Posting Illustrated Stories

[feather1892]

I know, this issue comes up time and time again, and I have read a number of threads, but I’m looking for advice re: posting an illustrated story.

Basically I want to do re-writes of my existing stories complete with pictures. I read the information on posting illustrated stories and noted the different options- the best of which seems to be submitting a .doc file with the pictures already inserted. If possible I would rather not put the job of placing the pics in the text on the people running the site - that’s hassle they do not need.

Anyway, the file would not upload because it apparently exceeded the maximum file size. My questions?

1. What is the maximum file size? It does not mention it in the error message

2. I note the picture size limit is 1500 wide, which is pretty generous. Is it realistic though, should I be making them smaller?

3. In the meantime I’m thinking of starting a thread on the general board with some of the images I have created and links back to the relevant original stories. Would this be acceptable?

Thank you for your help.

 

[nice90sguy]

Hi, I've recently uploaded my first story, which is illustrated. Based on what I've learned so far, the size limit is a little over 2 Mb for a word doc. Use .jpgs for your images and reduce the quality until you get your file under that. Also, you can use ordinary formatting in your doc, and let Literotica's preprocessor do the rest. It will preseve simple formatting, including bold and italic text.


As to your third item, I'm using https://forum.literotica.com/forums/the-visual-artists-corner.50/ for that, because I did the illustrations myself. I guess the general board would also be ok for that.

Good luck!

Oh, and by the way, be patient, it can take a few weeks for your illustrated story to be published, presumably because it's less of an automatic process than non-illustrated. A new author's stories take even longer, My story took well over six weeks to be published.

NNG

 

[feather1892]

Hi, I've recently uploaded my first story, which is illustrated. Based on what I've learned so far, the size limit is a little over 2 Mb for a word doc. Use .jpgs for your images and reduce the quality until you get your file under that. Also, you can use ordinary formatting in your doc, and let Literotica's preprocessor do the rest. It will preseve simple formatting, including bold and italic text.


As to your third item, I'm using https://forum.literotica.com/forums/the-visual-artists-corner.50/ for that, because I did the illustrations myself. I guess the general board would also be ok for that.

Good luck!

Oh, and by the way, be patient, it can take a few weeks for your illustrated story to be published, presumably because it's less of an automatic process than non-illustrated. A new author's stories take even longer, My story took well over six weeks to be published.

NNG

Thank you, that’s valuable information.

I decided not to use the visual artists corner because my pics are not hand drawings but modified photos (taken by me) / modified AI images/collages of the two.

 

[feather1892]

Thread in question is here

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/images-to-accompany-my-stories.1580379/#post-96250840

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thank you, that’s valuable information.

I decided not to use the visual artists corner because my pics are not hand drawings but modified photos (taken by me) / modified AI images/collages of the two.

Something to be aware of: https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-ai

We are monitoring the various ethical concerns around AI tools (some of which we have been contacted about directly from members of the Literotica Community). We plan to continue closely watching the development of AI, along with the development of public policies around AI, before creating our own official policies

...

Literotica’s Publishing Guidelines are clear - you must certify that you are the author of AND you own the copyright to any work published on Literotica. While simple AI tools (spelling and grammar tools, for example) do not usually interfere with an author’s copyright, there are unanswered questions around copyright when using some of the latest AI technologies that generate large blocks of text. If there are any questions about copyright related to any work you’ve used AI tools to help you create, we ask that you research and be 100% sure you own the full rights to the work before attempting to publish the work on Literotica.

That policy focusses on text, since that's Literotica's main business. But the copyright questions mentioned there are equally relevant for all the popular image-generation tools which have been trained on other people's art without permission - both the question of whether they might infringe on other people's copyrights, and whether they are themselves protected by copyri8ght.

Currently the US Copyright Office's position seems to be that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted. That may change, but as it stands I don't see how any poster here could be "100% sure" that they own the copyright to work generated by an AI.

 

[feather1892]

Something to be aware of: https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-ai



That policy focusses on text, since that's Literotica's main business. But the copyright questions mentioned there are equally relevant for all the popular image-generation tools which have been trained on other people's art without permission - both the question of whether they might infringe on other people's copyrights, and whether they are themselves protected by copyri8ght.

