The co-author gets screwed

[Actingup]

So... I've gotten lucky and co-written a few stories with @PennyThompson (who is a joy to work with but I'm not here to talk about how awesome she is!). We've published two stories on my account, and one on hers. In doing that, we've obviously had to confront the frustration that the system is set up for individual authors. There is no 'I collaborated' option for you or your readers: you basically have to point to your co-author in the story intro and in comments. This is quite unlike the (for example) academic system where you can see everything that you've been involved in, and you can also explore the full range of somebody's collaborations.

What's really hit me this week is how much the reader responses are also institutionalised in this way. Our most recent story has done really well in terms of engagement (lucky us, yes, but that's not the point of the post either), but it also lets us see the extent of the skewness towards the author who has posted the story. I've picked up around 78 followers so far from the story and many of those are now reading through some of my other stories, but Penny's picked up bugger all, despite us making it as clear as possible that it's a joint effort. And despite me mentioning the wonderful fucking essay from @THBGato 'Why You Should Read Penny Thompson' in a comment and having a pop-up link to her profile at the start of the story.

Worse is that quite a few of the comments made on the story are addressed to me only as though there was only one author. Now, that might partly because the story is posted in Loving Wives and some of the readers don't know how to talk to or acknowledge women, but that's not the overall vibe. The feeling that I get is mostly just that many readers are conditioned to think about single authors, no matter what they're told.

Obviously it would be great to change the infrastructure to support multi-author pieces better, but that's not going to happen. The only way that I can think of to deal with the problem is to keep making sure that the stories are fairly shared between the collaborating accounts on a quid pro quo basis, which is a patchy work-around when the stories can be hit or miss with audiences. I don't know if anybody else has any other suggestions? It sucks that somebody can put such effort into a co-write and get far less benefit when it's not published on their account. (To be clear, Penny hasn't complained - this is me whining, not her!).

 

[AwkwardMD]

Collaborative accounts, if working together seems likely to continue.

EDIT: @Omenainen and I both have the login info to access it for submissions or whatnot, and we both agreed not to use the forum side from that account so as not to let anyone get confused about which one of us is having an opinion about something.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Yes, very much. And collaborative accounts have the problem of... maybe not actually benefiting either of you, really, while also not taking advantage of any of the reach you've created on your own. Co-authors also can't co-promote pieces -- Penny's followers won't have any idea that she's written a new story unless they're also following you. At best, they get the notification that she's updated her bio, check the bio, navigate to your bio and find the story that way.

It's just a big hole in the site. The chain stories category exists, but isn't useful for this situation (and really probably isn't useful anyway). There's also the Author Chain Stories section, which is different and as far as I can tell deader than Jon-Erik Hexum, who is the first person who comes up when I Google "guy who is famous for being dead."

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yes, very much. And collaborative accounts have the problem of... maybe not actually benefiting either of you, really, while also not taking advantage of any of the reach you've created on your own. Co-authors also can't co-promote pieces -- Penny's followers won't have any idea that she's written a new story unless they're also following you. At best, they get the notification that she's updated her bio, check the bio, navigate to your bio and find the story that way.

It's just a big hole in the site. The chain stories category exists, but isn't useful for this situation (and really probably isn't useful anyway). There's also the Author Chain Stories section, which is different and as far as I can tell deader than Jon-Erik Hexum, who is the first person who comes up when I Google "guy who is famous for being dead."

Respectfully, hard disagree. We see overlap from readers leaving comments and favorites on one of our accounts, then moving to the collaborative, and then the other. It's not a perfect system, but we've found it accommodating enough to recommend it heartily and often.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Respectfully, hard disagree. We see overlap from readers leaving comments and favorites on one of our accounts, then moving to the collaborative, and then the other. It's not a perfect system, but we've found it accommodating enough to recommend it heartily and often.

Very good to hear, and I'm glad it works for you. I can't imagine it'd be as effective as a system where you could just have two authors tagged on one story, though.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Very good to hear, and I'm glad it works for you. I can't imagine it'd be as effective as a system where you could just have two authors tagged on one story, though.

