Alternatives?

[DeMont]

My fear isn't about where to go, but....
What happens to the stories. Your's mine, everybody's...
Do they get deleted? Do they remain ours, or are they simply handed over to the new owners (if it were to be sold....
If the site just folded, do the stories stay trapped in a server somewhere???? To be gathered up by AI...

Merely my thoughts.

Cagivagurl

@Cagivagurl,
Good morning my dear colleague,
As many have already mentioned here it is absolutely imperative that the author keeps a copy of their works. This not only keeps them safe from "accidental deletion" or loss but, more importantly, if the manuscript is dated and copyright marked with the little "c" inside the circle then it serves to establish ownership and control of that written piece.

For my part;
Each thing I write is on a manuscript in my word processor that is marked with page number at the top right corner and, in the bottom left, it is marked with the copyright symbol, followed by the letter D and the year.
When I submit a piece to Literotica it is always submitted as an uploaded document.

So, each piece carries with it the markings I have described. I treat writing for Literotica as treating for any other publisher. Perhaps this might be your answer too.
Respectfully, always,
D.

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

...it is absolutely imperative that the author keeps a copy of their works.

A quick guide to data backups for people who don’t work in IT.

Your data management goal is to ensure that your creative works (stories) will survive the Great Twerking Plague of 2025, or whatever other catastrophe befalls the Lit server farm next. You want to be able to recover and republish your stories when Literotica II is rebuilt from the ashes… or booty sweat… or whatever lingering residue remains.

The various mentions of people using ‘cloud storage’ relate to the “3-2-1 Rule” of backups:

3) Keep three copies of your data (a mirrored disk does not count as two copies),
2) on two different media types (tape/optical/hdd/floppy/phonograph wax cylinder/etc.),
1) at least one of those copies is kept remotely (cloud storage makes this bit easier).

Literotica itself should not be considered as your ‘remote’ copy. This site is not a data archive service and may unilaterally remove your content. Your story might get reported and deleted. Site policy might change (as with the ‘Illustrated’ category recently). Laurel might modify your story to adhere to new markup guidelines. Also, copying your story back off this site is not simple.

The 3-2-1 Rule is a minimum recommendation. Story text doesn’t take much space (compared to images or video), so a free cloud storage solution easily solves your ‘offsite copy’ needs. I suggest you use one that doesn’t harvest your content. So, look for a cloud storage provider with ‘zero knowledge’ of your data. (I use Mega.io but Proton Drive would be a good encrypted-storage choice if you already have a Proton Mail account.)

For consideration,

Statistically, the MTTF of a disk drive is very long, so you may think keeping two copies is enough. Unfortunately, many failures are not statistically independent:

Common Cause failures can kill co-located storage. For example, a house fire can destroy all your media types at the same time. Hence the recommendation for at least one off-site copy… to keep that copy outside of the ‘blast radius’ of a disaster.

Common Mode failures can kill storage even when not co-located. I’ve seen this bug concurrently destroy redundancy plans across multiple hosting sites.)

 

[Musinginspace]

Don't you have to make 10 posts or something and then you can only do five each day. And whenever you try to make a post, they say you don't have enough karma or something to make a post. I was stuck there twice, and both of my accounts were banned for being not validated. (I don't understand: they say in the forum that validation is not necessary or stuff like that.) That's why I'm sticking to Literotica so far.

That sounds like Reddit. I don't think you have to do that with XNXX. I use Reddit and have read stories on XNXX.

Reddit is is basically broken down into categories or subreddits as it's called there. Each one has its own moderators who are subredditors just as all who use Reddit are called. Some mods are very good and others can be down right terrible. Karma really isn't a big deal.

I haven't heard to many complaints about XNXX but my only complaint is that the website isn't formatted for mobile and makes it difficult to read.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

That sounds like Reddit. I don't think you have to do that with XNXX. I use Reddit and have read stories on XNXX.

Reddit is is basically broken down into categories or subreddits as it's called there. Each one has its own moderators who are subredditors just as all who use Reddit are called. Some mods are very good and others can be down right terrible. Karma really isn't a big deal.

