At least five one-bombs in the last ten votes

[lovecraft68]

Yep. I've seen it. There are many lurkers in AH, and you never know who they are or why they're here.

Agreed, I always use the word 'Ghosters" after someone sent me a feedback once where they mentioned they come to the boards but "ghost way more than post"

Some people I don't think its a nefarious reason, maybe they like to look through threads for answers to things they've wondered about and just don't want to comment because they don't feel like getting attacked or caught in the middle of drama.

But I'm sure some come here like little kids, and anytime someone says something they don't like they make it a point to go 'take it out' on them.

I'm an old school throwback, if I want to troll or argue I'll just do it under this name and to whoever I have issue with and for all to see. I figure if I'm going to get one bombs I may as well earn them.

 

[NotWise]

What makes you so sure it would be the lurkers, if anyone? At least it sounds like this is what you are suggesting.

Look at the use statistics at the bottom of the forum's front page. There are typically ~twice as many lurkers accessing the forums as there are members. Just on that basis, the odds are that it's the lurkers.

Among the active members on the AH who I feel I "know", I would eliminate most of them from suspicion, because they just don't seem like the type. But <shrug>, you never know.

 

[rescatooor]

Look at the use statistics at the bottom of the forum's front page. There are typically ~twice as many lurkers accessing the forums as there are members. Just on that basis, the odds are that it's the lurkers.

Among the active members on the AH who I feel I "know", I would eliminate most of them from suspicion, because they just don't seem like the type. But <shrug>, you never know.

I don't know where but I'll take your word for it.

I'm sure there are plenty of lurkers but I doubt half of them are truly involved. I'm sure, some just stumbled their way here, others just come here to find a quick answer to a question and then there are the actual lurkers (who are welcome to lurk and I hope I put on a good show).

However, I would not go with the assumption that it's just the lurkers. I'm sure there are some actives who do it too, probably around the same percentage. I doubt in total there aren't all that many individuals who would.

I know that some people (myself included) have a general dislike for achievers of any kind. (Fucking hell, I hate this one girl in my class who reads more books, dresses better and can write and perform music.) It makes them feel bad about themselves. A simple announcement of a story being finished can trigger jealousy in others. And I can relate to that.

I'm guessing these people might make a sizeable portion of people who one-bomb. But my guess is worth shit so...

 

[KeithD]

Could it be possible that posting here in the Author's Hangout invites one-bombs?

Absolutely, yes. You have to make choices on what is important to you.

 

[NotWise]

I know that some people (myself included) have a general dislike for achievers of any kind. (Fucking hell, I hate this one girl in my class who reads more books, dresses better and can write and perform music.) It makes them feel bad about themselves. A simple announcement of a story being finished can trigger jealousy in others. And I can relate to that.

I'm guessing these people might make a sizeable portion of people who one-bomb. But my guess is worth shit so...

I guess I'll keep you on my naughty list.

 

[rescatooor]

I guess I'll keep you on my naughty list.

Just don't tell Santa.

 

[NotWise]

Just don't tell Santa.

Don't worry. I'm not on speaking terms with the big guy anyway.

 

[lovecraft68]

I know that some people (myself included) have a general dislike for achievers of any kind. (Fucking hell, I hate this one girl in my class who reads more books, dresses better and can write and perform music.) It makes them feel bad about themselves. A simple announcement of a story being finished can trigger jealousy in others. And I can relate to that.

I'm guessing these people might make a sizeable portion of people who one-bomb. But my guess is worth shit so...

Earlier this season a woman sang the National anthem for a Sunday night game-can't remember her name-but she was introduced as singer, songwriter, actress and best selling author.

I'm like, goddamn, save something for the rest of us...jeez.

 

[PennameWombat]

I don't know where but I'll take your word for it.

I'm sure there are plenty of lurkers but I doubt half of them are truly involved. I'm sure, some just stumbled their way here, others just come here to find a quick answer to a question and then there are the actual lurkers (who are welcome to lurk and I hope I put on a good show).
<snip>

If you care, go to Forum home and scroll down to a banner “What’s Going On?” Claims 1199 active users at the moment.