Currently the US Copyright Office's position seems to be that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted. That may change, but as it stands I don't see how any poster here could be "100% sure" that they own the copyright to work generated by an AI.

Thanks

I only use AI generators to create, what are essentially, fake photographs of non-existent people. Those images are created by machine learning that has analysed a huge number of online photographs. I then take the fake photo, edit it, use filters, sometimes mix with real photos before further editing etc to create final image. As such I’m cannot, as far as I can be aware, be said to be using existing artworks.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks

I only use AI generators to create, what are essentially, fake photographs of non-existent people. Those images are created by machine learning that has analysed a huge number of online photographs. I then take the fake photo, edit it, use filters, sometimes mix with real photos before further editing etc to create final image. As such I’m cannot, as far as I can be aware, be said to be using existing artworks.

Those "online photographs" and "real photos" that you're using to create images are "existing artworks". So, yes, you are using existing artworks.

There are two distinct but related issues here.

The first is whether the way you're using those artworks violates their copyright - many of the images used to train these generators are under copyright (including photos) and have not been licensed for such use. As far as I know, no court has yet tested whether running them through a ML system is transformative enough to make it legal, so that's currently a gigantic grey area. (I'm not a copyright lawyer, but I think concepts of "tranformative use" generally require human creativity, which wouldn't apply to the part done by the AI.)

If you're splicing it with real photos after the AI process, that probably greatly increases the risk of violating copyright, unless you have the rights to use those photos, since there's more likelihood of identifying individual photos and less transformation involved.

Even if your generator is only trained on public-domain images (most of them aren't that fastidious), the second question is whether you own the copyright to what it creates. As per above links, the US Copyright Office's position is that prompting an AI does not qualify for copyright protection, so it's quite possible that nobody owns a copyright to the work.

These issues have not been well tested in court, and where complicated tech meets vaguely-defined law just about anything is possible. But as things stand, I don't see how anybody using AI-generated images could be "100% sure" that they own the full rights, which is what Literotica requires.

Going to tag @Laurel and @Manu in here to see if they're able to clarify how the policy applies to AI-generated images.

 

[feather1892]

Those "online photographs" and "real photos" that you're using to create images are "existing artworks". So, yes, you are using existing artworks.

There are two distinct but related issues here.

The first is whether the way you're using those artworks violates their copyright - many of the images used to train these generators are under copyright (including photos) and have not been licensed for such use. As far as I know, no court has yet tested whether running them through a ML system is transformative enough to make it legal, so that's currently a gigantic grey area. (I'm not a copyright lawyer, but I think concepts of "tranformative use" generally require human creativity, which wouldn't apply to the part done by the AI.)

If you're splicing it with real photos after the AI process, that probably greatly increases the risk of violating copyright, unless you have the rights to use those photos, since there's more likelihood of identifying individual photos and less transformation involved.

Even if your generator is only trained on public-domain images (most of them aren't that fastidious), the second question is whether you own the copyright to what it creates. As per above links, the US Copyright Office's position is that prompting an AI does not qualify for copyright protection, so it's quite possible that nobody owns a copyright to the work.

These issues have not been well tested in court, and where complicated tech meets vaguely-defined law just about anything is possible. But as things stand, I don't see how anybody using AI-generated images could be "100% sure" that they own the full rights, which is what Literotica requires.

Going to tag @Laurel and @Manu in here to see if they're able to clarify how the policy applies to AI-generated images.

To be clear, the real photos are all taken by me and the only person who appears in them is me

 

[Bramblethorn]

To be clear, the real photos are all taken by me and the only person who appears in them is me

Ah right. In that case, those don't create an issue, but there's still the question of the ones used to train the AI.

 

[nice90sguy]

While twiddling my thumbs over the last four (!) weeks waiting for an illustrated story to get posted, I've been reading a few others. I noticed that some of them have very few pics. One really popular and high-rated one (not my style of writing at all, all big cocks and porn babes), is over 30,000 words long, and has a SINGLE photo, supposedly of the female protagonist. I spend a really long time on my illustrations, and try to add as many as I can.

It occurred to me that I don't really know what readers are looking for with illustrated stories. It seems as though the illustrations themselves aren't the key attraction, which kind of surprises me.

Any words of wisdom on this?

