The Official Authors' Hangout Valentine's Day 2021 Contest Support Thread

[SisterJezabel]

No change for me- I'm surprised at how steady mine is.

 

[sirhugs]

Mine barely moves. even the views are only increasing as if a tortoise was doing the counting.

 

[yukonnights]

No change for me- I'm surprised at how steady mine is.

Same here. The number of views/hits has slowly kept climbing but the rating is pretty static.

 

[Deleted member 5521640]

My story (and only one) went live this morning!

 

[Bh76]

Second story

I posted a second story. Probably a mistake, but I always wanted to write a story that featured rich people in a Dynasty or soap opera kind of way.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Looks like thirteen new stories have been added since yesterday.

 

[KeithD]

I posted a second story. Probably a mistake, but I always wanted to write a story that featured rich people in a Dynasty or soap opera kind of way.

I've never seen evidence of unfavorable response to posting more than one story to a contest. Swing free.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Looks like thirteen new stories have been added since yesterday.

Mine was one of them. It would originally have been posted yesterday but I found a a bad typo in the Summary and had to resubmit (that will teach me to copy and paste, like Laurel always warns in the contest rules, rather than retyping "just a few words" Ha ha). It's relatively long and complicated, so it's getting trashed in the score, with another 1 being added just a few minutes ago. The ones may get swept, but the lot of 4s won't, so it won't figure in the competition. The first comment won't help either, though it makes me wonder if the person who made it read the rest of the story after that point.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'm reading yours now and enjoying it.

Mine was almost 75K words, but if that's what it takes to tell the story, I don't sweat the score or the comments about the length.

 

[oggbashan]

I have just submitted my third.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I'm reading yours now and enjoying it.

Thank you! Please give a realistic score based on what you think it deserves and please let me know if you see issues where I might improve next time. Thanks!

Mine was almost 75K words, but if that's what it takes to tell the story, I don't sweat the score or the comments about the length.

I had a non-erotic story on another site a while back where I had a detailed outline over 14 or 15 chapters that I originally estimated at maybe 30K words. I quickly saw that was off and it ended up at over 60K when the story was told. Fortunately, it wasn't for a contest because the length limited my number of readers to about 1/3rd of those for the previous story (with almost identical good ratings). I'm going to try to remember that for the next contest to try to find the sweet spot in the 4 to 6 page range where my other stories have done reasonably well.

 

[SisterJezabel]

Mine was one of them. It would originally have been posted yesterday but I found a a bad typo in the Summary and had to resubmit (that will teach me to copy and paste, like Laurel always warns in the contest rules, rather than retyping "just a few words" Ha ha). It's relatively long and complicated, so it's getting trashed in the score, with another 1 being added just a few minutes ago. The ones may get swept, but the lot of 4s won't, so it won't figure in the competition. The first comment won't help either, though it makes me wonder if the person who made it read the rest of the story after that point.

It's open in a tab for me to get to reading!

I commented above that my score wasn't moving that much and people have taken that as a challenge to score poorly on it. Not exactly in freefall, but a .3 drop in a day or so with not that many new readers. All fun and games

 

[Kumquatqueen]

There's definitely been a sweep as I've lost a vote, but no-one's voted in the last two days. I got 1.9k readers the first day, similar the second, another few hundred on the third (when it stopped appearing on New BDSM Stories). Still getting a couple hundred a day as it's still showing up under 'More New BDSM stories'.

A nice bunch of comments so I'm happy.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Seventy-five stories as of this morning.

I am trying to read as many as I can, but I'll be honest, some are in categories that I have zero interest in, so I'll likely pass on those.

That's no reflection on the authors, just my personal tastes.

 

[YDB95]

I am trying to read as many as I can, but I'll be honest, some are in categories that I have zero interest in, so I'll likely pass on those.

I think most of us probably do that. I certainly do.

 

[Omenainen]

I've never managed to read all contest entries. Maybe I'll try that with the 750 word stories, at least they're short.

So far I think mine is the only masturbation story in this contest

 

[SisterJezabel]

Sipping my coffee and chuckling over my latest comment. Heaven forbid a woman who enjoys her sexuality should be portrayed in the romance category- it should be in EC where it belongs.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Sipping my coffee and chuckling over my latest comment. Heaven forbid a woman who enjoys her sexuality should be portrayed in the romance category- it should be in EC where it belongs.

Bloody hell, they'll HATE mine. I have two women having a ball. One each.

I just need to finish it, but I'm not going to sacrifice the story to meet a deadline. Not going to make that mistake again.

 

[PennameWombat]

Sipping my coffee and chuckling over my latest comment. Heaven forbid a woman who enjoys her sexuality should be portrayed in the romance category- it should be in EC where it belongs.

My one and only entry just published a couple of hours ago, or whenever exactly the update hit the wire. It’s in romance and... all of the women very much enjoy their sexuality.

I’m toast, I guess . So far no votes nor comments.

It does have a whole bunch of Cupids in it . Does that count for anything ? Multiple people find the loves of their lives. That count?

 

[RetroFan]

Mine went up today too, it is a first time story about a girl who stands 7'1'' and a guy who is 4'11'', set in 1977. At least its unusual.

 

[oggbashan]

My next two went up today:

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/beach-rescue
https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/dance-shambles

 

[Omenainen]

Sipping my coffee and chuckling over my latest comment. Heaven forbid a woman who enjoys her sexuality should be portrayed in the romance category- it should be in EC where it belongs.

I read that comment and wasn’t amused at all. It made me rather surly. I’m glad it wasn’t on my story, I probably couldn’t abstain answering something snappy.

Found another masturbation entry today! Hot one, too.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Sipping my coffee and chuckling over my latest comment. Heaven forbid a woman who enjoys her sexuality should be portrayed in the romance category- it should be in EC where it belongs.

Ah, that may explain what’s happening with my story. It’s in Romance, and it has the requisite HEA. The main character has some physical issues with sex (unpleasant sensitivity, yeast infections). In the HEA, however, she is able to enjoy sex and value her sexuality. I’ll decide that this is the readers’ problem, and that the story itself isn’t crummy.

 

[CiaoSteve]

Finally got mine ready to submit. Just over 13k words but seems to have taken an eternity to get over the line. Hope it will be up early next week ahead of the deadline. Single Red Rose. A tale of what happens when an unexpected Rose and Valentine's card is left on a doorstep.

 

[PennameWombat]

Well, my story is a disaster

But that aside, I'm assuming there was a sweep and my most recent NON-CONTEST story lost a single vote. AND lost rating points. If the arithmetic is to be believed my story was stripped of a five... I only noticed because it's been sitting for days with no votes (but gaining a few views) at 4.49 rating with 39 votes. Now it's 4.47 with 38 votes. Since I hadn't voted on my story it wasn't my vote stripped

Unless, and I don't even know if this is possible, can a reader remove their vote themselves?