But along the way, for each Board, it’ll show ‘active viewers’. Claims this Board has 20 viewers right now.

Just goes to the point there’s some number of lurkers always around.

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>
As for narcissism, I think all authors/artists display it to some extent. You kind of have to if you ever want to put anything of your own making out there for others to judge.

Thought I’d posted this… but, alas. A lifetime in tech didn’t prepare me for tech

To the narcissism point, on a different platform someone responded to a comment I made about the difficulties of getting published that “it’s so vital to everyone that my voice be heard that I didn’t bother submitting to a subjective process that won’t appreciate it. So I formed my own publishing company.”

From what I can find on Google, he has one self-published children’s book. But while I agree to the point we all have some narcissism to put ourselves out there, that level of hyperconfident swagger is something I could never manage.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Because nobody's done it yet...

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/PjYvfwc

 

[windar]

Thought I’d posted this… but, alas. A lifetime in tech didn’t prepare me for tech

To the narcissism point, on a different platform someone responded to a comment I made about the difficulties of getting published that “it’s so vital to everyone that my voice be heard that I didn’t bother submitting to a subjective process that won’t appreciate it. So I formed my own publishing company.”

From what I can find on Google, he has one self-published children’s book. But while I agree to the point we all have some narcissism to put ourselves out there, that level of hyperconfident swagger is something I could never manage.

How exactly would that be different from self-publishing on Amazon?

To be honest, I think voting and contests and all that competitive crap that play into that narcissism are out of place on a free site. A like button so those who like the story can express that is fine and those who don't like it can move on to the next story. That's what most free sites have and I think that works much better. Stars are OK on pay sites, since they can save one from buying a really bad book and if you're paying, you've earned the right to trash if that floats your boat and the author is a pro or a pro-wanabee and has to take the good with the bad.

As for comments, if you're too chickenshit to use a screen name, which isn't even your real name, then IMO, you deserve zero attention paid to you.

 

[KeithD]

How exactly would that be different from self-publishing on Amazon?

It's not. Self-publishing is an "only the author is selecting it" exercise. It has no connection to the relative quality of the content--neither suggesting that the content is high or low quality. Only the author is identifying it as publishable. Subsequent sales stats, of course, give some indication on whether anyone else would take a risk in investing in it. Here it's just time that's being invested, although there is a selection process on Literotica, so being posted here isn't self-publishing.

 

[windar]

It's not. Self-publishing is an "only the author is selecting it" exercise. It has no connection to the relative quality of the content--neither suggesting that the content is high or low quality. Only the author is identifying it as publishable. Subsequent sales stats, of course, give some indication on whether anyone else would take a risk in investing in it. Here it's just time that's being invested, although there is a selection process on Literotica, so being posted here isn't self-publishing.

My question, though, was why one would form a publishing company to self-publish a novel when there are multiple self-publishing avenues available, not just Amazon?

 

[lovecraft68]

My question, though, was why one would form a publishing company to self-publish a novel when there are multiple self-publishing avenues available, not just Amazon?

Define publishing company? One can go get an EIN and pick a DBA name and publish your work, or even others for a cut, so its not like its that hard just adds to the 'sounds important"

 

[KeithD]

My question, though, was why one would form a publishing company to self-publish a novel when there are multiple self-publishing avenues available, not just Amazon?

Presumably the writer plans on there being more to come or maybe the writer wants to give the impression that the work is not self-published but has been released by a publisher. I don't know, though. I don't self-publish. If I couldn't get someone else to pay to get it done and to do most of the work of publishing, I wouldn't do it.

I did use a book packager once for someone who I wrote a book for, but she was the one who wanted it published and she provided the money. (She was dying and wouldn't have been able to handle the logistics herself. She wanted a book to hold before she died, and a book packager was the quickest way to get that done.)

