Where Do I Go From Here? Please Help.

[APonderingPen1]

Hi All,

I hope you all are having a superb March. I'm posting here as I have no idea what to do next and I would greatly appreciate any help or advice you have to offer.

So, let me explain my situation. I started uploading the first chapter of my new story 'Pat's Pounding' on 02/05/24, with another three instalments of it over the next few weeks. At first everything was going well: I was getting tens of thousands of hits on my story and regular comment engagement. Then, out of nowhere on 02/27/24, all of my stories were 'sent back,' with the explanation that my stories violated the T&Cs as they were seen as teasers. Immediately, on the same day, I resubmitted my first chapter, with a detailed explanation of why I think a misunderstanding had taken place, namely, that my stories couldn't qualify as 'teasers' as each chapter was completed and published in its entirety just as it was on other sites, rather than being partially so in a greedy attempt at encouraging my readers to pursue my Patreon.

Since resubmitting the first chapter of my story, I have contacted Laurel with a personal message on 03/05/24, going into great detail about what I think might have happened, I have resubmitted my second chapter with another comment to the moderator on 03/08/24, again attempting to explain what I think may have been misunderstood, and finally I have submitted a help form on 03/13/24 requesting someone reach out to me so that I can understand what has led to my stories being 'sent back.'

As of today, 03/21/24, I have yet to receive a response to any of my attempts at communication. I cannot deny that I am extremely confused at what is going on as I have not done anything different that many of the other writers who frequent the same story types as I did; I published my stories, I didn't violate the T&Cs to the best of my knowledge, and I haven't posted anything elsewhere on the site other than this that might lead to the stories being rejected. Truly, I cannot understand why numerous attempts at trying to find an answer have gone unanswered for so long.

So, as I mentioned at the start, I would very thankful if anyone could offer me any advice or help in regards to what I should do now. Who else should I contact? Is there anyway I can speak to the moderator who made the decision to reject my stories about this whole kerfuffle?

I apologise if I have posted this in the wrong forum.

With preemptive thanks and appreciation,
APonderingPen

 

[Voboy]

Laurel would have made that call.

Try to contact her by PMing her here in the forum. Be concise and polite; she's a busy person. Your prior attempt might have been too long to attract her notice? I don't know.

Welcome! Hope you get all this sorted.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You are in the right place to ask for advice, that much I can tell you. As for the rest...

Although your particular situation seems unique from the perspective of the last couple of months at least, as I can't remember anyone suffering from that particular issue, the underlying reason is probably the same as for the rest of the authors. You will find the communication with the website's admin erratic or even non-existent, I am afraid, although there are authors here who don't seem to suffer from that particular problem. But many do. Most who PM Laurel do, I would dare to guess.
Sadly, I don't think there is anything else you can do except wait and hope for some response from the website. It is our impression here that the website is severely undermanned and unable to maintain its proper functionality. Hopefully, things will get better.

 

[KeithD]

If you let us know what was appended to any/all of your chapters that might indicate how the site might have thought these just teasers, maybe we can help you. There may have been some way you referred to the Patreon angle that indicated readers here were going to have to go elsewhere to read some part of this. Otherwise there's really no problem with posting in separate chapters here.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi All,

I hope you all are having a superb March. I'm posting here as I have no idea what to do next and I would greatly appreciate any help or advice you have to offer.

So, let me explain my situation. I started uploading the first chapter of my new story 'Pat's Pounding' on 02/05/24, with another three instalments of it over the next few weeks. At first everything was going well: I was getting tens of thousands of hits on my story and regular comment engagement. Then, out of nowhere on 02/27/24, all of my stories were 'sent back,' with the explanation that my stories violated the T&Cs as they were seen as teasers. Immediately, on the same day, I resubmitted my first chapter, with a detailed explanation of why I think a misunderstanding had taken place, namely, that my stories couldn't qualify as 'teasers' as each chapter was completed and published in its entirety just as it was on other sites, rather than being partially so in a greedy attempt at encouraging my readers to pursue my Patreon.

Since resubmitting the first chapter of my story, I have contacted Laurel with a personal message on 03/05/24, going into great detail about what I think might have happened, I have resubmitted my second chapter with another comment to the moderator on 03/08/24, again attempting to explain what I think may have been misunderstood, and finally I have submitted a help form on 03/13/24 requesting someone reach out to me so that I can understand what has led to my stories being 'sent back.'

