place to publish

[frozen_north]

need help

Greetings all. I'm new here, and having read the FAQ's and submission guidlines, I find that I have a question that hopefuly someone can help me with...
I have a novella that I have written (and am told by many, including my own mother, that it is a worthy read) that I can't seem to find a place (on the net) to publish.
The problem is that the main character is 16 and I am unwilling to change that as the story would lose a great deal(you would have ot read it to understand).
Those sites that I consider respectable won't touch it and those that would accept it I wouldn't want anything to do with. So what can I do? Should I submit it to the site owner here for a judgement call or can someone give me a better idea on what to do?

 

[Guest]

Greetings all. I'm new here, and having read the FAQ's and submission guidlines, I find that I have a question that hopefuly someone can help me with...
I have a novella that I have written (and am told by many, including my own mother, that it is a worthy read) that I can't seem to find a place (on the net) to publish.
The problem is that the main character is 16 and I am unwilling to change that as the story would lose a great deal(you would have ot read it to understand).
Those sites that I consider respectable won't touch it and those that would accept it I wouldn't want anything to do with. So what can I do? Should I submit it to the site owner here for a judgement call or can someone give me a better idea on what to do?

_____

There is no "judgment" call on Lit for stories involving characters having sex less than 18 years of age, period! Your story will simply be rejected per the site's clearly-state submission policy.

And unless you're willing to make the compromise on the two-year age difference (many, many Lit authors have, by the way, with very little to no ill effects), frozen_north, you can forget about using Lit's free site as your vehicle to get your novella published, that simple.

 

[Tom Collins]

_____

There is no "judgment" call on Lit for stories involving characters having sex less than 18 years of age, period! Your story will simply be rejected per the site's clearly-state submission policy.

And unless you're willing to make the compromise on the two-year age difference (many, many Lit authors have, by the way, with very little to no ill effects), frozen_north, you can forget about using Lit's free site as your vehicle to get your novella published, that simple.

frozen_north, I second the statement made by ProofreadManx. If there is any sex in your novella and any of the characters are under 18 the owners of Lit. simply will not publish it.

 

[LadyJeanne]

The advantage to posting on Lit is the ready-made audience for your work, so it might be worth your while to compromise on the age thing. If the age is truly central to your story, however, you will have to look elsewhere.

 

[frozen_north]

Hmmm...not quite the answers I was hoping for, though I thank you all the same; and a Big thanks for the lulu idea. I may try that when the story is finished (1 chapter left to go). I guess I'll make the sacrifice and do some editing and submit it, though I honestly think the story is going to suffer greatly for it. The story is called Rite of Passage. You be the judge.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Lit's rules about age are there to protect the site from legal attacks. None of us want to risk having the site shut down.

 

[frozen_north]

I do understand, and knew I wouldn't be able to post it here as it was. I was hoping that someone might know where I could post it. I really think the editing hurt it. sigh...

 

[Tom Collins]

I do understand, and knew I wouldn't be able to post it here as it was. I was hoping that someone might know where I could post it. I really think the editing hurt it. sigh...

Mind if I ask why the character's age is paramount to a "rite of passage" type story?

Also, someone might be able to be more helpful in suggesting where it could be posted as is if we new what sort of story it is. Is it straight or gay? How much, if any, fetish or BDSM or toy usage is there in it? Is there any age difference worth being mentioned...meaning, is this an older person initiating a young person or are the sexual partnesr pretty much the same age? Etc...you see, there are some good sites out there for posting things but many of them are specialized.
For instance, if this were a Gay Male story about two young men discovering the joys of love and sexy with each other I would have the perfect site for you to post it on but that site only accepts Gay Male stories. I know another excellent site that will accept any Rainbow oriented story but I don't know that it would accept the underage factor...I would have to check with the owner to find out for you.

Give us a synopsys of the story and all possible catagories that you could possibly post it in and I'll bet that more people would be able to make good suggestions.

BTW, frozen_north, please allow me to welcome you to both Lit. and The AH.

 

[frozen_north]

The story is about a society in which a virgin cannot marry, or even be considered an adult unless they undergo a Rite of Passage within 2 weeks of their xxth birthday. This Rite is usually (though not always) performed by the church as it is a central theme in their religion. This society is very protective and generally manages to keep their youth innocent until the time is right for them to lay down their innocence and step into adulthood.