I haven't heard to many complaints about XNXX but my only complaint is that the website isn't formatted for mobile and makes it difficult to read.

I used the word karma because I forgot the actual term they use on XNXX. Basically, if you want to upload on XNXX as an author, you first need to join their forum. On your first day, however, you can’t really do much. That said, I might have misunderstood what I needed to do. So, if anyone has successfully published there, please share a step-by-step explanation of the process.

 

[Bramblethorn]

@Cagivagurl,
Good morning my dear colleague,
As many have already mentioned here it is absolutely imperative that the author keeps a copy of their works. This not only keeps them safe from "accidental deletion" or loss but, more importantly, if the manuscript is dated and copyright marked with the little "c" inside the circle then it serves to establish ownership and control of that written piece.

This doesn't give any meaningful legal protection. If you were to keep a copy of your story dated October 3 2025, I could simply copy it and write "October 2 2025" on mine. Indeed, I've seen one site stealing stories from Lit and then posting them with a falsified date to make it appear that theirs was first.

But even if you were to provide more convincing proof of the date of your work, under US law you need to have registered the work with the US Copyright Office before you can get meaningful legal redress for violation.

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_man's_copyright

 

[sirhugs]

This doesn't give any meaningful legal protection. If you were to keep a copy of your story dated October 3 2025, I could simply copy it and write "October 2 2025" on mine. Indeed, I've seen one site stealing stories from Lit and then posting them with a falsified date to make it appear that theirs was first.

But even if you were to provide more convincing proof of the date of your work, under US law you need to have registered the work with the US Copyright Office before you can get meaningful legal redress for violation.

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_man's_copyright

Not a US lawyer at all, but wondering about your final statement in view of the many many many copyright cases that don't involve registered copyrights. For those of us old enough to recall, the George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" case is perhaps the most well known, but I recall cases involving Led Zeppelin, the Stones and others...
the same applies to novels and film scripts.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Not a US lawyer at all, but wondering about your final statement in view of the many many many copyright cases that don't involve registered copyrights. For those of us old enough to recall, the George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" case is perhaps the most well known, but I recall cases involving Led Zeppelin, the Stones and others...
the same applies to novels and film scripts.

US law changed in 1989, and the rules are different for stuff published before that date; my post above assumes we're talking about material created in the last 35 years but I should've specified that.

 

[lovecraft68]

Seems like it would be easier to just message you here... if they really just wanted to talk...

Yeah, same for Silk unless they just don't know how Lit works Someone sent me that a few weeks ago. Guess there's a entire sub reddit for Lit.

Now I know I don't want to go there

 

[lovecraft68]

Everyone should be cultivating multiple venues anyway. Locking yourself in to only what works on Lit stifles you.

Odds are with the amount of traffic and the longstanding name recognition that Lit has, when Laurel and Manu decide it's time to pack it in, they'll get an offer that's hard to refuse from some chat/hookup conglomerate or something who only want the archive and a portal to drive Lit's traffic to the site that they actually care about. They'll give the site a pretty redesign with multiple ads on every page and forum thread that strips the functions down to the bare bones so all you can do is basically submit and read — nothing else. They'll integrate their site into all the menus like it was always here with their links being biggest and boldest. Probably pawn the day-to-day off on a group of regulars here so they don't have to bother with it at all, and have plenty of scapegoats to sacrifice when the need arises.

Erotic story site nihilism.

I like it

 

[lovecraft68]

On a sadistic note, this has made me think about how the 24/7 attention seeking forum posters would react. What are they going to do?

Even better the unhinged loons in the Politics forum who could never spew that level of malice in a forum anywhere else.

The equally vile LW anon crowd, no other site I know of will let those comments through or even let them be anon.

These are all silver linings in case anything happens here. If it bums you out just think about the above. They have no life outside of here.

 

[sirhugs]

On a sadistic note, this has made me think about how the 24/7 attention seeking forum posters would react. What are they going to do?

