Stuck in pending hell

[KeithD]

I know this has been posted on a lot but I‘ve followed all the advice I’ve found and I was hoping for a fresh take.

I submitted a story exactly a month ago, four chapters at about 10,000 words each. After a full month they’re still stuck in pending.

after two weeks I tried to contact Laurel through the literotica account. No reply

last week I tried sending her a dm through the forums. I haven’t heard back.

is there anything else I can do?

Just noting sympathy and that this is the case far too much for the communications problems being wholly the problem of the wish-to-be author here. Once you are established as a regular author, posting times will regularize much better. There's that hope to offer.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Edited stories take about a week or more to be posted.

More like four or even five weeks now!

 

[MrPixel]

...is the site going through a content freeze?

Nope. Like Emily, I had a story go live Saturday, maybe 26 hours from upload to "NEW" status. Lightning fast.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I know this has been posted on a lot but I‘ve followed all the advice I’ve found and I was hoping for a fresh take.

I submitted a story exactly a month ago, four chapters at about 10,000 words each. After a full month they’re still stuck in pending.

after two weeks I tried to contact Laurel through the literotica account. No reply

last week I tried sending her a dm through the forums. I haven’t heard back.

is there anything else I can do?

If it's your first submission, and it's about 40,000 words, that is pretty ambitious. Usually, submitting one chapter a week is a better idea.

No one knows what goes on behind the scenes here. Laurel seems to have automated some of the process with bots, but the site is also a bit erratic in general. How many contests are going on? And she has not been responding much to messages, it seems.

If it's in pending, it will probably move through sooner or later. They don't just forget about these things.

"Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again."

 

[ElectricBlue]

I swear once I figure out how to fix this I'll never try to move things around again.

That's the key. Get it right the first time, and none of this happens. It's a self-inflicted injury .

 

[Katie_Mae]

That's the key. Get it right the first time, and none of this happens. It's a self-inflicted injury .

To be fair, I didn't "get it wrong," I was just moving things round to suit the preferences of my readers. I'd rather things just go back to what they were than what I have now. I had no idea the notes to admin field wouldn't be read.

 

[ElectricBlue]

To be fair, I didn't "get it wrong," I was just moving things round to suit the preferences of my readers. I'd rather things just go back to what they were than what I have now. I had no idea the notes to admin field wouldn't be read.

Aren't you the author? That's the first time I've seen readers dictate what to do. That's an odd thing to do.

 

[Katie_Mae]

Aren't you the author? That's the first time I've seen readers dictate what to do. That's an odd thing to

I never said they dictated anything. I said they expressed a preference. As it was about something that didn't matter to me I was happy to oblige.

 

[RejectReality]

To be fair, I didn't "get it wrong," I was just moving things round to suit the preferences of my readers. I'd rather things just go back to what they were than what I have now. I had no idea the notes to admin field wouldn't be read.

Did you submit the full, new text as you wanted it to appear, or did you only submit portions + instructions? It sort of sounds like the latter, but I'm surprised Laurel entertained it at all if that's the case. Editing story text is supposed to be a direct replacement of the full text. What you send in is supposed to replace what's already there.

Also: Has it been at least 24 and as much as 48 hours since the edit was processed? The changes don't appear immediately, and each page of the story/chapter has its own cache, so page 1 may be updated to the new text while page 2 hasn't updated yet. If you were shuffling stuff around within the story/chapter, that may be the cause of the repetition. If so, it should resolve itself within a few hours.

 

[Katie_Mae]

Did you submit the full, new text as you wanted it to appear, or did you only submit portions + instructions? It sort of sounds like the latter, but I'm surprised Laurel entertained it at all if that's the case. Editing story text is supposed to be a direct replacement of the full text. What you send in is supposed to replace what's already there.

Also: Has it been at least 24 and as much as 48 hours since the edit was processed? The changes don't appear immediately, and each page of the story/chapter has its own cache, so page 1 may be updated to the new text while page 2 hasn't updated yet. If you were shuffling stuff around within the story/chapter, that may be the cause of the repetition. If so, it should resolve itself within a few hours.

I submitted the full text as I wanted it to appear, plus instructions. The issue is the instructions weren't read/followed, and that will cause further issues when my other edits I submitted go through.