 

[Emirus]

Bits and pieces

I rarely make comments nowadays (or I think I do) and 99.9999% of them are in this forum. I’ve made just over a thousand in the three and a half years since I arrived and at least 90% of them must have been made in the first three years.

There are two reasons for that, three if you count not wanting to get into confrontations, and the first is I frequently find someone else has already said what I wanted to and I can’t see the point in repeating their comment. The other reason is I think of a comment but it isn’t convenient to do it at the time and when I do have the time I can’t remember the title of the thread.
*****
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Be that as it may, someone mentioned in an earlier comment about watching Pornhub. I assume they meant all sites of that ilk.

I’ve found some of the videos to be very informative although most of them are boring and repetitive, as are many stories. Same old thing over and over again which used to be titillating but ceased to be long ago.

I sometimes do a search of either sites, as research, although “young couple engaged to be married enjoy romantic picnic” didn’t get much of a result.

But I did come across a lengthy Nina Hartley instructional video demonstrating, with a young lady, oral sex. It was pleasing to discover that I had apparently been doing it right all these years. You sometimes wonder whether the lady is a good actress and doesn’t want to damage your fragile ego.
*****
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Is posting on this forum likely to attract trolls to your stories who will bomb them? Quite possibly. Even probable if you make comments complaining about the scores of your stories being adversely affected. Best to keep it to yourself and not even respond to a comment made by someone else.
*****
*****
Would I ever give a story a 5? Yes, and have done so on many occasions. How about a 1? Never and never will under any circumstances. It’s a 4 or a 5 or, at a push, a 3 but never a 1 or 2. A 3 is for a story which is pretty ordinary but where the writer has obviously made an effort to write the best story they can but is, in my opinion, capable of something better and deserves encouragement. This can be applied to 4’s as well.

But a 1 of 2, even if we’ll meant, is likely to destroy someone completely. If that would be the case I won’t leave a score but, on many occasions, will leave a constructive comment.

I make comments on the vast majority of stories I read and, even if I’m being critical, always try and find something constructive and nice to say. My attitude towards comments is they should always be helpful and, above all, honest even if the writer doesn’t like hearing what you’re saying. I leave comments with the same attitude to which I want comments to my stories to be made.
*****
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I try and write stories in which the sex is an integral part of the story not the story itself. That’s the type of story I like to read. I like reading crime thrillers but not one in which someone gets killed every other page. Having said which I appreciate many readers only want to read the stimulating bits and many writers only want to write the stimulating bits. Everyone to their own personal preferences.
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There are tons of stories on here by thousands of writers who those who regularly frequent these forums have never heard of and they are very well scored. Many of them, in my opinion, over rated. Many of them have never used an editor, even though badly needing one, because no one has ever left a comment as their grammatical inadequacy. The reader has just read it, frequently given it a 5 because they thought it was okay rather than it being very good.

The writer may never improve technically but it must make them feel really good because people are enjoying their work and thus encouraging them to write more. Which, after all, is what this site is all about.

 

[Javahead]

Quite honestly, anything badly-written or repugnant enough that I think it actually *deserves* a 1 or a 2 rating generally gets skipped past before I'm halfway down the first page. And I'm awfully chary about awarding 3 ratings, too. Generally, for me ratings go:

3 - significant flaws of some kind, but still engaging enough that I read it to the end and was able to enjoy it at some level.

4 - noticeable issues, but I enjoyed it enough I'll happily read other stories by this author.

5 - a well-written story that I enjoyed, with (at most) minor and easily overlooked flaws. I'll actively look for other stories by this author.

This is entirely subjective, of course, so YMMV.

And I'll freely admit that I don't even bother to read and rate stories in categories I don't enjoy, no matter how well-written. But I'd never post a low review for these stories, either. Just because *I* don't like category X doesn't mean there aren't many who get a great deal of enjoyment from it.

 

[PennameWombat]

Define publishing company? One can go get an EIN and pick a DBA name and publish your work, or even others for a cut, so its not like its that hard just adds to the 'sounds important"

Since I started this sub-sub-thread , this is what most self-published authors who want to put a 'shine' on it do. The user I cited seems to have done little more than this.

