Typical Submission time

[seXenon]

Ok, I'm just wondering what the typical process is and the timeline for a submission.

I submitted my second story ever about 4 days ago.

It's still says pending.

Is the normal timeline 24 hours or 3 days or a week?

Also, what happens along the way? If there is a problem with formatting or something, do I get an email with that information or something else?
AND what email address would anything from Literotica come from?

So, I DID use an editor this time, after suggestions on my first story. I found that editor requests all ended up in my spam folder, as well as the first email from an editor offering to work on my story.
I'm wondering if there is some email from Literotica about my submission that I have missed in the email?

I guess what I'm asking is all the steps and gates in the submission process?

Are there emails to respond to or look for?
Are there other milestones to look for in the process?
How long does it usually take? And how long means I missed something in the process?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Ok, I'm just wondering what the typical process is and the timeline for a submission.

I submitted my second story ever about 4 days ago.

It's still says pending.

Is the normal timeline 24 hours or 3 days or a week?

Also, what happens along the way? If there is a problem with formatting or something, do I get an email with that information or something else?
AND what email address would anything from Literotica come from?

So, I DID use an editor this time, after suggestions on my first story. I found that editor requests all ended up in my spam folder, as well as the first email from an editor offering to work on my story.
I'm wondering if there is some email from Literotica about my submission that I have missed in the email?

I guess what I'm asking is all the steps and gates in the submission process?

Are there emails to respond to or look for?
Are there other milestones to look for in the process?
How long does it usually take? And how long means I missed something in the process?

You're a new author, so your story will most likely take longer - a week, maybe (longer, if there's a Contest running). Once you're established (and play by the content rules), publication times should drop to around 3 - 4 days. Once you're really established - I've had stories go through in 24 hours, but typically 2 - 3 days.

If the story is rejected, you'll get a note on your Control Panel, NOT via email. The to and fro between your editor and yourself is nothing to do with Lit, that's down to you two to coordinate and get right.

The story submission process uses the Control Panel - check at the top of the Works page.

If your story shows as Draft you haven't submitted it yet. Otherwise, it will show as Pending - and you will have received a note on your CP home page saying, "you've successfully submitted a story" - which means it's in the queue, not that it's been accepted.

If it's been rejected, the Works page and a note will tell you so. Address the issue (there's a generic set of responses, couched as questions, but nothing specific to your text, so it's down to you to figure out the detail of the problem). Resubmit using the same Draft Form - don't raise a new Draft - either by submitting new text with a fix, or a note arguing why you don't think there's a problem. There usually IS an issue, so you should try to figure out what it is by answering the questions asked.

Patience, grasshopper .

 

[Zeb_Carter]

The stories are vetted by one person, she gets hundreds of stories a day, if not more. As EB said you're new, so it will take longer to go through the process.

Also if you go into the draft that is in Pending and change something, then (re)submit it, it will go to the end of the queue and the wait starts all over again. So if you first submitted it 5 days ago and then took a look see, found something you didn't like and changed it, then submitted it again, it now starts at the back of the queue.

 

[Edey]

The stories are vetted by one person, she gets hundreds of stories a day, if not more. As EB said you're new, so it will take longer to go through the process.

Also if you go into the draft that is in Pending and change something, then (re)submit it, it will go to the end of the queue and the wait starts all over again. So if you first submitted it 5 days ago and then took a look see, found something you didn't like and changed it, then submitted it again, it now starts at the back of the queue.

Really? Are the stories vetted by one person? Can you explain what you mean? I'm not a native-speaker.
Does it mean one person _read_ them all or just check it superficially? Or she is redistributing the stories to other moderators by their preferred categories (for a more thorough read)?

I submitted my first story 3 days ago. I'm curious if some categories are vetted more quickly due to the bigger group of moderators, and some are more niche.

 

[KeithD]

Really? Are the stories vetted by one person?

