Alternatives?

[sirhugs]

A ray of hope...

my latest submission (see signature) had a problem with the length of the title so I put a request for help in the "Notes to Admin" field of the submission page and when it was posted, it was fixed, so it appears that there is still a human being behind the curtain...

 

[SkyBubble]

I'd hardly describe AO3 as 'teeny-tiny' given that there can be 10,000 stories filed under a single TV show, but what it's really missing over there is a forum and a PM system.

Teeny relative to this place in terms of erotica.

 

[Levorotatory]

Teeny relative to this place in terms of erotica.

Is it though? There are easily over a million "explicit" rated stories on AO3, and even if you are not into fanfiction there are over 100,000 in the "original work" category.

 

[SkyBubble]

there are over 100,000 in the "original work" category.

I've contributed some myself.

 

[SkyBubble]

Just submitted a story at TheoReads. I'm about to explore other platforms mentioned her as well. (I like to be on as many as possible.) They make you jump through a lot of hoops to submit a story.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Is it though? There are easily over a million "explicit" rated stories on AO3, and even if you are not into fanfiction there are over 100,000 in the "original work" category.

It's not tiny indeed. I suspect that AO3 and SOL both have around the same number of stories as Lit.

It's just that on Lit, every chapter of a series is counted as one more story, while on AO3 and SOL, regardless of the number of chapters, it's all only one story. This creates a false impression that Lit is much bigger than other sites.

Well, Lit might still be bigger in the sense of traffic, but when it comes to the number of stories, I don't think there's much difference.

 

[lovecraft68]

It's not tiny indeed. I suspect that AO3 and SOL both have around the same number of stories as Lit.

It's just that on Lit, every chapter of a series is counted as one more story, while on AO3 and SOL, regardless of the number of chapters, it's all only one story. This creates a false impression that Lit is much bigger than other sites.

Well, Lit might still be bigger in the sense of traffic, but when it comes to the number of stories, I don't think there's much difference.

So in other words, those sites don't let people writing never ending series take advantage of it like happens here?

That's a perk to anyone who can actually complete a story and has more than one idea.

If they implemented that here it would be the end of some of the Patreon scammers.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

So in other words, those sites don't let people writing never ending series take advantage of it like happens here?

That's a perk to anyone who can actually complete a story and has more than one idea.

If they implemented that here it would be the end of some of the Patreon scammers.

Actually, they do allow endless series.

It's just that the new chapter gets added to the existing story, and when that happens, the story gets "refreshed" and shows up at the top of the list. I've seen authors there who abuse that fact by adding 1k-word chapters every few days and thus keep their story permanently refreshed.

I can echo your thoughts on some, no, many Patreon authors. They often prolong their series to such an extent that the story loses much of its original quality. Then they start delaying publishing and start coming up with various excuses why they haven't met the quota they promised. Often, they introduce a new story series and offer those chapters as a substitute, etc. There's a lot of bullshit going on there usually.

At that point, many among the patrons are so hooked on the story that they simply take it and even start making excuses for the author.
Actually, the behavior reminds me much of how some here defend Laurel.

 

[alohadave]

It's not tiny indeed. I suspect that AO3 and SOL both have around the same number of stories as Lit.

SOL has 39,600+ titles. Lit has around 600k.

 

[lovecraft68]

Actually, they do allow endless series.

It's just that the new chapter gets added to the existing story, and when that happens, the story gets "refreshed" and shows up at the top of the list. I've seen authors there who abuse that fact by adding 1k-word chapters every few days and thus keep their story permanently refreshed.

I can echo your thoughts on some, no, many Patreon authors. They often prolong their series to such an extent that the story loses much of its original quality. Then they start delaying publishing and start coming up with various excuses why they haven't met the quota they promised. Often, they introduce a new story series and offer those chapters as a substitute, etc. There's a lot of bullshit going on there usually.

At that point, many among the patrons are so hooked on the story that they simply take it and even start making excuses for the author.
Actually, the behavior reminds me much of how some here defend Laurel.

But they still add it to one story, you don't see 25 chapters of the same story on one top list.

I find it odd-and annoying-that the same readers who won't go buy an author's e-book to support them will sign up to pay to see a chapter they are going to get for free eventually.

The biggest scam artist here when it comes to Patreon is getting close to losing their account for pulling some sketchy things that for some reason they don't think Patreon is going to notice. I've heard that some have made the platform aware of it, but not sure if that's true or not. Looking forward to it though. Always fun to see karma come around.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Actually, the behavior reminds me much of how some here defend Laurel.

I'm just curious if they're healthy.

We know there are some level of helpers. At least one boardie let it slip they they are, or used to be on a paid staff. Is that who is approving stories?

Neither L or M have responded to inquires here or any where else that I know of since early August.



So, open question to all reading, have you had any direct contact with either in recent weeks?

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm just curious if they're healthy.

We know there are some level of helpers. At least one boardie let it slip they they are, or used to be on a paid staff. Is that who is approving stories?

Neither L or M have responded to inquires here or any where else that I know of since early August.



So, open question to all reading, have you had any direct contact with either in recent weeks?

Yes, Laurel responded to me several times regarding my Pay For Play event. Last time was very early September.

I'm not sure who slipped what, but this site has never had a paid staff, nor does anyone help them other than the mods who maintain the forums. Story side is all them.

There may be something going on but its their choice whether to divulge that or not.

As far as the issues with story time, one thing is for sure. The person running around here incessantly beating that drum because one of their stories fell victim to it is doing more harm than good. No one likes to be badgered and poked constantly.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

SOL has 39,600+ titles. Lit has around 600k.

