Lush Stories is a joke of a website

[RejectReality]

SOL's not bad, a bit more libersl with what's allowed, fast and easy to publish on, but nowhere near the number of viewers.

Wattpad has a great interface but 80% of the readers are teenage Filipina girls or something and its flooded with fanfic, most of it appalingly bad, and visibility is next to zero unless you get in their and network like crazy - which just isn't worth it

Or, I guess, be well-established enough to have at least 50 people who have you bookmarked and will read and vote that first day. I started there years ago, and I rarely have any trouble with visibility. As long as you can swing 50 votes, you'll almost always end up on the weekly top score list or top download list ( usually both if you make score ) and your reads jump dramatically after that.

Submit at 11pm EST and you stand a good chance of being approved before midnight and on page 1 overnight. That helps.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy performs just as well there as it does here ( Sometimes better. Lowborn has 1k votes there, and I'll never come close to that here with any Sci-Fi & Fantasy ) and stuff there's no good place for here like cuckold, bi-male, and Westerns can do very well.

 

[iwatchus]

Or, I guess, be well-established enough to have at least 50 people who have you bookmarked and will read and vote that first day. I started there years ago, and I rarely have any trouble with visibility. As long as you can swing 50 votes, you'll almost always end up on the weekly top score list or top download list ( usually both if you make score ) and your reads jump dramatically after that.

How do you get the following to attract 50 votes initially?

 

[MillieDynamite]

When I started on Lush, I gained a lot of readers. My work was accepted much better there than here, but I didn't feel very good about my writing for there. To get stories published, they had to be toned down, have happy endings, and conflict had to be kept to a minimum. It was years ago, and I gained a fanatic following. Hardly anyone ever voted anything but a five. I had a lot of attention, much of it unwanted. IMs about me, not my work. Questions about things I don't discuss with those I don't know. Here in the forums, I've been pretty open about myself, and if I get a creeper contact me, I either answer politely or not at all. There, the creeper is the most common contact I had, and it became a daily grind to go through and either answer politely, less politely, or delete the message. It wasn't long until I left the site. Too much bullshit about the type of story, too much crap from jerks, and too much false praise on the stories.

 

[RejectReality]

How do you get the following to attract 50 votes initially?

Post late so you get page 1 overnight. That will help. Beyond that, it's just the long grind, and hopefully attracting the attention of one or more of the paid members. They apparently share recommendations amongst themselves, so that can raise your profile pretty much instantly. I've been there for going on 20 years, so even with the normal attrition of time and my long droughts, I keep enough followers to ping that 50 in 24 hours for pretty much anything.

 

[GrushaVashnadze]

When I started on Lush, I gained a lot of readers. My work was accepted much better there than here, but I didn't feel very good about my writing for there. To get stories published, they had to be toned down, have happy endings, and conflict had to be kept to a minimum. It was years ago, and I gained a fanatic following. Hardly anyone ever voted anything but a five. I had a lot of attention, much of it unwanted. IMs about me, not my work. Questions about things I don't discuss with those I don't know. Here in the forums, I've been pretty open about myself, and if I get a creeper contact me, I either answer politely or not at all. There, the creeper is the most common contact I had, and it became a daily grind to go through and either answer politely, less politely, or delete the message. It wasn't long until I left the site. Too much bullshit about the type of story, too much crap from jerks, and too much false praise on the stories.

Interesting - I have had a very similar trajectory with Lush. When I first started publishing there c. 5 years ago (Alison Goes to London), I was showered with praise by many of the mods, awarded tons of RRs ("Recommended Reads"), and got masses of reads, comments (almost all positive) and scores (almost all 5s). It took me a while to realise that all the love-bombing from the mods was, like in a cult, a way of encouraging me into conforming with, and thereby becoming suitable to join, their inner circle. They saw that I could write well, but wanted me to write like them. One said to me, "If you don't tone down your style, you will start to lose friends." I declined the opportunity to become a clone, despite discovering (via leaks from some mods) that behind the scenes the powers-that-be were decrying my work as "too filthy". The only story of mine that ever made it onto the shortlist for a competition (on Lush the shortlist is drawn up entirely by one person, the site owner) was I think the most inconsequential story I had ever written. After the "regime change" in 2022, it was "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose": those mods who were prepared to admit they liked my writing (and that of other "unconventional" writers) were gradually either fired, or scared into conformity, or left the site. I stopped getting RRs, period.