The system you're talking about is something I've seen implemented once, ever, at Youtube in the year of our Lord 2025. They just started allowing collaborative submissions extremely recently (I wanna say in the last month), and Youtube is a site that has been redesigning itself and adding features the entire time.

I would not hold my breath waiting for this here.

EDIT: You're right, though. 100% correct.

 

[YmaOHyd]

The system you're talking about is something I've seen implemented once, ever, at Youtube in the year of our Lord 2025. They just started allowing collaborative submissions extremely recently (I wanna say in the last month), and Youtube is a site that has been redesigning itself and adding features the entire time.

I would not hold my breath waiting for this here.

Twitter had it for a while; it was one of the features that died during the extended Elon takeover. Instagram has collaborative posting as well. One author creates the post and it appears on the feeds of up to five co-authors. They've had it for a year or more. Twitch has co-streaming, though live video is a different animal.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for anything.

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

Archive Of Our Own has co-creators, and has for a very long time. (guy who only talks about AO3)

 

[dirk2024]

Collaborative accounts, if working together seems likely to continue.

EDIT: @Omenainen and I both have the login info to access it for submissions or whatnot, and we both agreed not to use the forum side from that account so as not to let anyone get confused about which one of us is having an opinion about something.

Looks like you two are due for another collaboration. Perhaps Ch6 of How we Changed the World?

 

[EmilyMiller]

So... I've gotten lucky and co-written a few stories with @PennyThompson (who is a joy to work with but I'm not here to talk about how awesome she is!). We've published two stories on my account, and one on hers. In doing that, we've obviously had to confront the frustration that the system is set up for individual authors. There is no 'I collaborated' option for you or your readers: you basically have to point to your co-author in the story intro and in comments. This is quite unlike the (for example) academic system where you can see everything that you've been involved in, and you can also explore the full range of somebody's collaborations.

What's really hit me this week is how much the reader responses are also institutionalised in this way. Our most recent story has done really well in terms of engagement (lucky us, yes, but that's not the point of the post either), but it also lets us see the extent of the skewness towards the author who has posted the story. I've picked up around 78 followers so far from the story and many of those are now reading through some of my other stories, but Penny's picked up bugger all, despite us making it as clear as possible that it's a joint effort. And despite me mentioning the wonderful fucking essay from @THBGato 'Why You Should Read Penny Thompson' in a comment and having a pop-up link to her profile at the start of the story.

Worse is that quite a few of the comments made on the story are addressed to me only as though there was only one author. Now, that might partly because the story is posted in Loving Wives and some of the readers don't know how to talk to or acknowledge women, but that's not the overall vibe. The feeling that I get is mostly just that many readers are conditioned to think about single authors, no matter what they're told.

Obviously it would be great to change the infrastructure to support multi-author pieces better, but that's not going to happen. The only way that I can think of to deal with the problem is to keep making sure that the stories are fairly shared between the collaborating accounts on a quid pro quo basis, which is a patchy work-around when the stories can be hit or miss with audiences. I don't know if anybody else has any other suggestions? It sucks that somebody can put such effort into a co-write and get far less benefit when it's not published on their account. (To be clear, Penny hasn't complained - this is me whining, not her!).

Lit is not a fair place. Most people say “it is what it is,” and just ignore the issues.

FWIW - having coauthored with @Djmac1031 four times and @PennyThompson once - this is another area in which the site is not attuned to authors.

I feel your frustration.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Looks like you two are due for another collaboration. Perhaps Ch6 of How we Changed the World?

I'm always a little flattened whenever it comes up where others have read ours (or my) work. Thank you for that.

Changes (our internal name for it) is unlikely to get a sequel. We were working on a story in a cyberpunk setting for a while, but that idea seems unlikely to get finished. Who knows?