If the edits couldn't be done then I would have been fine with Laurel refusing them, or if there was something else I had to do in order to get what I needed to do then I would have been happy to do it if I was told. But I literally just did what other people on the forums had said they had done in the same circumstances.

Edit was processed last week, I think it was about six days ago it was processed and it was over four days ago I messaged Laurel asking how to fix it.

I was going to post a thread on the forums asking how to fix it, but really don't want to bombarded with snide comments saying I should have got it right the first time or whatever.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I was going to post a thread on the forums asking how to fix it, but really don't want to bombarded with snide comments saying I should have got it right the first time or whatever.

I thought smiling emoji was short-hand for light hearted comment. Perhaps not.

If you had complex instructions, it wasn't a routine edit. Perhaps your intent wasn't crystal clear?

 

[RejectReality]

I submitted the full text as I wanted it to appear, plus instructions. The issue is the instructions weren't read/followed, and that will cause further issues when my other edits I submitted go through.

If the edits couldn't be done then I would have been fine with Laurel refusing them, or if there was something else I had to do in order to get what I needed to do then I would have been happy to do it if I was told. But I literally just did what other people on the forums had said they had done in the same circumstances.

Edit was processed last week, I think it was about six days ago it was processed and it was over four days ago I messaged Laurel asking how to fix it.

I was going to post a thread on the forums asking how to fix it, but really don't want to bombarded with snide comments saying I should have got it right the first time or whatever.

So, do the changes you're trying to make involve moving sections from one submission to another? You're pulling a scene from chapter 4 and putting it in chapter 2 instead, for example? So now the chapter 2 edit has processed, but chapter 4 is still the original, so you have a repeated scene?

Were the special instructions to have all the edits process at the same time so that didn't happen? Not unreasonable I suppose, but still a big ask. If still unprocessed edits will correct the repeated text, it's just a matter of waiting for them to go through.

If you were asking for Scene XX to be removed from Chapter 4 in the instructions of the Chapter 2 edit without submitting an edit for Chapter 4, that's a huge ask. The solution there is to submit an edit of Chapter 4 with the full new text that doesn't include the repeated scene, rather than asking Laurel to edit the existing submission in the database. That's something that's likely outside the scope of the tools she's using, and would require direct database editing.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Jesus Christ, I don't mean to be alarmist, but is the site going through a content freeze?

No. My latest chapter went up in a day, two days ago.

 

[KachinaDoll]

My last edit took so long I stopped checking. I've no longer got anything pending so I guess it went through. Probably about four weeks.

 

[Anton25]

OMG...next time...divide up into parts..?

Just noting sympathy and that this is the case far too much for the communications problems being wholly the problem of the wish-to-be author here. Once you are established as a regular author, posting times will regularize much better. There's that hope to offer.

 

[KeithD]

OMG...next time...divide up into parts..?

??? The OP did submit it in parts. And, beyond that, I have idea how this comment relates to my quoted post.

 

[Anton25]

??? The OP did submit it in parts. And, beyond that, I have idea how this comment relates to my quoted post.

Ok.. good luck

 

[KeithD]

Ok.. good luck

Good luck with what? I don't understand what you are posting to.

 

[MillieDynamite]

The confusion is entirely confusing. As in, I also haven't any idea what Anton is talking about either.

 

[Djmac1031]

If it helps; I submitted an edit to an already published story weeks ago, because I'm also publishing a prequel and needed to tweak the original a bit.

It's been sitting in Pending Limbo as well.

It's the nature of the beast here; edits get very low priority.

Just gotta ride it out.

 

[Bad_Kitty3000]

I’m with you! I am a new writer so I know that takes longer. But I submitted almost a month ago and still nothing. It’s a short story only 6k words I think. Anyway, I’ve done all the things you mentioned as well with no results. But nice to know there are others in the same boat!

 

[BobbyLaker]

Edited stories take about a week or more to be posted.

A minimal edit of mine has just taken a fair few weeks to be processed.

Lile @Djmac1031 said, you've just got to hang on in there...

 

[Britva415]

That's the first time I've seen readers dictate what to do. That's an odd thing to do.

They sure do try, though, don't they.

 

[testudo]

Just as a postscript: new chapter of my story drops tomorrow. Thanks for all the advice I got in this thread. It was a big help.