advice on publishing

[milfman23]

I've submitted 4 stories and they have all been rejected. because of formatting. My problem is the formatting on these latest four is better than on my first four. I've done what the moderator has suggested. read their stupid making characters talk. Had them proofread by someone else.SO just what is the problem. I am angry about this any suggestions?

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I am super curious how formatting could mess you up so much. Can you send it to me? Email is [removed]

 

[Milo_Grigsby]

I had the same experience with my first submissions and had to submit the same story 3 times. I got pretty frustrated myself. What I think finally broke it loose was that I put a set of notes in the "Notes to Admin" saying specifically what I had done and that I had submitted multiple times. It's worth a try. I do see you have submitted quite a few stories in the past. Was there something you did that was radically different from your previous submissions?

 

[ronde]

Perhaps a short paragraph would help us help you. Without knowing what you mean by "formatting", it's really hard to understand the problem.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've submitted 4 stories and they have all been rejected. because of formatting. My problem is the formatting on these latest four is better than on my first four. I've done what the moderator has suggested. read their stupid making characters talk. Had them proofread by someone else.SO just what is the problem. I am angry about this any suggestions?

Copy your text into the Lit submission form, Preview, Submit.

You're either trying to format like a book, or your text is full of unwanted html. You have to go as raw as possible - no indents, left justified, two returns at the end of each paragraph (forget about Word para spacing, that's irrelevant), minimise italics and bold.

Take a big breath, stop being angry, and get your text as raw as possible. Copying into the Lit submission form is foolproof, that's why it's there.

 

[onehitwanda]

Copy your text into the Lit submission form, Preview, Submit.

You're either trying to format like a book, or your text is full of unwanted html. You have to go as raw as possible - no indents, left justified, two returns at the end of each paragraph (forget about Word para spacing, that's irrelevant), minimise italics and bold.

Take a big breath, stop being angry, and get your text as raw as possible. Copying into the Lit submission form is foolproof, that's why it's there.

MS Word, Google docs, Libre Office etc. all have very strong opinions about how stuff should look which don't map to online publishing. You're far better off writing in something "dumb" like sublimetext or another text editor.

 

[ElectricBlue]

MS Word, Google docs, Libre Office etc. all have very strong opinions about how stuff should look which don't map to online publishing. You're far better off writing in something "dumb" like sublimetext or another text editor.

For ages I drafted and saved in .txt or .rtf, then got into the habit of .docx (smaller files) but always copy/paste into the Lit form. Any format errors remaining after that are my own silly fault.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Echoing others. I write in the iOS version of Word (O365), but I don’t use any Word formatting, I do that with basic HTML. I then paste the text into the Lit edit box.

Haven’t had a major problem like that.

Em

 

[djrip]

I work in Gmail drafts. If I highlight a word and ctrl-f it highlights all the other instances. Right click on a highlight and I have a search in Google option. My work is available on any machine. Other options like Google docs or a local copy in any program lack one or more of these features.

 

[milfman23]

Copy your text into the Lit submission form, Preview, Submit.

You're either trying to format like a book, or your text is full of unwanted html. You have to go as raw as possible - no indents, left justified, two returns at the end of each paragraph (forget about Word para spacing, that's irrelevant), minimise italics and bold.

Take a big breath, stop being angry, and get your text as raw as possible. Copying into the Lit submission form is foolproof, that's why it's there.

no indents,no justifies,two returns at the end of each paragraph all done. Moderator says one space after every punctuation. I change it to that. 30 minutes later rejected. Change back to what it was, rejected again. 7 submissions in all. some of their fourth submission. I do what they suggest and it is rejected. This is happening evertime. Yet they approve other submissions for othe people with worse. SO you can see why I'm starting to take it personally. If they dont want my submissions why don't they just say so? Even after it's been through 2 volunteer editors it is rejected and with speed too.

 

[milfman23]

no indents,no justifies,two returns at the end of each paragraph all done. Moderator says one space after every punctuation. I change it to that. 30 minutes later rejected. Change back to what it was, rejected again. 7 submissions in all. some of their fourth submission. I do what they suggest and it is rejected. This is happening evertime. Yet they approve other submissions for othe people with worse. SO you can see why I'm starting to take it personally. If they dont want my submissions why don't they just say so? Even after it's been through 2 volunteer editors it is rejected and with speed too.

I've resubmitted for a fifth time. There wont be a sixth

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've resubmitted for a fifth time. There wont be a sixth

If they're coming back so quickly, you must be getting computer rejections, not human ones. This must be some kind of technical glitch you've been caught up in

My suggestion would be to wait 24 hours (it might need a server refresh, something like that), then try again.

If that fails, a polite PM to Laurel, explaining what is happening.

I very much doubt there's anything targeting you personally - why would there be? I reckon you're up against a machine fault of some kind.

 

[WyreBendr0417]

Something I had a story rejected for a couple times was the punctuation. Smart quotes specifically. I turned off smart quotes and never had that problem again. Just a thought.

 

[KeithD]

Something I had a story rejected for a couple times was the punctuation. Smart quotes specifically. I turned off smart quotes and never had that problem again. Just a thought.

I've had no trouble posting when leaving smart quotes on in submissions--and that's over 15,000 "no problems" doing that. I just compose in Word and cut and paste the text into the submissions box.

 

[PennameWombat]

MS Word, Google docs, Libre Office etc. all have very strong opinions about how stuff should look which don't map to online publishing. You're far better off writing in something "dumb" like sublimetext or another text editor.