As far as we know, yes, there's only one human submissions editor, Laurel, who can't do more than scan entries after, presumably, a nonhuman program has scanned them that can and does reject based solely on formatting and the presence of red flag words.

 

[Edey]

As far as we know, yes, there's only one human submissions editor, Laurel, who can't do more than scan entries after, presumably, a nonhuman program has scanned them that can and does reject based solely on formatting and the presence of red flag words.

My friend's story had one line mentions that MCs had lost their virginity as teenagers 16+19(it was in their memories) and it was sent back with a request to make the time of losing virginity above legal age of consent. So, someone had to read it rather thoroughly, Can an algorithm really catch that? Who knows, maybe

 

[KeithD]

My friend's story had one line mentions that MCs had lost their virginity as teenagers 16+19(it was in their memories) and it was sent back with a request to make the time of losing virginity above legal age of consent. So, someone had to read it rather thoroughly, Can an algorithm really catch that? Who knows, maybe

Yes, that was a computer program. No, the sole submissions editor is not physically capable of actually reading over a hundred submissions every day. No, there has never been a suggestion from the Web site that I've seen in a decade and a half that there are more human submissions editors involved in processing stories here than Laurel. It's quite obvious from what posters to the discussion board complain about on rejections that no human is actually reading the story at the first selection stage.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Really? Are the stories vetted by one person? Can you explain what you mean? I'm not a native-speaker.
Does it mean one person _read_ them all or just check it superficially? Or she is redistributing the stories to other moderators by their preferred categories (for a more thorough read)?

I submitted my first story 3 days ago. I'm curious if some categories are vetted more quickly due to the bigger group of moderators, and some are more niche.

Our best guess, over the years, is yes, one person runs a superficial check, most likely aided by a word-bot or two running word combination checks to bring up alerts.

It's common that all new authors have a longer vetting period than do established and prolific authors, which suggests a slightly closer human eye read might occur.

But we've seen no evidence of category specific moderators, nor a gang of them - the site neither confirms nor denies this.

 

[Voboy]

Submission time? It depends on the Dom, surely...

Ba-dum. Tssss.

No, OP, like everyone else here is saying, there's more vetting for inexperienced writers. Which makes sense. Just bide your time; it'll post. These things can also be affected by ongoing contests, which (we think) get priority, or by story events.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Really? Are the stories vetted by one person? Can you explain what you mean? I'm not a native-speaker.
Does it mean one person _read_ them all or just check it superficially? Or she is redistributing the stories to other moderators by their preferred categories (for a more thorough read)?

I submitted my first story 3 days ago. I'm curious if some categories are vetted more quickly due to the bigger group of moderators, and some are more niche.

Vetting of stories is mostly automatic, yet no one knows what the database looks like that the script that Laurel runs looks like. Name, date joined, number of stories already posted, number of rejections in the past, what category the rejection was in, a list of words or phrases for the category of the current story, etc.

I've only had 2 stories rejected out of 195 or so. One was for formatting with html that isn't allowed and the other was that Laurel thought the story was just a little too political.

I try to follow the rules as I like having my stories here, yet there are some 'authors' who try to skirt the rules to get something they know isn't allow here, like under age sex.

You mentioned your story had the woman remembering losing he virginity at... what 16?. I have to ask was it really necessary to the story? Saying one lost there virginity prior to age 18 is okay, you just can't describe it or mention the age at which it was lost. Say that she's not a virgin is fine, even if she just turned 18 the day before but you can't mention the age when it was lost.

Also, there are some words that trigger the code to bump it up to Laurel to look at, the usage of "girl, boy, little girl, little boy, etc." will trigger the event.

Now all this is just assumption of a lifelong software engineer and I'm sure the code has been developed over the last 22 years that Lit has been around and can only grow more sophisticated than it is even now.

 

[Bound_Vixen]

You're a new author, so your story will most likely take longer - a week, maybe (longer, if there's a Contest running). Once you're established (and play by the content rules), publication times should drop to around 3 - 4 days. Once you're really established - I've had stories go through in 24 hours, but typically 2 - 3 days.

