How much time does it usually take to get story approved/rejected?

[entertainingcat]

I recently posted my first story, about 2 days ago. How much time will it take to get approved/rejected?

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Reported times range from a few hours to a month, sometimes more. It's not predictable. People on this forum have said that new writers face longer approval times for their first few stories.

--Annie

 

[ElectricBlue]

I recently posted my first story, about 2 days ago. How much time will it take to get approved/rejected?

If you're lucky with your first story, a week or so. New writers probably get scrutinized more closely for adherence to the content rules, so once you've got a cluster of stories under your belt, publication does get quicker. Mine, for example, usually go live in two or three days.

 

[SkyBubble]

I'm waiting on one now. I'll tell you how long it is when it gets posted.

 

[Light_Yagami]

I recently posted my first story, about 2 days ago. How much time will it take to get approved/rejected?

I'll be totally honest... we have no idea about that. One of my two-page stories was published after three months, but then another piece of mine, which was part of a series over ten pages, got published in just two days. Someone mentioned that big authors get their work published first, but then I got mine out in two days, and I'm nowhere near being a big or active author.

 

[Writer61]

Submitted a story on Monday this week that went live on Wednesday.

Submitted a story on the same Wednesday that is still pending.

 

[SkyBubble]

I have a story I edited on May 29. The edit was literally two words. I attached a note explaining that. It's sitting in the queue on June 6, as is a new story I submitted on May 31.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Edits are the slowest things to be approved. My last edit took five weeks. It's apparently Laurel's lowest priority.

--Annie

 

[SkyBubble]

Two freaking words!

 

[StillStunned]

It's not the two words that have to be checked, it's the rest of the story. To make sure you didn't change anything else so that it violates site policy.

 

[TheRedChamber]

It's not the two words that have to be checked, it's the rest of the story. To make sure you didn't change anything else so that it violates site policy.

In fairness, I'd expect anyone checking edits to have a 'diff' program set up which shows at a glance which words/lines have been changed. It should be easy to check that the changes are minimal and not, for example, eighteen changed to sixteen or whatever.

But, as oft discussed, the site is what it is.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Two freaking words!

Why on earth did you bother? That's why you edit before you submit a story.

 

[FrancesScott]

I keep seeing that approvals take longer for new authors. This is often said by established authors. All of my stories have been approved within a day, sometimes within two hours. I submitted my most recent one around 1am and it was approved when I woke up this morning.

The only exception was a satire (it was explicitly tagged ‘satire’) in non-consent / reluctance. I wasn’t 100% convinced the story would get accepted at all, but even that was approved within two days and published in three.

Then I don’t use AI tools at all (I hate Copilot finishing sentences for me at work), and I hope my stories adhere to at least the most basic precepts of grammar and typography. It’s also probably relevant that I don’t try to push age boundaries, or to fetishize minorities. That or I just use too many big words and the reviewer gets a headache before they finish reading.

So YMMV.

 

[StillStunned]

I keep seeing that approvals take longer for new authors. This is often said by established authors. All of my stories have been approved within a day, sometimes within two hours. I submitted my most recent one around 1am and it was approved when I woke up this morning.

My very first story was approved within an hour or so. By the time any of my stories took longer than a day to approve, I'd published about 35. The one that took longer - about a week, I think - was in NC/R.

The only new authors who ask about long wait times are the ones who have to wait a long time. We never hear from new authors - yourself excepted, of course - whose stories make it through without a hitch.

 

[NuclearFairy]

My first story was my second fastest to get approved, approved in a day posted the day after. It's a fantasy story that has a brief rape scene in it. I mean, there's no humans in it so maybe that had something to do with it.

Honestly though, there's just no predicting what'll get approved quickly and what won't, aside from contest entries have highest priorities, and normal stories take longer to get approved when a contest is going on.

