Checking On New Story Status

[LauraWilling]

I post my first story a week ago. Is there a way to check on it's status and how do I do it. I don't want to bother the judges, I'm sure they have plenty to do with all the reading. Or maybe they send a PM to my inbox? I am a total novice here so any help would be appreciated in finding this out. You am post an answer here or PM me. Either is fine with me
Thanks,
Laura

 

[RejectReality]

Things seem to be running at about a week for approval right now. The Summer themed contest is going on, and contests always slow things down for a while.

Odds are that it will be up in a day or so.

 

[mikoli5763]

Keep checking

I had the same problem for my first story and didn't realize it had been rejected until I went to the submit page and saw the rejection notice. I had to rework it twice more before it was approved.
DO NOT CLICK ON IT IF IT STILL SAYS PENDING! That sends it back to the bottom of the submission list.

 

[Laurel]

Sorry guys, I'm swamped and behind the eight-ball once again, but am working to get caught up. We're getting between 150-200 story submissions a day right now, so it will take a bit to get back to where we need to be (less than 48 hour lag). Please bear with me in the meantime.

Illustrated stories should be up at the beginning of next week.

The current backlog on text stories is 6-7 days. If your story has been pending for longer than that, it's possible that you may have opened the pending submission and hit SUBMIT more than once. Stories and poems are approved by date, oldest to newest. Whenever the author makes changes to a story or poem - or even if the author clicks on the submission and hits SUBMIT again - that submission is moved to the end of the queue. To speed up the posting of your work, only make changes when necessary.

If you have any further questions, please drop me a PM.

 

[49greg]

Sorry guys, I'm swamped and behind the eight-ball once again, but am working to get caught up. We're getting between 150-200 story submissions a day right now, so it will take a bit to get back to where we need to be (less than 48 hour lag). Please bear with me in the meantime.

Illustrated stories should be up at the beginning of next week.

The current backlog on text stories is 6-7 days. If your story has been pending for longer than that, it's possible that you may have opened the pending submission and hit SUBMIT more than once. Stories and poems are approved by date, oldest to newest. Whenever the author makes changes to a story or poem - or even if the author clicks on the submission and hits SUBMIT again - that submission is moved to the end of the queue. To speed up the posting of your work, only make changes when necessary.

If you have any further questions, please drop me a PM.

I'm guessing that the fewer PMs she gets, the more stories she gets to see and approve.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm guessing that the fewer PMs she gets, the more stories she gets to see and approve.

Which is why the FAQs should be accurate. She's not the only one who has such questions coming up frequently to deal with when the FAQs aren't accurate and the site doesn't function as advertised--those on the forum as well (and probably more) have to spend half their time telling other posters why the site doesn't work as advertised.

 

[Laurel]

Which is why the FAQs should be accurate. She's not the only one who has such questions coming up frequently to deal with when the FAQs aren't accurate and the site doesn't function as advertised--those on the forum as well (and probably more) have to spend half their time telling other posters why the site doesn't work as advertised.

But it does work exactly as advertised. From the faq link (color emphasis is mine):

We do our best to post your work as quickly as we can. If we receive a lot of submissions, it may take slightly longer than usual. If it's been more than a week and your story still has not been posted, you may want to check the following:

Is the story status listed as "Pending" or "Not Ever Approved"? If the submit button hasn't been pressed completely, the story won't be submitted and the story's status will be listed as something other than "Pending" or "Not Ever Approved". If the words "Rejected" appear beside your work, there may be formatting or other errors that need fixing before approval. Click those words to see the reasons the work was sent back to you. You can make changes on that page and hit the "Submit" button. You don't need to fill in a new submission form.

Do you have special formatting, Illustrations, or Audio included in the work? Works with special formatting, illustrations, or audio require extra handling and may take longer than usual.

Have you made changes to the work OR even just viewed it & hit SUBMIT while it is "Pending"? Stories and poems are approved by date, oldest to newest. Whenever the author makes changes to a story or poem - or even if the author clicks on the submission and hits SUBMIT again - that submission is moved to the end of the queue. To speed up the posting of your work, only make changes when necessary.

