lush

[Dearelliot]

Do many of you submit your stories, or the same stories to both Literotica and Lush?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I haven't, and doubt that I will.

 

[lovecraft68]

Going to be honest here, had I found Lush before lit, I would have published there instead. Smaller viewership and forums, but its run professionally. The rules are real, enforced consistently, they have staff and editors. Part of why they make less is they invest more. This place is a middle school clique run by whim and held together with bubblegum.

But by the time I discovered it, I'd been here five years and had close to a hundred stories here and was already in the selling market and it didn't seem worth it to start somewhere else.

Its too bad to see yet another example of bad behavior rewarded, but that's what Lit is.

 

[Djmac1031]

Never heard of Lush, being honest.

I suppose there's a certain appeal in the idea of publishing my stories to multiple sites. Increased audience is never a bad thing lol.

Don't know if I have the time or patience to keep up with that kind of thing though.

 

[GrushaVashnadze]

its run professionally. The rules are real, enforced consistently, they have staff and editors.

I have been on Lush for over two years: it was the first place I started publishing my stories. I'm afraid my experience is very different from what you suggest. Appearances can be deceptive. Happy to discuss this privately with anyone: drop me a PM...

 

[RejectReality]

I do, but it's a frustrating struggle ever since they rebuilt the site from the ground up. Still a lot of features missing, and it's painfully obvious that the new designers' primary area of expertise is hook-up & chat, but it's reached an acceptable level of functionality for me to start posting there again.

Looks like they installed new view filters for bots back in July or so, because the views have absolutely plummeted. The rest of the numbers haven't taken a corresponding dive, so I'm assuming it's filtering. It's always good when the number better represents human eyes, but it certainly takes a mental adjustment, and really puts their views-based award badges for stories far off in the future.

For anyone who isn't aware of it, it's a significantly smaller site, but it does have utility. More categories = less tribal readerships and homes for/less haters for certain subjects such as cuck, bi-male, pseudo-incest, etc. The readership is also heavily slanted toward short, one-shot work. Poetry, microfiction, and flash fiction perform reasonably well compared to 3-5k word stories there. Get above 7k words and readership starts falling off.

 

[RejectReality]

I have been on Lush for over two years: it was the first place I started publishing my stories. I'm afraid my experience is very different from what you suggest. Appearances can be deceptive. Happy to discuss this privately with anyone: drop me a PM...

You should have been there for the fiasco of removing the Incest category without warning, and then being smug, morally superior assholes about it to anybody who protested. Disaster with a capital D.

Then they had to restore it a couple of years later because it's a primary traffic driver on any written erotica site.

There's a level of professionalism that's present in day-to-day, but any form of dissent is met with harsh responses and moderator action — always has been.

 

[SimonDoom]

I only submit to Lit. I haven't given it much thought. From 2000 to 2010, I read erotic stories on about half a dozen sites, but eventually I gravitated mainly to Literotica because I found it easy to use, and I found the colors and font choice relatively easy to read, and it had the largest selection of stories I liked. So by the time I started writing I didn't even think about it.

 

[SyleusSnow]

I used to cross-post all my stories there then deleted everything and abandoned it late in 2021. The site was valuable because the audience was very different (mostly British). Far fewer readers than Lit, but there was much more feedback and comments tended to have more meat in them.

Interestingly, stories popular here got a "meh" there, and vice-versa (for example, Lush readers looooved Like No One's Watching and Recall, with high votes and many gushing comments. But on Lit? Not so much). As @RejectReality said, readers there preferred short works (stories were limited to 10k words max. Anything longer had to be published as a series).

Then they blew away the site (apparently by accident) and hastily replaced with it a revamped version of their for-pay swingers site. Now, also as @RejectReality said, the site's primary purpose seems to be to attract paying customers to their hookup and chat. For writers, it wants you to fill out a hookup-oriented profile and tries hard to get you to pay for additional features. Not worth the effort, IMHO.

 

[RejectReality]

I used to cross-post all my stories there then deleted everything and abandoned it late in 2021. The site was valuable because the audience was very different (mostly British). Far fewer readers than Lit, but there was much more feedback and comments tended to have more meat in them.

Interestingly, stories popular here got a "meh" there, and vice-versa (for example, Lush readers looooved Like No One's Watching and Recall, with high votes and many gushing comments. But on Lit? Not so much). As @RejectReality said, readers there preferred short works (stories were limited to 10k words max. Anything longer had to be published as a series).

Then they blew away the site (apparently by accident) and hastily replaced with it a revamped version of their for-pay swingers site. Now, also as @RejectReality said, the site's primary purpose seems to be to attract paying customers to their hookup and chat. For writers, it wants you to fill out a hookup-oriented profile and tries hard to get you to pay for additional features. Not worth the effort, IMHO.

You're hardly alone. The #1 and #2 author both pulled up stakes — one to here, and one to SOL — though like me, they left their work up.

They have at least stopped forcing you to fill out the hookup profile, though there's still evidence everywhere that it's an integral part of the site, and the option to not participate is still buggy as all hell. One thing that perplexes me is the way they display images is frikkin' horrible now. You'd think that people used to coding for mountains of Am I Hot or Not type posting would be good at image presentation, but nope. People search is so fine-tuned that you can find damn near anyone. Story search is god-awful. There are many times where no word from the title, description, keywords, or important plot points of the story will bring the story up. You can't even manage to search and find your own stuff that you know intimately — never mind anyone else's.