Even better the unhinged loons in the Politics forum who could never spew that level of malice in a forum anywhere else.

The equally vile LW anon crowd, no other site I know of will let those comments through or even let them be anon.

These are all silver linings in case anything happens here. If it bums you out just think about the above. They have no life outside of here.

At least their mothers might finally have a chance to clean the cheeto dust off their keyboards.

 

[sirhugs]

But seriously, presumably the toy store and webcam links are profitable enough that somebody would want to pick up Lit to draw clicks for those pages. That leaves some risk if it just goes "dead" without a chance for a sale, or if the anti-sex crowd tightens the laws further (anybody remember Black Shadows?) , but not a high percentage risk IMHO.

 

[TheLobster]

On a sadistic note, this has made me think about how the 24/7 attention seeking forum posters would react. What are they going to do?

Even better the unhinged loons in the Politics forum who could never spew that level of malice in a forum anywhere else.

The equally vile LW anon crowd, no other site I know of will let those comments through or even let them be anon.

These are all silver linings in case anything happens here. If it bums you out just think about the above. They have no life outside of here.

It will be a catastrophic containment breach and the wider internet will be massively affected for decades to come.

 

[SimonDoom]

This doesn't give any meaningful legal protection. If you were to keep a copy of your story dated October 3 2025, I could simply copy it and write "October 2 2025" on mine. Indeed, I've seen one site stealing stories from Lit and then posting them with a falsified date to make it appear that theirs was first.

But even if you were to provide more convincing proof of the date of your work, under US law you need to have registered the work with the US Copyright Office before you can get meaningful legal redress for violation.

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_man's_copyright

There's so much bad information out there on this issue.

You're right that in the USA one needs to have registered one's copyright to be able to go to court and enforce it. It is literally a prerequisite to filing a suit. 17 USC 412.

There's no such thing, strictly speaking, as a "poor man's copyright," where you mail a manuscript to yourself, but there MAY be value to doing this as a way of proving ownership and the date of creation in the event of a dispute. A copyright registration only creates a presumption of ownership. Ownership can be contested in court, and if it is then the parties can produce whatever evidence they want to prove who actually created the work and when. A stamped, self-addressed envelope containing a manuscript could potentially be used as such evidence as long as one was able to provide an evidentiary foundation (i.e., that one personally self-addressed the envelope, walked it to the post office, witnessed the postmarking, and maintained chain of custody after receiving it in the mail, etc.).

 

[alohadave]

if the anti-sex crowd tightens the laws further

SOL went through this a few months ago. A German NGO put pressure on their web host because of the content.

No laws were invoked, it was a whisper campaign to try to get them shutdown.

I'm surprised that something similar hasn't happened here.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

That sounds like Reddit. I don't think you have to do that with XNXX. I use Reddit and have read stories on XNXX.

Reddit is is basically broken down into categories or subreddits as it's called there. Each one has its own moderators who are subredditors just as all who use Reddit are called. Some mods are very good and others can be down right terrible. Karma really isn't a big deal.

I haven't heard to many complaints about XNXX but my only complaint is that the website isn't formatted for mobile and makes it difficult to read.

You do. You need ten post in the forum before you're allowed to publish any story.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I used the word karma because I forgot the actual term they use on XNXX. Basically, if you want to upload on XNXX as an author, you first need to join their forum. On your first day, however, you can’t really do much. That said, I might have misunderstood what I needed to do. So, if anyone has successfully published there, please share a step-by-step explanation of the process.

It is kinda confusing and it took me a while to figure it out. But when you join you only have access to one section, or something. I joined it a few years ago, so it's hard to remember. It's either you accept something, or make an introduction, then all access is granted.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

This doesn't give any meaningful legal protection. If you were to keep a copy of your story dated October 3 2025, I could simply copy it and write "October 2 2025" on mine. Indeed, I've seen one site stealing stories from Lit and then posting them with a falsified date to make it appear that theirs was first.