We're a mom & pop operation. We're not Yahoo. We do the best we can.

I'm not a customer service rep. I have 4-6 hours of story approval, plus answering emails (which I try to do in a timely manner, but the volume we receive makes this prohibitive), plus answering PMs and keeping half an eye on the forums, plus giving input on the couple dozen major upgrades we have ongoing, with another couple dozen in the works. This is a 7-day-a-week thing for us. In the 14 years we've been doing this, whenever we want a weekend off, we have to do those days work ahead of time, on top of the other day's work.

I wish I was able to do all these things in a timely manner without error 100% of the time, but I can't. Again, we do our best.

If you find our effort unacceptable, you are within your right to find somewhere else to be/support. But if you can be patient and forgive our blips, bumps, glitches and errors, we will do our best to continue to build what we hope will be the finest community of adult writers and readers that we are able.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

In my humble opinion, and I'm never humble, Laurel's performance is top shelf all the time. She's beyond reliable. 5 Stars.

So relax.

 

[chargergirl]

But it does work exactly as advertised. From the faq link (color emphasis is mine):



We're a mom & pop operation. We're not Yahoo. We do the best we can.

I'm not a customer service rep. I have 4-6 hours of story approval, plus answering emails (which I try to do in a timely manner, but the volume we receive makes this prohibitive), plus answering PMs and keeping half an eye on the forums, plus giving input on the couple dozen major upgrades we have ongoing, with another couple dozen in the works. This is a 7-day-a-week thing for us. In the 14 years we've been doing this, whenever we want a weekend off, we have to do those days work ahead of time, on top of the other day's work.

I wish I was able to do all these things in a timely manner without error 100% of the time, but I can't. Again, we do our best.

If you find our effort unacceptable, you are within your right to find somewhere else to be/support. But if you can be patient and forgive our blips, bumps, glitches and errors, we will do our best to continue to build what we hope will be the finest community of adult writers and readers that we are able.

Have you guys ever taken a week off for vacation?

Just curious.

I you.

 

[sr71plt]

The current nonfunctionality of the site speaks for itself, I'm sorry to say. And the nonfunctionality creates a lot of extra work--and burden and confusion and questions for the users, I'm also sorry to say.

It's not a case of finding someplace else. It's a case of letting you know the effect of what's here and not pretending the site doesn't need massive cleaning up and that much of the work required is because it hasn't been cleaned up.

You could just drop the contests at this point--all of them--the prize money could be put to hiring extra help and the contests are a burden and pretty much a "but nobody is laughing" joke and some of them are dead in the water but still there to remind folks of what doesn't work on the site.

As others have said "don't like it, just walk away" works only to a certain extent. Your key product here is the stories, which are being provided free to you for your profit. Those providing the product deserve a bit more than a "don't like it, just walk away" response. It should be more of a symbiotic relationship than "take it or leave it."

I'm betting this Web site is a worth a pile of cash for your retirement--if it doesn't deteriorate in value. I've seen at least one writing site go from being worth a million to being worthless because of how the users weren't being respected.

 

[Laurel]

The current nonfunctionality of the site speaks for itself, I'm sorry to say. And the nonfunctionality creates a lot of extra work--and burden and confusion and questions for the users, I'm also sorry to say.

It's not a case of finding someplace else. It's a case of letting you know the effect of what's here and not pretending the site doesn't need massive cleaning up and that much of the work required is because it hasn't been cleaned up.

You could just drop the contests at this point--all of them--the prize money could be put to hiring extra help and the contests are a burden and pretty much a joke and some of them are dead in the water but still there to remind folks of what doesn't work on the site.

As others have said "don't like it, just walk away" works only to a certain extent. Your key product here is the stories, which are being provided free to you for your profit. Those providing the product deserve a bit more than a "don't like it, just walk away" response.

With all due respect, that statement is meaningless. The site functions every day. Stories are posted and stories are read, every day. Upgrades are implemented, every day.

As I've already stated in this thread, a "massive cleaning up" is already taking place. We get 1.5 million unique visitors a day. We serve tens of millions of pages a day. We can't just flip a switch and magically change everything. Things take time - and money. We're not billionaires. Again, we're doing the best we can.