 

[Bramblethorn]

While twiddling my thumbs over the last four (!) weeks waiting for an illustrated story to get posted, I've been reading a few others. I noticed that some of them have very few pics. One really popular and high-rated one (not my style of writing at all, all big cocks and porn babes), is over 30,000 words long, and has a SINGLE photo, supposedly of the female protagonist. I spend a really long time on my illustrations, and try to add as many as I can.

It occurred to me that I don't really know what readers are looking for with illustrated stories. It seems as though the illustrations themselves aren't the key attraction, which kind of surprises me.

Any words of wisdom on this?

I wonder how much of that has to do with the restrictions on images in that category. Compared to what's in the text, the kinds of photos people can post to Illustrated are pretty tame.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It occurred to me that I don't really know what readers are looking for with illustrated stories. It seems as though the illustrations themselves aren't the key attraction, which kind of surprises me.

Any words of wisdom on this?

Unless illustrations are the point of the story, I don't see the point of only having one or two (often poorly drawn computer renders, which look dodgy at the best of times). Besides, what are the chances of the author's visual taste being the same as readers? Pretty low, I'd have thought.

It's better, I think, to submit the artwork separately, and link the story text to it - unless, as I say, the illustrations are central to the idea.

 

[slapper01]

I have looked through this thread and several similar threads but have been unable to find an answer so apologies if this has already been answered elsewhere. I have posted a number of chapters in illustrated stories without any problem. Suddenly the latest chapter has been published with all of the photos removed. The file was well within the limits of 2MB and the story was not sent back by the moderator. First question: why has this happened? Second question: how can i correct it? Third question: if it cannot be corrected how do I delete the chapter and re-submit it? Thanks

PS I did receive a comment from an anonymous user about using a link for large files but it is a risky process to click on links from unknown sources and don't want to risk infection by malware. I am right in thinking that moderators would not communicate as an anonymous user?

 

[EbonyKat]

I have looked through this thread and several similar threads but have been unable to find an answer so apologies if this has already been answered elsewhere. I have posted a number of chapters in illustrated stories without any problem. Suddenly the latest chapter has been published with all of the photos removed. The file was well within the limits of 2MB and the story was not sent back by the moderator. First question: why has this happened? Second question: how can i correct it? Third question: if it cannot be corrected how do I delete the chapter and re-submit it? Thanks

PS I did receive a comment from an anonymous user about using a link for large files but it is a risky process to click on links from unknown sources and don't want to risk infection by malware. I am right in thinking that moderators would not communicate as an anonymous user?

I had something similar to this, but it was my first story and I happened to choose a hard "category" to submit with having photos in it. Ugh. I submitted a Word doc which included place holders where my photos were supposed to go inside and I sent a separate email to Literotica with my photos and the corresponding tags where they were supposed to be inserted.

I thought that when both were submitted and waiting almost a whole month, I was supposed to publish the story and then the editors would combine the two before the story made it to where the readers could see it. However, when it was published I had no photos anywhere. It only had my placeholders.

I was able to fix it by writing the editors and they added the photos later. Perhaps this is what happened in your case? I think I was just supposed to wait for the editors to add the right links to the photos in my draft before it was published. I am using the web interface for my next story instead of a Word doc to hopefully make it easier this time. My assumption is that if I give them the title of the draft story they can insert the photo links (emailed separately) inside it before I press the publish button.

I was going to write the editors on the procedure, but if any writer knows the method I would love to know.

Katy

 

[heteroD]

Hi, All.

In my 3D illustrations created in DAZ3D, there is a fictional character who is a child. His presence is strictly necessary for the plot. All illustrations in which this child appears do not contain any erotic content. All characters are fully clothed.

However, the "FAQ/Illustration Works/Illustrated Story Guidelines" state that "All persons in any image or artwork must be over 18 years of age."

Does this mean that I can't publish this my story on Literotica?

 

[onehitwanda]

However, the "FAQ/Illustration Works/Illustrated Story Guidelines" state that "All persons in any image or artwork must be over 18 years of age."

Does this mean that I can't publish this my story on Literotica?

Not with a underage character appearing in an image, I'd imagine. No matter how innocuous.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Hi, All.

In my 3D illustrations created in DAZ3D, there is a fictional character who is a child. His presence is strictly necessary for the plot. All illustrations in which this child appears do not contain any erotic content. All characters are fully clothed.