I still post my stories on Lush. There are still a few mavericks there who have broad tastes and have not been browbeaten into submission. They are genuinely lovely people - but they have no power or influence. Those who wield any influence (e.g. mods, judges) only do so by completely toeing the party line - which means they actually have no influence at all.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

SOL's problem is that they paywall their search function. I suspect they would have a much bigger audience if they didn't.

When i look by just genre I get more results. It's trying to be specific that cost. Still stupid, though.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Interesting - I have had a very similar trajectory with Lush. When I first started publishing there c. 5 years ago (Alison Goes to London), I was showered with praise by many of the mods, awarded tons of RRs ("Recommended Reads"), and got masses of reads, comments (almost all positive) and scores (almost all 5s). It took me a while to realise that all the love-bombing from the mods was, like in a cult, a way of encouraging me into conforming with, and thereby becoming suitable to join, their inner circle. They saw that I could write well, but wanted me to write like them. One said to me, "If you don't tone down your style, you will start to lose friends." I declined the opportunity to become a clone, despite discovering (via leaks from some mods) that behind the scenes the powers-that-be were decrying my work as "too filthy". The only story of mine that ever made it onto the shortlist for a competition (on Lush the shortlist is drawn up entirely by one person, the site owner) was I think the most inconsequential story I had ever written. After the "regime change" in 2022, it was "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose": those mods who were prepared to admit they liked my writing (and that of other "unconventional" writers) were gradually either fired, or scared into conformity, or left the site. I stopped getting RRs, period.

I still post my stories on Lush. There are still a few mavericks there who have broad tastes and have not been browbeaten into submission. They are genuinely lovely people - but they have no power or influence. Those who wield any influence (e.g. mods, judges) only do so by completely toeing the party line - which means they actually have no influence at all.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

That's wild. Either they're not like that now, or I'm just not popular. Depending on what they reject depends on if I fix it or not. There re other places I can post, i'm not changing my style, or completely rewriting a damn thing.

 

[SkyBubble]

I've been on Lush for a while and never experienced anything like that.

BTW, they don't allow celebrity stories these days, but if you remove all last names, it will usually go through.

 

[RejectReality]

Interesting - I have had a very similar trajectory with Lush. When I first started publishing there c. 5 years ago (Alison Goes to London), I was showered with praise by many of the mods, awarded tons of RRs ("Recommended Reads"), and got masses of reads, comments (almost all positive) and scores (almost all 5s). It took me a while to realise that all the love-bombing from the mods was, like in a cult, a way of encouraging me into conforming with, and thereby becoming suitable to join, their inner circle. They saw that I could write well, but wanted me to write like them. One said to me, "If you don't tone down your style, you will start to lose friends." I declined the opportunity to become a clone, despite discovering (via leaks from some mods) that behind the scenes the powers-that-be were decrying my work as "too filthy". The only story of mine that ever made it onto the shortlist for a competition (on Lush the shortlist is drawn up entirely by one person, the site owner) was I think the most inconsequential story I had ever written. After the "regime change" in 2022, it was "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose": those mods who were prepared to admit they liked my writing (and that of other "unconventional" writers) were gradually either fired, or scared into conformity, or left the site. I stopped getting RRs, period.