Presumably the writer plans on there being more to come or maybe the writer wants to give the impression that the work is not self-published but has been released by a publisher. I don't know, though. I don't self-publish. If I couldn't get someone else to pay to get it done and to do most of the work of publishing, I wouldn't do it.

And this. At a quick glance, a viewer who looks sees a 'Publisher Real Publisher, Honest, Not Me and Fergal Buying an EIN' (ABN here in Oz ).

And yes, the case I cited, he claimed many more books in the pipeline.

I did use a book packager once for someone who I wrote a book for, but she was the one who wanted it published and she provided the money. (She was dying and wouldn't have been able to handle the logistics herself. She wanted a book to hold before she died, and a book packager was the quickest way to get that done.)

Had relatives who did this for their elderly father's autobiography. He'd had the odd colorful incident and did capture lots of family anecdotes but it was never a commercial possibility.

 

[lovecraft68]

To clarify somethings.

If you are posting stories here, you are self-publishing. Is anyone putting the story here for you? No, we do it ourselves....that's self publishing.

As for a selection process on lit. its the same in the pay market. You submit and it goes through a brief screening process and can be kicked back for breaking a rule or bad formatting. Quality is meaningless, Lit nor pay markets decide if your work is awful or not so just as anyone can self publish here they can do it on amazon

Difference there is a small investment of money or time if you can do it, to make a cover.

There's also some funny word play around people who say they have a publisher. Many people who publish erotica and other indy works are indy authors themselves who have decided to do the lifting for others. For a cut they will take your work and list it on whatever sites it can go on, which can be time consuming unless they're techy enough to have a script, but they can make some money.

Selena Kitt published work for a lot of lit authors and had her own site. But when people say they were published by her its not being published by a big six or real publisher. She was a very successful self published author who realized she could make more money and build a business bringing others in to sell under her name. On that note, SK just closed her long running site and has moved on to ventures other than erotica, and I wish her well. To say this site did her dirty would be the understatement of the year.

I have someone that publishes my work on sites I don't have time for. I don't run around telling people I've been picked up by a publisher because I'm not trying to impress anyone. At this point if I wanted to I could publish other people's work, its not difficult once you've been in the game for awhile.

There are people here who have websites that they created or paid someone to do for them. Again, they can say look at me! But reality is its still self publishing just with more bells and whistles. You have a blog? Good for you, but its you talking to yourself about yourself, if you enjoy it, great, but again, its you doing it.

People who need to pretend they've 'got publishers' are just being pretentious, self-important, and showing their real life insecurities. What they have is self publishers who've taken it to the level of profiting from others as well as themselves.

If you're writing erotica the odds of you being picked up by anyone other than one of the people I just mentioned are slim and none. People say "Look at Fifty Shades" what they're missing is first off, for all its hype as erotica it was published as romance...they were selling it at Stop and Shop...can you picture the average Lit story being sold there? But main thing is James and her husband had heavy connections in the TV and other industries, she was not a nobody who was discovered, they pushed that into the right hands because they knew those people.

Worth mentioning that there's a been a trend where authors who have had legit publishers have shifted to self publishing because its so easy, they already have a following, and why give someone a slice if you don't have to?

Most here have no aspirations of doing anything with their work but lit. Others who want more have already given publishing their work a shot, and have figured it out to some degree. Some keep going, some don't feel like continuing, pretty much like here.

I'm posting all this for those who aren't there yet and may be considering it and setting the record straight so you have actual information and real expectations and not listening to people who's only goal is to make themselves sound like something they're not.

If anyone has any questions about self publishing feel free to PM me. I can walk you through doing it yourself or put you in touch with the person who handles some of my work for 15%(after the platform takes theirs). I had a lot of help from someone who is no longer here getting my first e-books going and I have tried to pay that forward ever since so if you're interested, you know where to find me.