As of today, 03/21/24, I have yet to receive a response to any of my attempts at communication. I cannot deny that I am extremely confused at what is going on as I have not done anything different that many of the other writers who frequent the same story types as I did; I published my stories, I didn't violate the T&Cs to the best of my knowledge, and I haven't posted anything elsewhere on the site other than this that might lead to the stories being rejected. Truly, I cannot understand why numerous attempts at trying to find an answer have gone unanswered for so long.

So, as I mentioned at the start, I would very thankful if anyone could offer me any advice or help in regards to what I should do now. Who else should I contact? Is there anyway I can speak to the moderator who made the decision to reject my stories about this whole kerfuffle?

I apologise if I have posted this in the wrong forum.

With preemptive thanks and appreciation,
APonderingPen

Hi,

Welcome

Did you have any links to Patreon, or any mention of it? Can you post the exact rejection text you got here please?

Finally, please be wary of jaundiced views of the Literotica experience. It is mostly lots of fun.

Emily

 

[APonderingPen1]

Thank you all for your responses. I greatly appreciate each of you taking the time to offer me your help. In regards to your point, KeithD, about how I referred to my Patreon, I didn't even explicitly mention it. On the contrary, I only mentioned my Linktree on my authors profile, writing that if readers like my work they should checkout said website. Should I have not mentioned Linktree? Is that where I went wrong?

Also, EmilyMiller, the exact text I received was the following:

• While we welcome authors to publish shorter work on Literotica while promoting ebooks or other offsite projects on their profile page, out of respect for reader's feelings, we would rather not publish partial works or excerpts of offsite work as "teasers". Please see our Content Guidelines: https://literotica.com/resources/content-guidelines.

What confuses me the most is that I successfully published four chapters of my story, so whomever checked them would have seen that they weren't 'teasers.' Now, since I haven't posted in so long (I have been waiting for the previous chapters to be accepted again so as for the story to make sense to new readers), I'm left watching the numbers of followers I have slowly trickle down.

Now, I won't lie and say that the number of chapters I had uploaded to Literotica was the same as the others sites I am using. However, as I attempted to explain to Laurel, this wasn't done in an attempt to 'tease' but rather it was a result of me having to wait sometimes upwards of a week to get a chapter published, whereas, with other sites, I could upload my work instantaneously.

I cannot reiterate enough just how thankful I am for all of your help. I am extremely grateful.

 

[SimonDoom]

Now, I won't lie and say that the number of chapters I had uploaded to Literotica was the same as the others sites I am using. However, as I attempted to explain to Laurel, this wasn't done in an attempt to 'tease' but rather it was a result of me having to wait sometimes upwards of a week to get a chapter published, whereas, with other sites, I could upload my work instantaneously.

This is a good instance of how the only way for us to give you sound advice is for you to give us complete information. This is the rub, right here. If you've already written and published the series elsewhere in full and you've submitted only a few chapters here and you've included a Linktree on how to get elsewhere, then it's a teaser, in violation of the rules.

Answer: Submit ALL of the chapters of the series to this site, with instructions on how you want them spaced apart (1 day, 1 week). If you submit ALL the chapters that already have been published somewhere else, then it's not a teaser. If you submit only some of them with a link to the other site where they are complete, then it's a teaser, full stop.

 

[APonderingPen1]

This is a good instance of how the only way for us to give you sound advice is for you to give us complete information. This is the rub, right here. If you've already written and published the series elsewhere in full and you've submitted only a few chapters here and you've included a Linktree on how to get elsewhere, then it's a teaser, in violation of the rules.

Answer: Submit ALL of the chapters of the series to this site, with instructions on how you want them spaced apart (1 day, 1 week). If you submit ALL the chapters that already have been published somewhere else, then it's not a teaser. If you submit only some of them with a link to the other site where they are complete, then it's a teaser, full stop.

Thank you, SimonDoom, for your response. I really appreciate you offering your help. However, I'm sorry to say I'm still rather confused. Specifically, I haven't published the series elsewhere in full as I am still writing it. When the my story chapters were sent back, Literotica was only a chapter or two behind the other sites due to, as I mentioned previously, the delay I was experiencing submitting them; the main reason I didn't submit them all at once as you suggest is because I wanted to give readers the opportunity to offer me their feedback on each chapter so that I could better integrate their suggestions and improve the quality of my work with each chapter as it was released on a weekly schedule.

Going forward, then, if the problem is as you have identified, does that mean my story chapters will permanently qualify as 'teasers' due to the fact I have chapters available to my Patreon members before the public can access them? If so, how then do other writers on the site (I won't name any names) openly advertise that they offer early access to their Patrons, and yet nothing happens to them? What am I missing?