I still post my stories on Lush. There are still a few mavericks there who have broad tastes and have not been browbeaten into submission. They are genuinely lovely people - but they have no power or influence. Those who wield any influence (e.g. mods, judges) only do so by completely toeing the party line - which means they actually have no influence at all.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

To be fair, nobody gets RRs anymore. There have only been 12 in the last month. It had also gotten a little out of control. There was a period there where the only way I didn't get an RR was if one of the senior mods found my story before anybody else did, and I was hardly the only one. It was rare to see the first page without an RR story on it. Mods were hunting down their favorite authors as soon as they opened the list, gushing over it, and giving it an RR pretty much without fail. The meaning had been diluted down to almost nothing. That had as much to do with the crackdown on RRs as anything.

The funny thing is that what the current ruling class likes the best is what the readership likes the least. They want long, involved stories, and Lush readers ain't about that. LOL They want quick and dirty.

I quit the contests because it was actually a negative at the time. It wasn't increasing reads, and the slightly more critical voting damaged long-term visibility when anything short of a perfect 5.0 was invisible. The switch to like-only at least eliminates the latter. There's also the favorites who are always going to win ( Not disparaging their ability at all. Most of them are top tier authors ) and enough of them that there will always be 10 or so in every contest. There's nothing left for anybody 1 step lower on the ladder. Now, I don't participate for the same reason I don't participate here very often. Having an idea that fits the theme and my ability to write happening at the same time is a long shot at best.

 

[GrushaVashnadze]

To be fair, nobody gets RRs anymore. There have only been 12 in the last month. It had also gotten a little out of control. There was a period there where the only way I didn't get an RR was if one of the senior mods found my story before anybody else did, and I was hardly the only one. It was rare to see the first page without an RR story on it. Mods were hunting down their favorite authors as soon as they opened the list, gushing over it, and giving it an RR pretty much without fail. The meaning had been diluted down to almost nothing. That had as much to do with the crackdown on RRs as anything.

The funny thing is that what the current ruling class likes the best is what the readership likes the least. They want long, involved stories, and Lush readers ain't about that. LOL They want quick and dirty.

I quit the contests because it was actually a negative at the time. It wasn't increasing reads, and the slightly more critical voting damaged long-term visibility when anything short of a perfect 5.0 was invisible. The switch to like-only at least eliminates the latter. There's also the favorites who are always going to win ( Not disparaging their ability at all. Most of them are top tier authors ) and enough of them that there will always be 10 or so in every contest. There's nothing left for anybody 1 step lower on the ladder. Now, I don't participate for the same reason I don't participate here very often. Having an idea that fits the theme and my ability to write happening at the same time is a long shot at best.

You make some important points. Before "regime change", the mods were ruled with a somewhat lighter touch, which meant that they had more discretion, both to read the stories they wanted to read, and to reward them accordingly. This meant that the more maverick writers - even those despised by the central cabal - had some chance to be recognised. Now, however, the mods are required to read submissions in strict order, but giving priority to "gold" members. They are discouraged from giving out "too many" RRs - which in practice means that they are very cautious and politically "safe" with their choices. The result is less exposure for those whose style does not fit with the preferences of the powers-that-be, and consequentially a greater narrowing of the stylistic flavour of the site.

The results of the competitions have of course always been tightly controlled, as the chief judge is the site owner, and chooses the judges, and chooses the top ten, and announces the winners (without any transparency of process, and reserving the right to amend/ignore the collective choices of the other judges), and boots off the podium anyone who dares to criticise the process. The winners are generally predictable, not just because they are excellent writers (and I agree with you on that), but because they are excellent authors who toe the party line stylistically and politically. Very often those who, as you put it, find themselves "1 step lower on the ladder", are not there because of any lack of quality, but simply because their style does not chime with the preferences of the central cabal.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

So that's how their contest works. At least here, the winners are chosen by the public. They have one going on right now called Obsession, that I thought about doing, but have no idea what to write about.

I suppose I'd be a maverick of sorts, since I don't jump into sex on chapter one/beginning. When I submitted Spare Parts, they told me as such, when they told me I had to redo some of the tags to match the chapter, which makes sense. I usually kinda do that and add whats to come, and relevent topic tags. If they can't wait a chapter or two, to beat their meats, that's their problem.