EDIT: Between re-opening our review thread, the upcoming Pink Orchid for 2026, beta reading requests related to Pink Orchid, and our own writing projects, it's probably not likely to happen soon, but sometimes the right idea comes along and you just have to run with it.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

YouTube just recently added the ability to have multiple accounts listed as authoring a video, FWIW.

--Annie

 

[Djmac1031]

Lit is not a fair place. Most power say “it is what it is,” and just ignore the issues.

FWIW - having coauthored with @Djmac1031 four times and @PennyThompson once - Thai is another area on which the site is not attuned to authors.

I feel your frustration.

Its funny because I never really thought much about it until this came up really.

I guess for me, personally, its just not that big a deal. To me our collaborations felt more like your stories that I just added parts to anyway.

She Wrote / He Wrote is the only one of the four I published. But I'm pretty sure the ones published on your account have sent a few readers my way at least. But I never stopped and counted or anything.

I wonder if LE would allow BOTH authors to publish the same story as co-writers?

In other words, @Actingup and @PennyThompson both publish the story with a forward acknowledging their writing partner? Curious...

If not, the only "fair" way would be to alternate who gets to publish the next collaboration.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I wonder if LE would allow BOTH authors to publish the same story as co-writers?

In other words, @Actingup and @PennyThompson both publish the story with a forward acknowledging their writing partner? Curious...

The only issue with that is that it's mostly more fair to Penny and Acting, but it causes problems for everyone else.

1. The views, comments and ratings are split between two stories. Better for one author, I guess, but maybe less good for the other? How do you tell what's a real view and what's not?
2. With two entries on New, someone who should be getting 24 hours of high visibility isn't. It'd be deflating views for another author.
3. What if it's a contest? What if Penny's version is rated 4.4 and Acting's is 4.8 and wins? How does that get adjudicated? Do you average the ratings? Weighted average?

There's a bunch of ways to solve these issues, of course, but it feels like maybe they're harder to figure out than doing co-permissions and having the story entry link to both people.

 

[Bamagan]

I think, from a technical standpoint, it would not be too challenging to put a collaborative option into play utilizing the existing system for tags. One author submits the story and can list up to ten co-authors (or a lower limit like four, but since the tags limit is ten I expect that's the easiest to work with). Anyone with a co-author credit would have the story card show up on their list of works and their followers would be notified. The story would appear only once on the hubs, and any votes favorites, comments, and so forth would create notifications for each co-author (assuming they get the notifications working properly again). If the story wins a prize, the co-authors have to choose weapons and an arena for a battle royale to claim the spoils.

But yeah, even if it actually would be relatively easy to implement, it doesn't seem like there are very many authors who would utilize it, so it might be work wasted when they could be adding or fixing things that affect many more users. That being said, if there was an easy co-authoring ability, that might encourage more people to collaborate. It could probably become as popular as Story Games, and almost certainly more active than Chain Stories.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I can understand the frustration, but how many people is this actually a problem for? I suspect the number of collabs is a fraction of a percent of the total number of stories published. I did a collaboration recently, and it went well enough to consider doing it again, so I do have skin in the game so to speak. I just can't see it as being with the sites time to make that kind of change to support such a small number of people.

 

[TheLobster]

I can understand the frustration, but how many people is this actually a problem for? I suspect the number of collabs is a fraction of a percent of the total number of stories published.

From what I can tell, a relatively small fraction of people here in the AH do collabs, and those in turn are a tiny fraction of authors overall. So yes, it's definitely not worth it to retroactively bolt on the multi-authorship feature.

And it would be a bolt-on. If the site and its database was designed with the single author assumption in mind, it would take an inordinate amount of work to support multiple. In terms of scope and labor, it's probably only a bit below a complete overhaul of category and tag systems, which we all know won't happen while Lit's staff can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

 

[PennyThompson]

I don't have enough knowledge of how content management databases work to say how easy or hard it would be to allow cross-listing of a story between two authors, and I do understand that not many authors on Lit ever collaborate in that way.