Thank you for taking the time to help me.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Having chapters reserved for patrons only is fine, otherwise, the whole Patreon model would make zero sense.
The problem exists only with the chapters that are already published on public story sites. You should do what Simon suggested - Submit all the chapters that are already publicly available on other story sites (not those reserved for patrons only) and make a note to the moderator when submitting them to let them know how far apart you want your chapters to be. Maybe also remove your Linktree until all the publicly available chapters are published on Literotica as well. You can keep the link to your Patreon posted regardless of all this.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Going forward, then, if the problem is as you have identified, does that mean my story chapters will permanently qualify as 'teasers' due to the fact I have chapters available to my Patreon members before the public can access them?

Probably. If there's any suggestion in the content published here that you have to go behind a paywall to get the rest of the story, that's a teaser. Your profile can mention Patreon, but your story can't.

Don't measure your problem against anyone else, though. If your chapters have been published then later rejected, that means some one has reported you. That suggests there's something causing that some one to think, "Oh shit, I've got to go somewhere else to find out what happens."

Check exactly what you say about your Patreon, and probably, don't say it.

 

[Devinter]

Is the link to your other sites included somewhere in the story submission? I don't know for certain, but I don't think that's allowed - not even for Patreon, as far as I know. Instead, use the "Link my account with Patreon" feature in your options, and refer to your profile page where you can post the link to the other website(s) - Patreon included - if you so desire. Literotica seems fairly relaxed on what you're allowed to put on your profile, but far more strict on what can go into an actual story submission or chapter.

 

[intim8]

I can't help but suspect that OP is trying to walk a fine line here. And having just signed up probably garners more attention, especially if a large number of stories are submitted in quick succession.

I don't know, but something here sounds off. That's a pretty specific rejection reason, and not something like all the AI rejections that is are at least semi-automated and high volume. Pulling the stories retroactively sounds like a prety drastic action to take without some pretty high certainty.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Hi,

Welcome

Did you have any links to Patreon, or any mention of it? Can you post the exact rejection text you got here please?

Finally, please be wary of jaundiced views of the Literotica experience. It is mostly lots of fun.

Emily

It is a lot of fun, but I get the sense that the behind the scenes activity is getting weirder. I fear what would happen if Laurel had to suddenly retire for health reasons or something similar. Would Lit instantly stop functioning? Maybe Manu could keep the newly static site going indefinitely, but nothing would be added to it.

 

[NotWise]

Your public bio reads like you're publishing teasers here and inviting people to follow your link to the rest of your stories. I wouldn't expect Laurel to follow your link and compare what you have there vs what you posted here.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Your public bio reads like you're publishing teasers here and inviting people to follow your link to the rest of your stories. I wouldn't expect Laurel to follow your link and compare what you have there vs what you posted here.

It’s a little shady, right?

Emily

 

[ElectricBlue]

Your public bio reads like you're publishing teasers here and inviting people to follow your link to the rest of your stories. I wouldn't expect Laurel to follow your link and compare what you have there vs what you posted here.

Yeah, the Profile blurb is ambiguous. I can see why content got taken down - the blurb implies you have to go off-site to see more.

 

[APonderingPen1]

Hi all,

Apologies for the delay in responding to your comments; the last week and a half or so has seen me rather unwell to say the least.

To give you an update about my situation after you all so kindly offered me your advice, nothing has changed. Despite having resubmitted all of my story chapters on the 03/22/24, each with a note explaining what I was doing, my story chapters have yet to be published.

Also, on top of this, in the few moments I was well enough to use my computer, I sent multiple messages to Laurel and Manu enquiring after the status of my chapters and if there was anything further I could do to the chapters for them to be published. However, as before, I have not heard any word back from them.

In addition to this, I also addressed the my public bio, changing it so that it doesn't mention my Patreon nor there being more of my work available behind a pay wall.

Now, I am receiving emails from readers asking after my story and watching the number of my followers slowly decrease.

Does anyone have any advice on where I should go from here? Is there anyone else I can contact? Is there any way to get Laurel or Manu's attention other than continuing to send them messages they might not be able to see?

Once again, I cannot thank you all enough for taking the time to respond to this thread; your help and advice is greatly appreciated.

I hope you all had a pleasant Easter if you celebrated it.

With thanks,
APonderingPen

 

[Djmac1031]

Unfortunately, Laurel and Manu are the only people who can address this with you.

None of us here have any power to help you.

