing not to do so. Seen in that light, your complaint looks like petty whining.

...that's my opinion, anyway.

 

[ElectricBlue]

my point with that example was not that I needed to improve my punctuation - but that others, whose writing was so much worse , not in content but in grammar and spelling was published. Surely such rules should be applied consistently accross all authors.

Well yes, ideally, but with one site editor, two decades of stories, you've got yourself a huge comparison pool.

But that doesn't help you - the other guy got through, so what? Okay, it irks you, but it doesn't mean you should aspire to the lowest common denominator. You should aim higher than that.

But it's still your problem to solve, if you want to get your content published. Knuckle down, don't knuckle up.

 

[PastMaster]

Well yes, ideally, but with one site editor, two decades of stories, you've got yourself a huge comparison pool.

But that doesn't help you - the other guy got through, so what? Okay, it irks you, but it doesn't mean you should aspire to the lowest common denominator. You should aim higher than that.

But it's still your problem to solve, if you want to get your content published. Knuckle down, don't knuckle up.

I have had plenty of stories published, not quite as many as you, but enough. But the problem still remains that the inconsistency in the moderation means that it is a lottery as to whether a story will be accepted or rejected. Also the inconsistency in the time it takes to get a story moderated. I plan a release schedule for my readers - I submit a story it takes 14 days to post. so then i post the next chapter in plenty of time to reach the schedule - and it posts the day after.