 

[69RoadRunner]

I'm writing a story that as it currently stands be 5 parts and will be at least 6 parts and I don't know how many words as ideas come to me as write, currently at 69425 words, that will go up. I may break it up into smaller parts. I am intent on finishing the entire story before I submit it, I hate waiting a long time for stories I'm reading to post the next part.
I don't know if category plays into it, the first 3 parts will definitely be loving wives, from there it may go to exhibitionist.

Thanks Rob

 

[SkyBubble]

Why on earth did you bother? That's why you edit before you submit a story.

Becuase I didn't intend those words to be there.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Becuase I didn't intend those words to be there.

Sigh. It's also why you check before posting...

 

[Justplainjeff]

I recently posted my first story, about 2 days ago. How much time will it take to get approved/rejected?

It all depends on who you know, and who you consider friends. If you don't have the right friends, then your story could sit for days and days. In my 5 years and 99 stories, the fastest was posted in a day and a half. The longest took 49 days.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It all depends on who you know, and who you consider friends. If you don't have the right friends, then your story could sit for days and days. In my 5 years and 99 stories, the fastest was posted in a day and a half. The longest took 49 days.

It's also to do with how crowded a category is. My latest, a 750 word vignette, was approved within six hours, but won't publish until Tuesday, because it's going into a busy category.

 

[FrancesScott]

It all depends on who you know, and who you consider friends. If you don't have the right friends, then your story could sit for days and days. In my 5 years and 99 stories, the fastest was posted in a day and a half. The longest took 49 days.

Frankly, this seems entirely at variance to my experience. You seem to be imputing an emotional element to how stories are assessed. This doesn’t seem to exist in my - admittedly much more limited - experience. I just had a second story submitted around midnight, and approved for publishing this morning. Admittedly it was a non-erotic scene-setting introduction to an erotic anthology series, but still. Someone said above that you only hear from people who face delays. Well I haven’t and I’m happy to say so. Having read a little around this issue, it seems that there are at least sometimes reasons for delays. Or people are just unlucky. But, as I said before, YMMV.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Frankly, this seems entirely at variance to my experience. You seem to be imputing an emotional element to how stories are assessed.

It's a fairly typical reaction, when someone's story takes a long time to get published, that they think it's a personal vendetta, they've been targetted, blah blah blah. When in fact it's a long conveyor belt moving slowly, and nobody has looked at it yet. Or they've made some innocent mistake because they're new, and havent figured out the subtleties yet.

Or their content was dodgy as fuck in the first place .

 

[TheWritingGroup]

It's a fairly typical reaction, when someone's story takes a long time to get published, that they think it's a personal vendetta, they've been targetted, blah blah blah. When in fact it's a long conveyor belt moving slowly, and nobody has looked at it yet. Or they've made some innocent mistake because they're new, and havent figured out the subtleties yet.

Or their content was dodgy as fuck in the first place .

I try not to read people's minds, especially people I have never met. So I don't impute motives to Laurel. I can also easily see a situation where she saw something she had to look at a second time ... and she's busy, and she doesn't get back to it for days or weeks, or until the author reminds her. No malice, just overwork.

--Annie

 

[WittyUserName]

I recently posted my first story, about 2 days ago. How much time will it take to get approved/rejected?

This question tends to come up often. The answer is; it depends. A person(Laurel) has to go in and approve it, it isn't done automatically by a computer. Laurel is human(as far as we know), so it won't always be the same. I've had a couple stories get a posting date within 10 minutes. Others have taken over a week. There are a lot of factors: how many other stories were submitted, which category(since she doesn't want to overwhelm a category with a lot of stories in one day), what else is going on(an example being that if a contest is in progress. Stories in the contest likely take priority because the contest has a deadline).

I get it, you want to see people's reactions to your story and are impatient. If it takes more than a week or so, you could send Laurel a polite message. Other than that, be patient! Work on another story, maybe read a few yourself.

 

[SkyBubble]

Sigh. It's also why you check before posting...

The thing is, I did.