My advice at this point is create a new account and start again from scratch. Publish full works not partials. Build your audience that way.

And leave linktree and Patreon out of your bio.

Good luck.

 

[APonderingPen1]

Unfortunately, Laurel and Manu are the only people who can address this with you.

None of us here have any power to help you.

My advice at this point is create a new account and start again from scratch. Publish full works not partials. Build your audience that way.

And leave linktree and Patreon out of your bio.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice, Djmac1031.

I've been dreading it, but I think the course of action you recommend might be the only one left open to me if no one else knows/offers an alternative.

However, my only worry is that Manu or Laurel will just reject my chapters if they see me attempting to submit them through another account.

More than anything else, I cannot understand why I haven't received a single response to anything I've submitted; although I can only imagine how insanely busy they both must be keeping this great site going (and they both do an amazing job of it), I don't understand how their accounts are active, yet Laurel or Manu haven't seen anything I sent them over the last two months. I'm starting to wonder if shadow banning is a thing, and if so, perhaps I've accidentally been a victim of it? Is that a thing? Could that be a potential reason for them not seeing my messages/attempts at resubmitting my story chapters?

 

[Djmac1031]

Thanks for the advice, Djmac1031.

I've been dreading it, but I think the course of action you recommend might be the only one left open to me if no one else knows/offers an alternative.

However, my only worry is that Manu or Laurel will just reject my chapters if they see me attempting to submit them through another account.

More than anything else, I cannot understand why I haven't received a single response to anything I've submitted; although I can only imagine how insanely busy they both must be keeping this great site going (and they both do an amazing job of it), I don't understand how their accounts are active, yet Laurel or Manu haven't seen anything I sent them over the last two months. I'm starting to wonder if shadow banning is a thing, and if so, perhaps I've accidentally been a victim of it? Is that a thing? Could that be a potential reason for them not seeing my messages/attempts at resubmitting my story chapters?

Look, I'm not here to accuse you of anything. Especially since I don't have all the facts.

What offer here is strictly my opinion based on the info given:

Justifiably or not, I believe Laurel and Manu feel you have violated site rules in an attempt to draw readers away from LE to your pay to read platform.

Whether you intentionally were trying to only post partial stories to lure readers to pay for the rest or not doesn't matter at this point.

Why are they not responding? My only answer is that they did, and you're just not happy with their answer.

The other problem could very well be that if your stories are published in full elsewhere, how do they verify they're indeed YOUR stories that you're trying to publish here? How would they know you're not simply copying that published story and claiming ownership?

Again not my place to judge you, your honesty or your motives. I'll take you at your word that there was no bad intent on your part.

But it's not me or anyone here you need to convince. It's obvious those in charge found something off about the whole thing and made a choice based on that.

If they're no longer responding to you, you may have to simply accept they've made their final decision about you, accept that decision and move on.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I think the answer here is very simple. Submit a complete story. There are plenty of writers who have links to their offsite accounts in their bio, so it's not that. Submit a story that begins and ends. No need to do short little 1800-word chapters. Combine it all to whatever size it ends up being and submit it. Readership for anything past part one, falls off by two-thirds in any case.

 

[Bamagan]

Thanks for the advice, Djmac1031.

I've been dreading it, but I think the course of action you recommend might be the only one left open to me if no one else knows/offers an alternative.

However, my only worry is that Manu or Laurel will just reject my chapters if they see me attempting to submit them through another account.

More than anything else, I cannot understand why I haven't received a single response to anything I've submitted; although I can only imagine how insanely busy they both must be keeping this great site going (and they both do an amazing job of it), I don't understand how their accounts are active, yet Laurel or Manu haven't seen anything I sent them over the last two months. I'm starting to wonder if shadow banning is a thing, and if so, perhaps I've accidentally been a victim of it? Is that a thing? Could that be a potential reason for them not seeing my messages/attempts at resubmitting my story chapters?

How many chapters did you submit, and what's the approximate word count? Once something has been rejected, it generally gets closer scrutiny on subsequent passes, and if it happens to be long and requires close reading, it can take a while. One of my rejections was based on content that was deemed potentially against the rules, and to resolve the issue, I submitted several chapters of my serial at once so Laurel could see where the story went (it was admittedly ambiguous the way the chapters were originally broken up). That was a chunk of about 20k words and it took nearly a month to pass, probably because she didn't have the leisure to deal with it all at once. I can't speak for her, but if you've sent multiple similar messages, it might just be annoying and lowering the incentive to prioritize your case.