However, the "FAQ/Illustration Works/Illustrated Story Guidelines" state that "All persons in any image or artwork must be over 18 years of age."

Does this mean that I can't publish this my story on Literotica?

Looks that way if you think the child's image is truly essential to the story.

This being an adult erotica site, I'd have to question the need, though - does the story really really need the picture? I doubt it. Cut the kid from the file, publish the story here. Leave the kid in the image and you're hard up against the site's image policy.

 

[heteroD]

This being an adult erotica site, I'd have to question the need, though - does the story really really need the picture? I doubt it. Cut the kid from the file, publish the story here. Leave the kid in the image and you're hard up against the site's image policy.

I will not argue about the appropriateness of the rules. I'm just seeking clarification if this rule applies to my case.

Okay. I will cover the images of the child in the illustrations with a box containing text explaining that the image has been removed due to Literotica's rules.

 

[alohadave]

Okay. I will cover the images of the child in the illustrations with a box containing text explaining that the image has been removed due to Literotica's rules.

Please tell us how that works out. I always like to see what happens when people poke the bear.

 

[onehitwanda]

Please tell us how that works out. I always like to see what happens when people poke the bear.

They barely survive?

Sorry

 

[ElectricBlue]

I will not argue about the appropriateness of the rules. I'm just seeking clarification if this rule applies to my case.

Okay. I will cover the images of the child in the illustrations with a box containing text explaining that the image has been removed due to Literotica's rules.

That would immediately suggest the underlying image is pornographic, which would do you and your story no favours, and could well result in rejection. You'd be better off, I think, to remove the image completely.

 

[dmallord]

I have not posted anything in Illustrated Stories yet. I just finished a 15K story with some AI images and have a few formatting questions for the seasoned writers.

1. My MS Word document is formatted to wrap text around jpeg images. Will Lit handle that feature? Will the text just get pasted above and below the text, as I see in some stories I looked up on Lit?
2. Previously in standard story submissions, I have used italics, bold, and center to format my story titles, dates, and headings. Do those still hold in the Illustrated stories?
3. Does full justification of text work in Lit? I like that look for this story. The first page had the look of a published book cover - maybe -
4. I don't have a background in image creation to know how large they are and if the story will be too large to be uploaded. I work on a Mac with MS Word. I sized most of the jpegs to be about 4" tall by 2.7" inches wide. That's almost half an MS page width with room on the sides for text.
5. The story at this point is 47 MS Word pages. Did I kill my ability to do an illustrated story with that size? The doc is 17.4MB
6. I tried to upload an MS Word copy of the Title Page so you can look over my concern. I cannot attach that file. I clicked the paper clip but could not select the file I created in Word. I turned it into a jpeg, 578K, and tried to use the insert image button above, but that didn't work either.
7. Should I send the MS Word doc to post as is and see how it comes out?
8. I could send a document via email if anyone would like to take a look at it - I check the forum almost daily, so I would see a conversation if you tag me under 'dmallord' as my username if you have the time.

Thanks in advance for any assistance on this. I am working on the story for the Ode to Mike Hammer 2023 event.

 

[HeyAll]

I have not posted anything in Illustrated Stories yet. I just finished a 15K story with some AI images and have a few formatting questions for the seasoned writers.

1. My MS Word document is formatted to wrap text around jpeg images. Will Lit handle that feature? Will the text just get pasted above and below the text, as I see in some stories I looked up on Lit?
2. Previously in standard story submissions, I have used italics, bold, and center to format my story titles, dates, and headings. Do those still hold in the Illustrated stories?
3. Does full justification of text work in Lit? I like that look for this story. The first page had the look of a published book cover - maybe -
4. I don't have a background in image creation to know how large they are and if the story will be too large to be uploaded. I work on a Mac with MS Word. I sized most of the jpegs to be about 4" tall by 2.7" inches wide. That's almost half an MS page width with room on the sides for text.
5. The story at this point is 47 MS Word pages. Did I kill my ability to do an illustrated story with that size? The doc is 17.4MB
6. I tried to upload an MS Word copy of the Title Page so you can look over my concern. I cannot attach that file. I clicked the paper clip but could not select the file I created in Word. I turned it into a jpeg, 578K, and tried to use the insert image button above, but that didn't work either.
7. Should I send the MS Word doc to post as is and see how it comes out?
8. I could send a document via email if anyone would like to take a look at it - I check the forum almost daily, so I would see a conversation if you tag me under 'dmallord' as my username if you have the time.