 

[JRaven]

I think that the crux of frozen_north's post is that he realizes he cannot post his story on Literotica. But, he thought that maybe amongst this fairly large group of non-judgemental authors, one of us might know where he would be able to post his story. Some have caught that, some have not. And I suspect that the ones that did not, had read the unedited original post. (Hey, we're all great people here. If we screw something up, it was either the other guy's fault, or we were on the bottom)

www.storiesonline.com

This site will accept under age stories. However, their story posting method leaves a bit to be desired. They use the same forum software that Literotica uses. But, they don't have the other side for actual story submissions that Lit does. To post a story, you have to start a new thread in the stories forum with the story as a post. If you use any formatting such as italic in the story, you will need to change the <> into [] for it to come out in the post.

I don't have the url handy, but BarnBurner Magazine (an online thing) may take the story. Register and ask.

Jenny

 

[Tom Collins]

The story is about a society in which a virgin cannot marry, or even be considered an adult unless they undergo a Rite of Passage within 2 weeks of their xxth birthday. This Rite is usually (though not always) performed by the church as it is a central theme in their religion. This society is very protective and generally manages to keep their youth innocent until the time is right for them to lay down their innocence and step into adulthood.

I admit that I'm intreged...I'd certainly like to read it. Sounds like it a hetero story though and I'm not really up on sites for the hetero community. Sorry, f_n.

 

[frozen_north]

Thank you JRaven, this is exactly the case. I have edited the age and submitted the story. If they post it, tell me if it still makes sence.

 

[Tom Collins]

Thank you JRaven, this is exactly the case. I have edited the age and submitted the story. If they post it, tell me if it still makes sence.

Did you set the story to allow comments and voting?

 

[frozen_north]

yes...I think... ...

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The fact is, that the law is in the USA right now is such that anyone who publishes or makes available a story which involves a person under 18 having explicit sex is liable to prosecution for distributing child pornography, a serious federal offense. That's what the law says, not Literotica, and that's why any USA-based site will most likely not touch your story. (A lot depends on how hraphic the sex scenes are, and the overall artistic worth of the book as determined by a judge and witnesses.)

You might have better luck overseas, but I don't know of any overseas sites offhand. I suppose you could self-publish too. I don't think you can get in ttrouble for printing underage sex, only distributing or selling it.

I sympathize, and believe me, you're not the first author here who's run up against that problem. I too wrote what I thought was a tender and moving story of a first time encounter, only to realize just as I was about to submit it that my hero was 17. I thought the rules just applied to females, so I checked and found out that nope--underage males aren't allowed either. I couldn't make him 18, it would have changed the whole story, so here it sits on my disc, where I just hope the FBI doesn't find it.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I couldn't make him 18, it would have changed the whole story, so here it sits on my disc, where I just hope the FBI doesn't find it.

Really? One year age difference??

I could see it being difficult to change a fifteen or sixteen year old to an eighteen year old... but seventeen? Doesn't seem like such a big difference to me... ?

I'm just sayin'...

 

[AngeloMichael]

The fact is, that the law is in the USA right now is such that anyone who publishes or makes available a story which involves a person under 18 having explicit sex is liable to prosecution for distributing child pornography, a serious federal offense. That's what the law says, not Literotica, and that's why any USA-based site will most likely not touch your story. (A lot depends on how hraphic the sex scenes are, and the overall artistic worth of the book as determined by a judge and witnesses.)

You might have better luck overseas, but I don't know of any overseas sites offhand. I suppose you could self-publish too. I don't think you can get in ttrouble for printing underage sex, only distributing or selling it.

I sympathize, and believe me, you're not the first author here who's run up against that problem. I too wrote what I thought was a tender and moving story of a first time encounter, only to realize just as I was about to submit it that my hero was 17. I thought the rules just applied to females, so I checked and found out that nope--underage males aren't allowed either. I couldn't make him 18, it would have changed the whole story, so here it sits on my disc, where I just hope the FBI doesn't find it.

Dr. Mab,

Try http://storiesonline.net/home.php and Frozen_North can try it too,

It's a different site than storiesonline.com and it has a lot of great stories by some wonderful authors (some not so great ones too, but you take the good with the bad).

It's a Canada based site so they don't worry about U.S. federal regulations but many of the contributing authors are from the U.S. and I've never heard of any of them getting in trouble.

 

[frozen_north]

The fact is, that the law is in the USA right now is such that anyone who publishes or makes available a story which involves a person under 18 having explicit sex is liable to prosecution for distributing child pornography, a serious federal offense. That's what the law says, not Literotica, and that's why any USA-based site will most likely not touch your story. (A lot depends on how hraphic the sex scenes are, and the overall artistic worth of the book as determined by a judge and witnesses.)