Given the original ambiguity of your situation, it might also be the case that they can't verify the completeness of your current submission without paying to match it against what's available elsewhere, which they have no reason to do. If you've posted it in its entirety on any other free sites, you might mention that in a direct message, but my advice would be to wait patiently, assuming the status still says pending. Two or three days is normal, but a week to ten days is not hugely abnormal, depending on various factors, and like I said above, three or four weeks is not out of the question when it comes to unusual situations that require research or a judgement call.

 

[Duleigh]

Hi All,

I hope you all are having a superb March. I'm posting here as I have no idea what to do next and I would greatly appreciate any help or advice you have to offer.

So, let me explain my situation. I started uploading the first chapter of my new story 'Pat's Pounding' on 02/05/24, with another three instalments of it over the next few weeks. At first everything was going well: I was getting tens of thousands of hits on my story and regular comment engagement. Then, out of nowhere on 02/27/24, all of my stories were 'sent back,' with the explanation that my stories violated the T&Cs as they were seen as teasers. Immediately, on the same day, I resubmitted my first chapter, with a detailed explanation of why I think a misunderstanding had taken place, namely, that my stories couldn't qualify as 'teasers' as each chapter was completed and published in its entirety just as it was on other sites, rather than being partially so in a greedy attempt at encouraging my readers to pursue my Patreon.

Since resubmitting the first chapter of my story, I have contacted Laurel with a personal message on 03/05/24, going into great detail about what I think might have happened, I have resubmitted my second chapter with another comment to the moderator on 03/08/24, again attempting to explain what I think may have been misunderstood, and finally I have submitted a help form on 03/13/24 requesting someone reach out to me so that I can understand what has led to my stories being 'sent back.'

As of today, 03/21/24, I have yet to receive a response to any of my attempts at communication. I cannot deny that I am extremely confused at what is going on as I have not done anything different that many of the other writers who frequent the same story types as I did; I published my stories, I didn't violate the T&Cs to the best of my knowledge, and I haven't posted anything elsewhere on the site other than this that might lead to the stories being rejected. Truly, I cannot understand why numerous attempts at trying to find an answer have gone unanswered for so long.

So, as I mentioned at the start, I would very thankful if anyone could offer me any advice or help in regards to what I should do now. Who else should I contact? Is there anyway I can speak to the moderator who made the decision to reject my stories about this whole kerfuffle?

I apologise if I have posted this in the wrong forum.

With preemptive thanks and appreciation,
APonderingPen

I do not know what is going on with Laurel lately. My latest story sat in Pending for ten days and each inquiry was ignored. I finally got a message today claiming that she was busy. Ten days is not abnormal for a story edit but not for a new story. the average is about 2 days and the quickest I had was a matter of hours.

Is this place suddenly too big for Laurel to handle? Did the software issues from several weeks ago catch up with her? It must have, she never bothered to tell the readers about the April Fools contest.

 

[APonderingPen1]

Look, I'm not here to accuse you of anything. Especially since I don't have all the facts.

What offer here is strictly my opinion based on the info given:

Justifiably or not, I believe Laurel and Manu feel you have violated site rules in an attempt to draw readers away from LE to your pay to read platform.

Whether you intentionally were trying to only post partial stories to lure readers to pay for the rest or not doesn't matter at this point.

Why are they not responding? My only answer is that they did, and you're just not happy with their answer.

The other problem could very well be that if your stories are published in full elsewhere, how do they verify they're indeed YOUR stories that you're trying to publish here? How would they know you're not simply copying that published story and claiming ownership?

Again not my place to judge you, your honesty or your motives. I'll take you at your word that there was no bad intent on your part.

But it's not me or anyone here you need to convince. It's obvious those in charge found something off about the whole thing and made a choice based on that.

If they're no longer responding to you, you may have to simply accept they've made their final decision about you, accept that decision and move on.

Thanks again, Djmac1031, for your feedback and advice. I appreciate your honesty. I suspect you are correct; if things don't change soon, moving on will be the only option left to me.

 

[APonderingPen1]

I think the answer here is very simple. Submit a complete story. There are plenty of writers who have links to their offsite accounts in their bio, so it's not that. Submit a story that begins and ends. No need to do short little 1800-word chapters. Combine it all to whatever size it ends up being and submit it. Readership for anything past part one, falls off by two-thirds in any case.

The only issue with your kind advice, Rob_Royale, is that I don't yet have a completed story; the chapters of the story that were rejected are part of a story that I'm still writing.