I'll just say that with or without structural support for co-authoring or collaboration, it's a wonderfully fun and fulfilling experience if you find someone that you gel with, and I highly recommend that everyone try it at least once.

Working together in a Google doc, watching a story develop and grow, adding parts and tweaking them, debating and working towards consensus on plot points, getting to the point where your words start to merge and synthesize until you can't remember who wrote a passage, you just know that you're proud of it? It feels like magic!

 

[THBGato]

I've picked up around 78 followers so far from the story and many of those are now reading through some of my other stories, but Penny's picked up bugger all, despite us making it as clear as possible that it's a joint effort.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that I wish more people were reading Penny! However, are there other factors?

You have published several other Loving Wives stories; Penny hasn't. (In fact, the inclusivity of Penny's stories would, I imagine, be an anthema to many LW readers.) So if I was a LW reader, it would make sense for me to follow you: you've a back catalogue to explore, and you may well publish more. There's no reason for me to follow Penny in such a scenario.

By the same token, as much as I adored Crossing the Line by @SinclairGroupLLP I haven't followed them because that story seems to have been a one-off. It's on several lists though...

I've published a single EV story that's my fourth most viewed story. It got a decent number of votes and comments too. But I didn't get more than a handful of new followers from it or the trans story I published the next day. Why would I? I don't really have other stories that would interest EV and trans readers.

So maybe that's what's going on? Partly at least.

Finally, I'd like to draw all your attention to these two profiles:
https://www.literotica.com/authors/SiteNonSite/works/stories
https://www.literotica.com/authors/ButteredCrumpet/works/stories

Now, there are slightly extenuating circumstances there. But still...

 

[onehitwanda]

I don't have enough knowledge of how content management databases work to say how easy or hard it would be to allow cross-listing of a story between two authors, and I do understand that not many authors on Lit ever collaborate in that way.

In a normal system it's a medium sized change, with the capacity to free all sorts of gremlins and greeblings on the performance front.

I get the strong impression that there is no central design paradigm behind Lit, so a change like you've suggested would almost certainly be difficult and risky. The only way it would be easy would be if the capacity for multiple authors had been added from the very beginning, and then artificially limited to only one.

I sincerely doubt that was done though.

 

[Bazzle]

I helped co author a story with @AlinaX . It is a sci-fi fetish story. I published it because it was more more fetishy than sci-fi. We agreed if the story had turned out that it was more sci-fi she would have published it on her account.

Writing on this site there are so many decisions that if you make the wrong one, will scupper your story.

Who publishes a joint story is just another layer of decision complexity.

 

[Bamagan]

I helped co author a story with @AlinaX . It is a sci-fi fetish story. I published it because it was more more fetishy than sci-fi. We agreed if the story had turned out that it was more sci-fi she would have published it on her account.

Writing on this site there are so many decisions that if you make the wrong one, will scupper your story.

Who publishes a joint story is just another layer of decision complexity.

Does your smoking fetish extend to marijuana? If so, you should find someone up in this joint to write a joint joint story with.

 

[Bazzle]

Does your smoking fetish extend to marijuana? If so, you should find someone up in this joint to write a joint joint story with.

I don't tend to deal with that leaf

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It could probably become as popular as Story Games, and almost certainly more active than Chain Stories.

I assume you're talking about Lit's Story Games. I assure you they aren't very popular.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I don't have enough knowledge of how content management databases work to say how easy or hard it would be to allow cross-listing of a story between two authors, and I do understand that not many authors on Lit ever collaborate in that way.

I know databases, and I can tell you that this change would likely be hard to implement. I assume that the current relationship between the tables Authors and Stories is one to many, and changing it would require an additional table as a go-between, to store their primary keys. A change to the database this big would be a possible but a sizable undertaking.

Just so people don't think I'm going soft on Lit, much of the other stuff we asked for are simple frontend changes, way easier to implement. If they aren't ready to even acknowledge those things, I wouldn't hold my breath for this particular change.