Read the rest of my post. Tefler's story, for example, has like 300 chapters, and they all count like separate stories here. On SOL and AO3, they would count as only one story.

 

[SimonDoom]

By my count, 267 new stories were published today, Oct. 5. I've counted a few times in the last week or so and it's usually been over 150.

I haven't kept stats on this issue carefully enough to know what is the mean over the last year or so, but 267, I believe, is quite high, and in any event even if it's only around 150 or so recently that's a ton of new stories to be vetted, approved, and published on a daily basis by a mom and pop operation.

I have no inside information, but it seems to me that talk of "alternatives" is premature. It may simply be that there has been a glut of stories submitted recently, possibly as a result of contests or events.

 

[alohadave]

View attachment 2569362

Read the rest of my post. Tefler's story, for example, has like 300 chapters, and they all count like separate stories here. On SOL and AO3, they would count as only one story.

Yes, but those super long stories are a tiny minority of the stories there. Most are one-off.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Yes, but those super long stories are a tiny minority of the stories there. Most are one-off.

That's not my impression. I wish there were a separate count for chaptered stories, both here and on SOL. It would be nice to know the percentages.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Actually, they do allow endless series.

It's just that the new chapter gets added to the existing story, and when that happens, the story gets "refreshed" and shows up at the top of the list. I've seen authors there who abuse that fact by adding 1k-word chapters every few days and thus keep their story permanently refreshed.

I can echo your thoughts on some, no, many Patreon authors. They often prolong their series to such an extent that the story loses much of its original quality. Then they start delaying publishing and start coming up with various excuses why they haven't met the quota they promised. Often, they introduce a new story series and offer those chapters as a substitute, etc. There's a lot of bullshit going on there usually.

At that point, many among the patrons are so hooked on the story that they simply take it and even start making excuses for the author.
Actually, the behavior reminds me much of how some here defend Laurel.

So, like ordering George R. R. Martin from wish dot com?

 

[SimonDoom]

That's not my impression. I wish there were a separate count for chaptered stories, both here and on SOL. It would be nice to know the percentages.

I think you are not wrong. This isn't a scientifically sound sample, but of the first 75 stories published today 34, by my count, were chapters of longer stories. One was chapter 70, one was chapter 57, one was chapter 23, and another described itself as chapter "27-40," whatever that means. A better mathematician than I can do a more complete survey and work out the statistics, but it's fair to say that if all chapters were counted as only one story the total statistics would be far different than they are now, with a significantly reduced story total. But still, since over half of stories are NOT chaptered stories, then the total number of "stories" (consolidated) should exceed 300,000. That's a far bigger number of stories than these other sites.

 

[SmilingLez]

By my count, 267 new stories were published today, Oct. 5. I've counted a few times in the last week or so and it's usually been over 150.

I haven't kept stats on this issue carefully enough to know what is the mean over the last year or so, but 267, I believe, is quite high, and in any event even if it's only around 150 or so recently that's a ton of new stories to be vetted, approved, and published on a daily basis by a mom and pop operation.

I have no inside information, but it seems to me that talk of "alternatives" is premature. It may simply be that there has been a glut of stories submitted recently, possibly as a result of contests or events.

i wonder if Manu did a manual cron job

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Yeah, you know how I said that Lit likely doesn't have more stories than AO3 or SOL?

AO3 doesn't display the total number of stories anywhere, but I can show you the search results for "sex"



It displayed 5000 pages of search results, with 20 stories per page. That's exactly 100000 stories displayed as it says in the search. But you can also see the full number of stories that match the search.

So, assuming that every story on AO3 has the word sex, AO3 is about 4-5 times bigger than Lit.
Meh, too bad it's such a mess of a website.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

How many times is that word used in each story?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

How many times is that word used in each story?

Pretty sure that's not how the search works. By the way, I've just pressed the search button with an empty text field.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's not my impression. I wish there were a separate count for chaptered stories, both here and on SOL. It would be nice to know the percentages.

From picking a random page on New Stories, looked like about half of all posts were chapter 2+ of series (i.e. things that would not constitute a "new story" on Ao3). So if that's representative, the 720k stories on Lit would equate to about 360k stories as Ao3 counts them.

edit: whoops, missed that Simon already did the same thing. Fortunately we got similar results.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

SOL has 39,600+ titles. Lit has around 600k.

If you open SOL, in the top-left corner, it shows how many stories it currently has. Just short of 60k.

And I'm with @AwkwardlySet on the topic. My first story I posted to SOL is ~285k words over 25 chapters. On SOL, that story increases the story-count by ONE. On Lit, it would count as 25 stories, because lit counts every chapter as a story. So, while the official story-count on Lit might be 10+ times what it is on SOL, I kinda doubt the overall word-count is that different.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Yeah, you know how I said that Lit likely doesn't have more stories than AO3 or SOL?

AO3 doesn't display the total number of stories anywhere, but I can show you the search results for "sex"


View attachment 2569381
It displayed 5000 pages of search results, with 20 stories per page. That's exactly 100000 stories displayed as it says in the search. But you can also see the full number of stories that match the search.

So, assuming that every story on AO3 has the word sex, AO3 is about 4-5 times bigger than Lit.
Meh, too bad it's such a mess of a website.

Another option is to filter to explicit stories, with no other search criteria. This isn't perfect (stories can be categorised as "explicit" for violence; some stories on Lit might qualify as "mature" rather than "explicit") but it's probably good enough for a rough estimate of smutty stories on Ao3. (And not all the content on Lit is erotica either.)

This option gives 2.5 million stories, so about the same as what AS got.

Recalling that about half of Lit's story count comes from counting each episode separately, looks like Ao3 has about 7x as much filth as Literotica.