Hmmm... I may be mistaken, and forgive me if I am, but I am fairly certain that the child pornography laws only apply to images (photography, illustrations, computer generated images, etc...) not to the written word. I believe that most websites won't post such stories because they don't want even the remotest chance of repercussions. There are a very large number of sites out there that I could have posted on that I don't want to be associated with. These sites have stories of graphic sex with children as young as 4 and 5. I at least limit my writing to the age of consent...

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Strange how times change. In medieval England (Anglo-Saxon with a dash of Viking ) - okay, perhaps a tad later than that, a young woman was considered marriable (is that a word?) at 13 ish.

 

[frozen_north]

Strange how times change. In medieval England (Anglo-Saxon with a dash of Viking ) - okay, perhaps a tad later than that, a young woman was considered marriable (is that a word?) at 13 ish.

Well, I can't speak for Europe, but in Japan the age of consent is STILL 13 to engage in sex. 16 for a girl to marry and 18 for a man to marry. Amongst the native population of Guam, it is unlawful for a female virgin to marry, so there are a group of elders who go from village to village a couple of times a year whos job it is to deflower the young virgins who are just reaching marriagable age. Marriagable age is right after they have their first menses.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Well, I can't speak for Europe, but in Japan the age of consent is STILL 13 to engage in sex. 16 for a girl to marry and 18 for a man to marry.

Leave it to the politicians, eh?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hmmm... I may be mistaken, and forgive me if I am, but I am fairly certain that the child pornography laws only apply to images (photography, illustrations, computer generated images, etc...) not to the written word. I believe that most websites won't post such stories because they don't want even the remotest chance of repercussions. There are a very large number of sites out there that I could have posted on that I don't want to be associated with. These sites have stories of graphic sex with children as young as 4 and 5. I at least limit my writing to the age of consent...

No, I don't think you're mistaken. Images are surefire damnation, stories less so. But our new Attorney General, upon being sworn in, cited on-line porn as being his number two priority right behind terrorism, and that sent quite a shock through the industry. And remember, the feds don't have to prove you guilty. All they have to do is bring suit against you to effectively shut you down. Hiring lawyers at $400 an hour or whatever and going to court can ruin you fast.

They came out and shut down a couple of story sites last winter as a kind of warning that they eant business. (Was "Red Rose" one of them? Something "Rose") I don't recall what it was that did it for that site, but people in the industry sat up and took notice.

It can be done, of course. "Lolita" had underage sex, although not graphic, and I'm sure there've been other books that don't immediately come to mind, but still you're talking money and lawyers and tzuris that most webmasters just don't want to deal with.

As for the sex-with-cildren sites you mention, I'd bet they're well offshore and beyond US prosecution.

I was toying with the idea of labeling my characters "literotically 18" or "legally adult" in my stories and then making it clear through story circumstances (sophmore in high school, say) that she was actually younger, but I never tried it. It would be like "Cindy Ann was a legally adult sophmore cheerleader for the freshman track team..." figuring the reader would get it, but it's cetainly not a very graceful way to go.

*L* We even had a discussion here once about what to do about a sci-fi story involving a 16 year-old who'd been in suspended animation for 5 years. Was she 16 or 21 when she woke up? I forget what the outcome was, but I don't think it was accepted for publication.

What about a fantasy story where a 16 year-old and a 30 year-old swap minds? It gets into all this legal stuff, like whether sex with a minotaur is bestiality or not.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

I was toying with the idea of labeling my characters "literotically 18" or "legally adult" in my stories and then making it clear through story circumstances (sophmore in high school, say) that she was actually younger, but I never tried it. It would be like "Cindy Ann was a legally adult sophmore cheerleader for the freshman track team..." figuring the reader would get it, but it's cetainly not a very graceful way to go.

you'd lose a lot of us in the UK (and elsewhere) on that score, Doc.

 

[frozen_north]

*L* We even had a discussion here once about what to do about a sci-fi story involving a 16 year-old who'd been in suspended animation for 5 years. Was she 16 or 21 when she woke up? I forget what the outcome was, but I don't think it was accepted for publication.

What about a fantasy story where a 16 year-old and a 30 year-old swap minds? It gets into all this legal stuff, like whether sex with a minotaur is bestiality or not.

LOL. What about an immortal girl who's body and spirit are basically frozen in time when she is 15 but doesn't do anything till she is chronologically 18?

 

[JRaven]

LOL. What about an immortal girl who's body and spirit are basically frozen in time when she is 15 but doesn't do anything till she is chronologically 18?

If she's frozen in time and immortal, why stop at 18? You could make her out to be 180 and still have the boxy of a 15 year old.

Jenny