 

[windar]

I would agree, Lovecraft. I've had some modest success publishing, but even though many of my books carry an "imprint", the site owner doesn't sit there and read them and pronounce them worthy or not, any more than Laurel here does. If you want them edited, you have to hire one, and few will sell enough to justify the cost.

They are formatted to look like an actual book rather than a web site posting, which I guess is nice. They've also issued paperbacks of most of them, which is kinda cool, though I don't actually have any copies myself...But to claim that makes me a published author would be a bit rich.

Nevertheless, I do find it flattering that a few people have forked over hard-earned cash to read my depraved crap and some have even said nice things about it and bought more of my books after reading one.

Is that better than a nice comment on Lit or the other free site I post on? I think both are welcome.

And let me add this: I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction. The vast majority are far beyond anything I could do. But, on occasion, I read something from a legitimate author with a legitimate publisher that without any overblown ego, I honestly feel is not as well-constructed as the best of my stories.

 

[desecration]

I don't do low votes. My vote is there to pick the gold dust out of the compost. If I find a good story that's under-appreciated, it gets one five-bomb.

In my experience, most people -- like 99.9% -- only read.

Maybe one percent of people will vote, and a tenth of a percent will comment.

For most, they're just here to read something interesting, and that's legitimate.

 

[lovecraft68]

I would agree, Lovecraft. I've had some modest success publishing, but even though many of my books carry an "imprint", the site owner doesn't sit there and read them and pronounce them worthy or not, any more than Laurel here does. If you want them edited, you have to hire one, and few will sell enough to justify the cost.

They are formatted to look like an actual book rather than a web site posting, which I guess is nice. They've also issued paperbacks of most of them, which is kinda cool, though I don't actually have any copies myself...But to claim that makes me a published author would be a bit rich.

Nevertheless, I do find it flattering that a few people have forked over hard-earned cash to read my depraved crap and some have even said nice things about it and bought more of my books after reading one.

Is that better than a nice comment on Lit or the other free site I post on? I think both are welcome.

And let me add this: I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction. The vast majority are far beyond anything I could do. But, on occasion, I read something from a legitimate author with a legitimate publisher that without any overblown ego, I honestly feel is not as well-constructed as the best of my stories.

I don't pay an editor for my smut, its too pricey so I do the best I can. I have a beta reader who helps some. For my erotic horror novels I have an editor and those are in Paperback.

I by copies for myself because up until last year I did comic and horror cons and sold them. Nice comments are great, getting some money from e-books is as well, but nothing tops someone buying the book from you and you signing it and getting to talk to them.

I've had people buy a book and see me at the next show and tell me what they thought about it and that's a great experience even when there was something they didn't care for, it was a good conversation as to why that gave me something to think about.

I know the feeling, I have picked up somethings and been like "wow, I can do better than this and so could a lot of people I've met here and through publishing. Like anything else publishing can be a case of better lucky than good.

 

[Lifestyle66]

What makes you so sure it would be the lurkers, if anyone? At least it sounds like this is what you are suggesting.

IMO, they are probably correct. Watching to the rating changes closely, my first stories ran up in a pattern suggesting a few 1's. When I introduced the swinger aspect in a LW story, it was 1-bombed as expected. But after posting here in the Forums looking for feedback and commenting on others, the subsequent story posted to Erotic Couplings achieved a faster and greater 1-bomb experience. And the next one to Group Sex got thirty-three 1's within the first week.

The patterns are there to see, for those who take the time and focus on them. And this is probably why Laurel and Manu do their 1-scraping: They probably suspect the trolls are coming from those they also trust to participate in the forums. Otherwise, the ratings are what they are. But they understand.

 

[KeithD]

Having stories posted at Literotica is NOT self-publishing. literotica, not the writer, is the publisher. And Literotica doesn't post everything. It has selection criteria. We all see the posts of story rejections--that's selectivity in action. It is not self-publishing. In self-publishing, it is the author and only the author who decides whether the material is being published or not--and the author covering any costs. That's not what is happening at Literotica. The publisher, Literotica, decides and it covers any costs of the process.