But even if you were to provide more convincing proof of the date of your work, under US law you need to have registered the work with the US Copyright Office before you can get meaningful legal redress for violation.

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_man's_copyright

That's a good thing about having your own copy, the file has metadata on it of date created and modified.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

They charge the readers or the authors? Both?

Writing and reading is free. Replying in the forums is free. Uploading pictures to your profile(not sure how many) is free. Messaging seems to be limited in some way, found that out talking to a mod.

The site for some god awful reason also doubles as a dating site. Writing a status, or signing a guestbook/wall, even you're own, is paid member stuff. So is making topics in the forum. Paid members submissions get reviewed first. They want you to try and cater your stories layout to mobile users and more or less jump to the sex.

 

[Duleigh]

I'm curious if there's a site out there like Lit? The current discourse is that things are looking bleak, at least that's my interpretation of what's being said. I don't often visit the boards, but lately...

So, if things go tits up, where do we go?

WRIST.pub
WRIST stands for Writers Readers Interactive Stories @ Themes. It's a much smaller site, but it's hardened against troll attacks It's a fun place for writers who are tired of trolls and getting lost in the shuffle.
Tell them you're a LIT survivor and Duleigh sent you.

 

[jimmyhedo]

I don't know their business model, but it seems they make most of there money through selling merchandise and the cam girls. Anybody detect other revenue sources? It helps to have lots of users, but they are there to attract business, not be the business in themselves. I've seen Lit ads on other sites - porn sites, of course.

gotta make $ on ads too

 

[MelanieShaman]

WRIST.pub
WRIST stands for Writers Readers Interactive Stories @ Themes. It's a much smaller site, but it's hardened against troll attacks It's a fun place for writers who are tired of trolls and getting lost in the shuffle.
Tell them you're a LIT survivor and Duleigh sent you.

Thanks! I'll check it out.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

WRIST.pub
WRIST stands for Writers Readers Interactive Stories @ Themes. It's a much smaller site, but it's hardened against troll attacks It's a fun place for writers who are tired of trolls and getting lost in the shuffle.
Tell them you're a LIT survivor and Duleigh sent you.

Reading their front page sounds pretentious but I might check it out.

 

[RetroFan]

There definitely seems to be something strange going on with this site in recent months.

First there were some category changes, the first in many years. Some made sense like the splitting of cross-dressing and trans stories into two separate categories, but why rename the Incest-Taboo category Taboo-Incest? It doesn't make much sense. I think a couple of other categories (like fan fiction) had name changes too. And wasn't there a large change in policy on Illustrated erotic stories?

Lately there have been lots of posts about stories taking far longer in the last month or so to get published than usual, even those submitted in a contest with a deadline, by experienced authors and with themes that aren't controversial. It would be understandable if there were posts on the forum from the site administrators explaining there was a software upgrade and resultant glitches, or the approval process had changed due to AI getting through. Or if there were reminders about acceptable content after numerous authors tried to sneak through forbidden content in their stories and the editorial process needed to be tightened, therefore longer approval times.

But if new stories are undergoing far more stringent review prior to publication, I've noticed more stories that seem to be in the wrong category, like incest with no editor's note and which really should be in the TI category given the content. In the past the site administrators could swap the classification of stories that were perceived to be submitted in the wrong category (its happened to me), is this still happening?

Other people have also commented about less story comments, that they are taking longer to appear. Not too sure about this one, but combined with everything else....

I really hope we have nothing to worry about and things go back to normal. I would be absolutely devastated if one day I woke up and there was no more Literotica.

 

[SkyBubble]

I'm curious if there's a site out there like Lit? The current discourse is that things are looking bleak, at least that's my interpretation of what's being said. I don't often visit the boards, but lately...

So, if things go tits up, where do we go?

Yes, but none nearly as big. Try Lush Stories, Archive of Our Own (AO3), Tales After Dark, XNXX, Wolfhub, Inkitt, WRIST, many others.

They're all teeny-tiny compared to this place. But you can often get stories posted more quickly.