If you have specific issues you'd like addressed, you're very welcome to let us know those specifics - preferably in a PM I can pass on to the tech guys (aka Manu and our programmer). In fact, we would greatly appreciate it if everyone who found a problem would contact us that way with specifics. We don't read every thread, so PMs are important.

But to say, "Your site is nonfunctional" - that may be how you feel, and it's your right to feel that way. And you're more than welcome to make that opinion known here on the forums or elsewhere, if that's what you'd like to do. It doesn't help improve things much, though. It's like, "Your story sucks". How helpful is that to an author? Any writer would discard such input as nonconstructive. Same applies here.

If anyone has any specific issues with the site, please contact me via PM anytime.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh, lordy, if you'd been paying any attention you would know.

And the history of telling you has been one of speaking into a black hole.

How long ago (in years), for instance, did you voluntarily PM me about the need for a bisexual category here and that you were "working on it"?

Sorry, but that dog don't bark.

 

[Laurel]

Oh, lordy, if you'd been paying any attention you would know.

I'll admit I don't spend hours a day combing through every thread on the forum looking for bug reports because I believe that if someone actually has a serious bug or problem, they will bring it to us directly. If they instead would rather rail about it on a public forum, then I figure they're simply doing what people do on every forum on the Internet - blowing off steam. Believe it or not, it is very common for people to make a hobby of complaining - be it about their job, their family, whatever's on TV, or how crappy the forum/website they're currently visiting is. So, I don't bother seeking public complaints. I deal with the nice, big stack of specific bug reports and suggestions we get directly.

If/when you have some constructive and specific issues with the site you'd like to share, feel free to do what other authors and readers do every day and PM me with those specifics.

And that's all I have to say.

 

[Laurel]

Oh, lordy, if you'd been paying any attention you would know.

And the history of telling you has been one of speaking into a black hole.

How long ago (in years), for instance, did you voluntarily PM me about the need for a bisexual category here and that you were "working on it"?

Sorry, but that dog don't bark.

I have never in the history of Lit said, "If you PM me with an idea, I will guarantee to implement it." In the case of the bisexual category, I have - more than once, to more than one person, and even publicly somewhere - expressed my concerns regarding it.

But I'm going to stop here because this is pointless. You believe we're incompetent, or deliberately evil, or whatever - fine. I'm okay with that. I know from experience there is no way to convince you, so the best thing I can do to save us both time is to back off now.

I enjoy your stories, and wish you all the best.

 

[sr71plt]

But I'm going to stop here because this is pointless. You believe we're incompetent, or deliberately evil, or whatever - fine. I'm okay with that.

I haven't said that, and going to that extreme in characterizing what I have posted isn't in the least bit constructive (nor is going to the extreme in discussing what "functional" means). It is, however, indicative.

This statement, for instance, grossly--and defensively--misrepresents what I've posted.

I have never in the history of Lit said, "If you PM me with an idea, I will guarantee to implement it."

I have indeed given my opinion on a bisexual category on the forum. I have never, ever, ever independently PMd you with that request. The PM exchange I was talking about (and I explicitly stated this) was one that YOU PMd me about.

And, as usual, even both of us mentioning it will result in nothing.

Once more speaking into a black hole.

 

[sr71plt]

I might add, Laurel, that if you had been even minimally aware of discussions on the forums over the past several years, you would never had made the crack about me thinking you either "incompetent or deliberately evil." That is completely beyond the pale and just shows how out of touch you have chosen to be with those supplying the product base of this site.

 

[Laurel]

Poor word choice on my part. Very sorry if I offended you.

 

[scouries]

QUOTE Laurel: We're a mom & pop operation. We're not Yahoo. We do the best we can.

I'm not a customer service rep. I have 4-6 hours of story approval, plus answering emails (which I try to do in a timely manner, but the volume we receive makes this prohibitive), plus answering PMs and keeping half an eye on the forums, plus giving input on the couple dozen major upgrades we have ongoing, with another couple dozen in the works. This is a 7-day-a-week thing for us. In the 14 years we've been doing this, whenever we want a weekend off, we have to do those days work ahead of time, on top of the other day's work.