Just picking one of several similar statements... am I the only one who submits .doc (not .docx) files directly and has no issues? I use headers, and sometimes center text, have used numbered lists, bold, italics, no issues (that weren't my fault.)

I write in Google Docs (across multiple devices) then download to either a WIndows 10 or Linux laptop and use LibreOffice (currently v7.3.6, but I've upgraded multiple times) to generate the .doc file and submit it. I have a base template I use for each story, and work from it.

If I try to cut and paste into the submission, the formatting gets torqued. And my recent Nude Day entry was only in the queue barely 24 hours before getting posted, so submitting .doc isn't introducing any real delay.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Just picking one of several similar statements... am I the only one who submits .doc (not .docx) files directly and has no issues? I use headers, and sometimes center text, have used numbered lists, bold, italics, no issues (that weren't my fault.)

I've had both .doc and .docx uploads go wrong, then I used .rtf and .txt for a year or two, and they broke. For the last, I dunno, four years? I've used the Lit submission form with zero problems (that weren't my own).

 

[Bramblethorn]

no indents,no justifies,two returns at the end of each paragraph all done.

This right here. You're not putting a space after your commas. That's probably the kind of thing the moderator is talking about when they tell you "one space after every punctuation". A lot of your sentences are missing a capital letter, and words like "don't" and "won't" are missing apostrophes.

Granted, most of us check our stories more carefully than our forum posts. But even allowing for that, the level of punctuation in what you're posting here makes it easy to believe there might still be problems in the stories you're submitting.

 

[dmallord]

Bramblethorn's astute observation has zeroed in on a probable cause of the rejection issues if, as noted, milfman23's story submission matches the same type of errors typed in the forum complaint. All the conjectures about document types and personal experiences of this-and-that word processors have missed helping him.

Note that he said there would be no more tries ... unfortunate.

He'd asked for a second set of eyes to review his work. Those eyes may not have been a Lit editor person. I'd suggest that be a next recourse action—someone with a Lit experience as an editor, if milfman23 is still following the thread.

Hey, open a dialog in conversations. I'll take a crack at looking at one of the documents in MS Word format. No charge.

 

[milfman23]

oh I'm going to submit again and again until published THIS IS PERSONAL. The latest is i spent hours proofreading, and it was rejected because I had 2 spaces after a full stop instead of one. Really? 28 pages long and they reject it becasue of one space.? There is decidedly worst published on here. Maybe the moderator should change their title to 'nitpicker'

 

[milfman23]

So it takes 23 minutes to reject a story, in 3 hours it's has been rejected twice. The 'moderator' says take a space out after a punctuation mark. I do and it comes back twice. Once wanting two spaces and then one. Also the timing is a bit too quick. If they don't want me just say so. have up to chapter 25 ready to go. But cant get past chapter 14. Because their conflicting instructions. Maybe I should submit it in braille?

 

[djrip]

oh I'm going to submit again and again until published THIS IS PERSONAL. The latest is i spent hours proofreading, and it was rejected because I had 2 spaces after a full stop instead of one. Really? 28 pages long and they reject it becasue of one space.? There is decidedly worst published on here. Maybe the moderator should change their title to 'nitpicker'

I just can't understand this. I've recently mended my errant ways but before that I always put double spaces after every sentence. It never even slowed down a submission for me.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

So it takes 23 minutes to reject a story, in 3 hours it's has been rejected twice. The 'moderator' says take a space out after a punctuation mark. I do and it comes back twice. Once wanting two spaces and then one. Also the timing is a bit too quick. If they don't want me just say so. have up to chapter 25 ready to go. But cant get past chapter 14. Because their conflicting instructions. Maybe I should submit it in braille?

Honestly sir, I have no idea what the problem is. But I promise, promise, PROMISE you that it isn't personal. There is a bug in the system, or an error, or a misunderstanding... Something. But they are not trying to personally slight you.

This site publishes all sort of degenerate filth (like what I write). They do not have a vendetta against you. I assure you.

Please try to be patient, even through the understandable frustration.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I just can't understand this. I've recently mended my errant ways but before that I always put double spaces after every sentence. It never even slowed down a submission for me.

The guy must have something else in his formatting that's throwing the bot off kilter.

There's plenty of folk who double space after sentences, and if they don't catch it, the Lit text scrubber will. We have many writers here say that happens, for sure.

@milfman23 you need to take a really deep breath, calm down. It's NOT personal. The fact that you're getting bounce backs so quickly suggests to me that you're caught up in a technical glitch of some sort. For the rest of us here, we wait at least a day, often two, to get something published - and some of us have been here for decades.

As suggested by many, post three paragraphs of your text here, so we all can see it - something with dialogue, so we can see what you're doing there.

It might also be an idea to paste your latest content into a completely new submission, give it a new title. That might break the loop.

 

[Altissimus]

Curious that the overwhelming trend is to cut-and-paste into the submission box. I always attach as a word doc, and I've never had a problem with rejections. Have you tried that, OP?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Curious that the overwhelming trend is to cut-and-paste into the submission box. I always attach as a word doc, and I've never had a problem with rejections. Have you tried that, OP?

Copy and paste into the text box never gets mentioned as something that goes wrong. Every other form of document loading gets frequent reports of problems.

You might be lucky, but many others over the years have reported problems with submitting files. I progressively went through .doc .docx .txt and .rtf files causing format problems, before I started loading into the Form, using Preview and Submit, and haven't had a single issue since I started doing that. Which is why I, for one, always suggest "use the Form and use the Preview" - which you can't do when you submit files.