Like I said, it's barely acceptable to me right now. I have my fingers crossed that it will eventually get back to some semblance of its former self, but it's taken over a year to get back the most basic of features such as full story statistics.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I've discovered it and tried to post a story, but they have a 10k work maximum which means I have to split my stories. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. The site does look very nice though.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I've discovered it and tried to post a story, but they have a 10k work maximum which means I have to split my stories. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. The site does look very nice though.

They still have the 10k word max which for me is impossibly short. Much more sort story oriented and they don;t allow anything remotely associated with fan-fic eiither. I like the UI and the interface but the rules are way to restrictive. Maybe geared to the UK and their increasing restrictions. Anyhow, I tried it and dropped it. Luterotoca and SOL, for all their limitations, are far more author-friendly.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

They still have the 10k word max which for me is impossibly short. Much more sort story oriented and they don;t allow anything remotely associated with fan-fic eiither. I like the UI and the interface but the rules are way to restrictive. Maybe geared to the UK and their increasing restrictions. Anyhow, I tried it and dropped it. Luterotoca and SOL, for all their limitations, are far more author-friendly.

Chloe the Necromancer. Keep in mind that you should always quickly upgrade the skill to expert necromancy, and then try to assemble the Cloak of the Undead King, so you can raise liches instead of skeletons. The you farm tier 1 mobs and...
Umm, eh, I suppose, I let my inner HoMM3 nerd take over there.

Anyway, on topic, my experience so far has been that, out of websites with a decent amount of traffic, SOL is easily the most author-friendly. If they'd invest in their ancient interface, but also in Google rankings - as the site appears on page four when one googles erotic stories, the website would easily be my number one choice.

A lot of these websites get away with sucking because of the lack of proper competition.

 

[Rob_Royale]

SOL?

 

[ChloeTzang]

Chloe the Necromancer. Keep in mind that you should always quickly upgrade the skill to expert necromancy, and then try to assemble the Cloak of the Undead King, so you can raise liches instead of skeletons. The you farm tier 1 mobs and...
Umm, eh, I suppose, I let my inner HoMM3 nerd take over there.

LOL - I looked at the dates. Now. rotflmao. Necromancy indeed. Ooops/

Anyway, on topic, my experience so far has been that, out of websites with a decent amount of traffic, SOL is easily the most author-friendly. If they'd invest in their ancient interface, but also in Google rankings - as the site appears on page four when one googles erotic stories, the website would easily be my number one choice.

It is. A bit like LIT, their UI could do with some lipstick but the processing is fast and reliable.

A lot of these websites get away with sucking because of the lack of proper competition.

Oh yeah. I always look at Wattpad and think, you know, with a bit of thought that could have been LIT with a way broader and larger audience. I love that Wattpad UI and the ability to include images and video. Very readable fonts too.

 

[ChloeTzang]

SOL?

Stories Online. You'll find quite a few people here are there too. Probaby the next best to LIT

https://storiesonline.net/

The coffeee's better here tho. LOL

 

[dirk2024]

I tried Lush. I didn't appreciate how much they push the membership fee upgrade and the focus on member hook-ups.

So mostly I hang out here and a new site called erotxt. They are fashioned like Lit., but with a new website, so its nice. Mostly just a bunch of Lit authors on there now though, very little traffic.

 

[MillieDynamite]

You're at the whim of individual editors there. They asked me back after a year's absence. I resubmitted a story that was rejected for being too graphic, which was word-for-word what had been there before I left. So return I did not.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I write there, and that's all I want it for. Their push for dating shit, and pretty much putting everything behind a paywall is annoying. I get why paid writers get priority, but it's still annoying. It takes about as long as here, most of the time, too. ,

 

[MillieDynamite]

They're paying writers now? When did that start?

I write there, and that's all I want it for. Their push for dating shit, and pretty much putting everything behind a paywall is annoying. I get why paid writers get priority, but it's still annoying. It takes about as long as here, most of the time, too. ,

 

[EmilyMiller]

So mostly I hang out here and a new site called erotxt. They are fashioned like Lit., but with a new website, so its nice. Mostly just a bunch of Lit authors on there now though, very little traffic.

The UI is nice, but I get more traffic on my - infrequently updated - personal blog. What is more, there seems to be no plan to address this. As things stand, it’s a technical project, not a publishing platform. They need a marketing strategy and someone to execute it.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

They're paying writers now? When did that start?

No, I meant folks who pay for memberships.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Won't be doing that. I did put up a story, but it hasn't been reviewed yet. I thought I'd killed my account, but hadn't. If they don't put up the 750-story from last year's challenge, I will figure out how to kill it. I have pictures on there, didn't realize they were still up, and now it won't let me take them down unless I pay to. If the only way to get them off the site is cancel my membership, I do that.

No, I meant folks who pay for memberships.

 

[OddLove]

I've heard people on Reddit and Twitter complain about Lush having voluntary moderators who made edits to people's stories without asking. For me personally, that's an automatic deal breaker, so I've never considered sharing a story on there. I want full control over my story and if there's something wrong with it, I rather they just send it back and say 'fix this'