I wish I was able to do all these things in a timely manner without error 100% of the time, but I can't. Again, we do our best.

If you find our effort unacceptable, you are within your right to find somewhere else to be/support. But if you can be patient and forgive our blips, bumps, glitches and errors, we will do our best to continue to build what we hope will be the finest community of adult writers and readers that we are able.

I just read the back and forth between ace and the QUEEN and it has to be the most discouraging thing I've read on these forums since I've been here.

The complete lack of understanding by the PALACE of the frustrations many of us have felt about the site is simply astonishing.

I've always considered ace, darkboy and many others to be staunch supporters of the QUEEN and the site and even if I haven't always agreed with them I do accept that most of their suggestions have been made to improve the site, not hurt it.

Those of us who have been here some time are constantly surprised that simple fixes aren't implemented.

LAUREL, the site is beloved by most AHland posters and even though we know nothing of you (hardly our fault) there is an almost universal love-in for you.

If you're working too hard take a break. Find someone to fill in for you. If the site has 1.5 million visitors a day there is absolutely no reason you can't generate enough funds to pay for some staff. And that's on top of the many Literoticans who would gladly volunteer their help.

And even I, james r scouries am willing to do my part. I'd quite happily renegotiate if I thought you'd pass the savings on to hiring new help.

And listen, the second I'm back in Miami (hopefully by the end of the month), I'm going to get you and MANU out on the yacht for a couple of weeks of R+R in the Caribbean. On me!

And I'll try to get back to you with a few more suggestions in the next couple of days if I'm not stuck out in the jungle. ​

 

[Zeb_Carter]

The current nonfunctionality of the site speaks for itself, I'm sorry to say. And the nonfunctionality creates a lot of extra work--and burden and confusion and questions for the users, I'm also sorry to say.

It's not a case of finding someplace else. It's a case of letting you know the effect of what's here and not pretending the site doesn't need massive cleaning up and that much of the work required is because it hasn't been cleaned up.

You could just drop the contests at this point--all of them--the prize money could be put to hiring extra help and the contests are a burden and pretty much a "but nobody is laughing" joke and some of them are dead in the water but still there to remind folks of what doesn't work on the site.

As others have said "don't like it, just walk away" works only to a certain extent. Your key product here is the stories, which are being provided free to you for your profit. Those providing the product deserve a bit more than a "don't like it, just walk away" response. It should be more of a symbiotic relationship than "take it or leave it."

I'm betting this Web site is a worth a pile of cash for your retirement--if it doesn't deteriorate in value. I've seen at least one writing site go from being worth a million to being worthless because of how the users weren't being respected.

See this, up here ^^^^, would have me over banning him for a year. From the whole site. By IP and Name.

 

[lovecraft68]

See this, up here ^^^^, would have me over banning him for a year. From the whole site. By IP and Name.

Actually he's pretty much spot on.

And as I've said before if scouries has never been banned for things he's said(never mind the entire schoolyard bullying session known as the GB) then no one should.

As for Pilot's point on money, this site makes plenty, how could it not? And proof of that is that Laurel still puts that much work into after 14 years, no one does that because they're altruistic.

 

[FinishTheDamnStory]

Confirmation on posting times. I had stories that were submitted 8 days and 7 days ago. Both were posted today. Looks like they're catching up a little.

Then again, I haven't been posting long enough to know what's normal. I do know my multi-chapter story postings were very consistent, at 6 days each, until the last one went 7.

Just some data points.

 

[HeyAll]

I agree with James regarding treatment of THE QUEEN.

Laurel has been doing a heck of a job here, considering the limited resources available. I would also like to second the idea that Jim, Jacqui O, and AIR help with running this website, including story approval & financial accounting.

And personally, I think the standard for approval should be tightened somewhat. Some stories are so poorly written that they're ruining the standards of this website, along with taking up space. Just my opinion.

 

[TxRad]

I agree with James regarding treatment of THE QUEEN.

Laurel has been doing a heck of a job here, considering the limited resources available. I would also like to second the idea that Jim, Jacqui O, and AIR help with running this website, including story approval & financial accounting.