Thanks in advance for any assistance on this. I am working on the story for the Ode to Mike Hammer 2023 event.

I can't speak to all your questions, but:

1) Submit the story with Word with the images copy/pasted onto it. A simple copy/paste is all you need. Don't know about the technical stuff.

2) Bold and italics works just fine on the finished product that's posted, but some some reason, I'm unable to center any of the headings.

3) Upload the story with this, using Word. If you try to upload directly to Lit, it won't allow big files.

https://litupload.wetransfer.com/

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have not posted anything in Illustrated Stories yet. I just finished a 15K story with some AI images and have a few formatting questions for the seasoned writers.

1. My MS Word document is formatted to wrap text around jpeg images. Will Lit handle that feature? Will the text just get pasted above and below the text, as I see in some stories I looked up on Lit?
2. Previously in standard story submissions, I have used italics, bold, and center to format my story titles, dates, and headings. Do those still hold in the Illustrated stories?
3. Does full justification of text work in Lit? I like that look for this story. The first page had the look of a published book cover - maybe -
4. I don't have a background in image creation to know how large they are and if the story will be too large to be uploaded. I work on a Mac with MS Word. I sized most of the jpegs to be about 4" tall by 2.7" inches wide. That's almost half an MS page width with room on the sides for text.
5. The story at this point is 47 MS Word pages. Did I kill my ability to do an illustrated story with that size? The doc is 17.4MB
6. I tried to upload an MS Word copy of the Title Page so you can look over my concern. I cannot attach that file. I clicked the paper clip but could not select the file I created in Word. I turned it into a jpeg, 578K, and tried to use the insert image button above, but that didn't work either.
7. Should I send the MS Word doc to post as is and see how it comes out?
8. I could send a document via email if anyone would like to take a look at it - I check the forum almost daily, so I would see a conversation if you tag me under 'dmallord' as my username if you have the time.

Thanks in advance for any assistance on this. I am working on the story for the Ode to Mike Hammer 2023 event.

Have you scrutinized the Illustrated Stories FAQ?

My quick look showed you need to submit pics with dimensions defined by pixels, for starters.

My guess is the text formatting constraints are the same as other categories - left justified, right ragged, same constraints for html (italics,bold, underline). I have no idea about text wrapping around the images, but remember, Lit's presentation format is not Word standard page or print book oriented, so it won't be WYSIWYG.

 

[dmallord]

Have you scrutinized the Illustrated Stories FAQ?

My quick look showed you need to submit pics with dimensions defined by pixels, for starters.

My guess is the text formatting constraints are the same as other categories - left justified, right ragged, same constraints for html (italics,bold, underline). I have no idea about text wrapping around the images, but remember, Lit's presentation format is not Word standard page or print book oriented, so it won't be WYSIWYG.

Thanks for this particular link. I saw a similar one to this and another link for AI. The one you provided also has a small window off to the side for FAQ. That sub-link(?) provides the details for most of my questions.

Formatting Literotica Text Information

WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get - That isn't good news for my 'Look' of the story using the Word format features. That's disheartening - but not catastrophically so.

From the article, the images I inserted seem to okay, even though they may be over-pixel-sized. Lit will reduce them to fit, if possible. Not sure how much work goes into that since the document is in MS Word already sized for that screen image.

The above link shows HTML codes that are supported. They are new to me, different from what I found in articles by other writers written a couple of years ago. However, the article says Lit supports the legacy codes while the new codes are preferred.

What I found out, with your assistance: Stories with Illustrations, Illustrations, and regular text stories have the same formatting guidelines.

• Lit does not support: full-text justification, size, color, font selections except italics, HTML codes are stripped.
• Given this bare-bones support, I infer that it does not wrap text around the pictures (jpeg images) although that is not addressed in the link.
• Underline -yes
• Bold - yes (uses the word strong)
• Line Breaks (Horizontal Line) - yes
• Strikethrough - yes
• Justify right - yes
• Italics - yes

So the 'pretty cover page' I spent time getting to look like a book cover is out the window.

I appreciate your time and help. Dmallord