If the story is rejected, you'll get a note on your Control Panel, NOT via email. The to and fro between your editor and yourself is nothing to do with Lit, that's down to you two to coordinate and get right.

The story submission process uses the Control Panel - check at the top of the Works page.

If your story shows as Draft you haven't submitted it yet. Otherwise, it will show as Pending - and you will have received a note on your CP home page saying, "you've successfully submitted a story" - which means it's in the queue, not that it's been accepted.

If it's been rejected, the Works page and a note will tell you so. Address the issue (there's a generic set of responses, couched as questions, but nothing specific to your text, so it's down to you to figure out the detail of the problem). Resubmit using the same Draft Form - don't raise a new Draft - either by submitting new text with a fix, or a note arguing why you don't think there's a problem. There usually IS an issue, so you should try to figure out what it is by answering the questions asked.

Patience, grasshopper .

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Both to OP for asking and you for your response. I just submitted my first chapter and I've been stalking this site while I work on Chapter 2.

Follow up question. Should I wait until Chapter one is approved before submitting the second, it seems like the smart play since there may be stuff that gets sent back, or changes that need to be made.

 

[SimonDoom]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Both to OP for asking and you for your response. I just submitted my first chapter and I've been stalking this site while I work on Chapter 2.

Follow up question. Should I wait until Chapter one is approved before submitting the second, it seems like the smart play since there may be stuff that gets sent back, or changes that need to be made.

I've been writing here for over 5 years, and on average it takes from 2 to 4 days for my stories to get published after submission. It DOES seem to be the case that the time shortens when you've been writing long enough that the site owner trusts that your stories will be grammatically sound enough and will avoid content prohibitions. A few authors seem to have faster turnaround than I do, and i think that's because they've published more stories than I have. Up to a week is normal, but if it goes longer than that then it's worth sending a message or checking if you did something wrong in the submission process.

I'm the last one to be able to tell another author how to publish chapters, because the pace of my writing is so erratic, but if you are disciplined, then I would suggest submitting each successive chapter immediately after the previous chapter is published. That way, there will be a few days between chapters. That's long enough to give your previous chapter a run on the new story hub page by itself, but not so long that your readers will get turned off for waiting. I think this is the way to maximize the number of readers you get for your stories.

 

[Bound_Vixen]

Perfect. Thanks!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Perfect. Thanks!

Agree with Simon. If you're writing on the run your submission cycle is probably going to be slower than the site's review cycle, which means, if a chapter gets rejected, then you can delay any later chapter while you sort out the rejection problem. And of course, by now, you're following the content rules and can at least spell and know how to punctuate .

The alternative is to write the whole thing first, and submit every chapter all at once. If you do that, the site will auto-schedule a chapter a day. I did that for a 104k novel length thing, with 17 chapters, which meant the story had a chapter on the category front page for over a month. Downside: it took a year to write, and my exposure dropped in that time because I only released two other stories that year.

Both approaches have merit. The problem with writing and submitting as you go, is the pressure you put yourself under to release chapters at a steady rate, plus the risk you don't actually know where the story is going, and it either peters out because you get bored writing, or it becomes one of Lit's endless stories which go on forever.

It all depends on chapter length and how fast you write, I think.

 

[Bound_Vixen]

That's fair. I feel like my other stories have stalled, but if people on here like my work I'll be driven to keep working on it.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

My shortest approval time was same day my longest was 11 days. It all depends on the number of submissions in queue. There's one person reviewing all stories before posting. If you see a posting date while a Story is pending it will post that day at 1am EASTERN US time IIRC.

 

[Limnophile]

Just my personal experience, but breaking site rules or irritating the admins tends to result in slower posting. I was naughty a few times and apologized. I'm trying to make up for it by patiently waiting for my stories to appear on the site. After my first few stories it usually took 3 to 5 days. After I got a few metaphorical slaps on the wrist (which I deserved), it usually takes around 8 to 15 days.