And personally, I think the standard for approval should be tightened somewhat. Some stories are so poorly written that they're ruining the standards of this website, along with taking up space. Just my opinion.

Since Jim and Jacqui O are the same person and AIR is a fake association made up of just Jim, your idea is simple idiotic. Not to mention the amount of time Jim spends tearing the site and contests down. The perfect solution.

 

[SecondCircle]

I know everyone here in the AH are supporters and contributors to the site. And I know that many of us agree that its probably one of the top story sites on the web, as far as free ones go. Erotic or not. I simply don't know of many other sites that I like as much as Lit, cuz they just ain't as good.

I do think there could be solutions to help out with the site's problems, like maybe more staff to speed turnaround times or someone to handle a "members complaint box" thing so that there isn't so much weight on the shoulders of the few that run the place. Truth is, I don't know what could really be done yo fix anything, because I'm not them, so I don't deal with the day to days and ins and outs. I just write here. Haven't been in their shoes, so I don't think I should really tell them that it should be gettin' done better. I'll happily make suggestions like others, but it's not gonna hurt my feelings when they aren't realized.

She's already said she is doing the best that she can. That's good enough for me from anyone. And yes I honestly do believe that if I didn't like the casserole I'm eating, that I begged the cook to make it better because of the sharpness of flavor or the texture... I'd probably just find another casserole or cook.

I don't really see the point in hyperventilating over turnaround times or contests or what categories should be or shouldn't be.... I came to Lit and liked what I saw better than anywhere else. I'm free to gripe and complain, but I know it doesn't help. I'm free to leave, but I like this casserole better (even if it tastes funny sometimes). I'll make suggestions, but not whine if things don't go my way, even if it woulda made the site better for everyone.

Laurel stated that they are doing the best they can. That's good enough for me. Based on what she's given me, I'll respectfully nod, take a grown up breath, shut the hell up and keep reading. And writing as time permits.

There are times when change is wanted, or even needed. When it can't happen, you make do with whatcha got. Roll with it, or let it roll right past.

 

[Laurel]

Have you guys ever taken a week off for vacation?

Just curious.

I you.

I know everyone here in the AH are supporters and contributors to the site. And I know that many of us agree that its probably one of the top story sites on the web, as far as free ones go. Erotic or not. I simply don't know of many other sites that I like as much as Lit, cuz they just ain't as good.

I do think there could be solutions to help out with the site's problems, like maybe more staff to speed turnaround times or someone to handle a "members complaint box" thing so that there isn't so much weight on the shoulders of the few that run the place. Truth is, I don't know what could really be done yo fix anything, because I'm not them, so I don't deal with the day to days and ins and outs. I just write here. Haven't been in their shoes, so I don't think I should really tell them that it should be gettin' done better. I'll happily make suggestions like others, but it's not gonna hurt my feelings when they aren't realized.

She's already said she is doing the best that she can. That's good enough for me from anyone. And yes I honestly do believe that if I didn't like the casserole I'm eating, that I begged the cook to make it better because of the sharpness of flavor or the texture... I'd probably just find another casserole or cook.

I don't really see the point in hyperventilating over turnaround times or contests or what categories should be or shouldn't be.... I came to Lit and liked what I saw better than anywhere else. I'm free to gripe and complain, but I know it doesn't help. I'm free to leave, but I like this casserole better (even if it tastes funny sometimes). I'll make suggestions, but not whine if things don't go my way, even if it woulda made the site better for everyone.

Laurel stated that they are doing the best they can. That's good enough for me. Based on what she's given me, I'll respectfully nod, take a grown up breath, shut the hell up and keep reading. And writing as time permits.

There are times when change is wanted, or even needed. When it can't happen, you make do with whatcha got. Roll with it, or let it roll right past.

Thank you for your support. It's very much appreciated. If you have any suggestions for improvements or bugs that need fixing, please keep on reporting these!

And a very big thanks to TXRad and others who have in the past taken the time to contact us directly with problems and improvements in a respectful, helpful, polite manner. Keep 'em coming!