An announcement about my future publishing on Literotica

[TarnishedPenny]

If folks can put up with the you-know-who's, then they can deal with her.

I think the problem, for many people, is not the hard-nosed critics, nor even the abrasive named commentators. At least those have the courage to identify themselves, albeit with a pen name or avatar. For many, it is the anonymous, gutless sniping by those without the spine to stand by their criticism - and the age-old site failure to curb their backstabbing.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I think the problem, for many people, is not the hard-nosed critics, nor even the abrasive named commentators. At least those have the courage to identify themselves, albeit with a pen name or avatar. For many, it is the anonymous, gutless sniping by those without the spine to stand by their criticism - and the age-old site failure to curb their backstabbing.

This here isn't really different from real life. The dogs that bark the loudest are not the ones that usually bite you.

 

[EmilyMiller]

And so we get to discussions about mythical / comedic knights. This place .

—

I have a number of people (actually it’s really quite a small number if you ignore the total buffoons) who routinely attack me here, despite me hardly ever interacting with them. I have no idea why they are so obsessed, I figure their problem, not mine. You can easily find the people involved, just take a look at a few threads which I have started*.

Whether that aggression is also expressed in the targeted vandalism of my work, who knows? The two could be entirely unrelated. Then I also note in-forum apologists for one bombing, or posts minimizing the problem, and it makes me think .

But anyway, there is a cult of fear here around discussing what trolls do. The recieved wisdom is to not mention their antics, lest it encourages them and gives them the attention and relevance and even power () they clearly lack in their real lives.

I no longer care about repercussions. So I’ll plan to lay out exactly what is done indiscriminately to every single story I post regardless of comp / non-comp, category, and content. If it happens to me, it either happens to others, or it could happen to you in the future.

It will take a while to explain, but hopefully not as many words as Nix .

Watch this space…

UPDATE: * including this one!

 

[AG31]

but don't self-publish on Draft2Digital / Smashwords / Amazon until your stories are high enough quality to pass -

Could you clarify? I publish on Smashwords via Draft2Digital and am not aware of any problems.

 

[AG31]

I pay no attention to scores, but just from this thread I'm thinking that if I took note of a story that happened to have a low score, I'd think, "Hmmm... Must be interesting enough to have attracted a bomber or two. I'll check it out!"

 

[EmilyMiller]

Yeah, I can see why you feel it's time to fly the coop.
Personally I think the quality of your story shows that it's time you aimed a little higher than Literotica with your writing, which quite a few others here are doing. Rework it and find out what potential book publishers make of it.

In 2003, I wrote a screenplay for a nationwide competetion. It won first prize - £1,000. I'd poured my heart and soul into that story, dreamed it, wept, lived it. It took me eighteen months to write it. Rereading it now, I can see why it won that prize, but also why it was passed over by all the movie company readers I sent it to. Was it my "one story"? Or did I have more?
That's what you need to find out.

I’m going to respond to more people who have posted here, but I wanted to say something specific here.

You and I have never really got along and have routinely been on opposite sides of various topics. However, this lack of personal connection actually lends weight to what you say. It’s not coming from a place where your motivations are mixed.

So thank you!

 

[Kelliezgirl]

There i'd disagree.

We supply the content for the site that draws eyes and clicks, and as far as I'm concerned. the quid pro quo is, apart from the eyes, give us a UI to use that works and if there are major glitches that impact us, let us know about them and about what's being done about them. It's not much effort to write a short post and it would actually save Laurel and Manu a huge amount of junk mail in their inboxes.

What percent of the actual Lit Authors are active or even occasionally present in the AH?
This is a tiny slice of the Lit pie.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

The problem with voting abuse is a recurring topic, and all has already been said about it. For some, it's an issue; for some, it's not. Laurel used to take some action to curb the impact of such voting, but with everything that's been going on lately, that's not the case anymore.

Most of all, it's proof that Lit's voting system was badly designed. It relied on administrator actions to offset misuse. The misuse has always been there; there were people who suffered from it for years. It's just that it's more obvious now.

Back when the website mostly functioned, I was booed down every time I brought up the problem and suggested solutions, as imperfect as they were. Honestly, I couldn't care less about it now when it started impacting contests or some specific people. These things aren't suddenly more important than they used to be. It's a case of a problem AH kept downplaying that came back to bite them in the ass. At least some of them.


Scores don't mean much as a measure of story quality, true. But they are important to attract readership and thus matter to us by necessity. But Laurel doesn't have a single reason to care about them. It's just us who care, and since this isn't a partnership or symbiosis, her lack of care about the misuse of the scoring system is understandable and expected.


You're correct, once again. They don't owe us shit, for sure. They don't need to care about our needs and problems. The way they behave reflects such an attitude, and that's okay, as long as everyone understands that.

But what also MUST be said is that we don't owe them shit either. This isn't a partnership. We aren't friends or partners, or working towards the same goal. And regardless of some people's emotional approaches to Lit, we don't owe Lit any loyalty.
In some aspects, our interests even clash. So we should also be looking after our own interests only and do what we can to meet them. That includes NOT booing down fellow authors who complain when Literotica acts against their interests as authors, when it's coldly silent and doesn't care about their needs.

We are in agreement that we don't owe lit anything and they don't owe us anything. We have a purely commercial relationship. If 7/11 is the most convenient and cost effective place to get gas, I'll stop there and buy gas. Even if I've bought gas their for years, the manager doesn't owe me any special treatment. And if it is no longer convenient or cost effective I'm taking my fuel purchase needs somewhere else.

The AH is tiny. It's an irrelevant corner of the entire operation. You have a small group of people continually complaining about a problem with zero evidence the problem actually exists.
It's also worth noting that the most popular authors that frequent the AH aren't complaining about this supposed problem.

I can sympathize with you, you at least have been consistent on this matter, but I simply don't agree it's some huge problem. What it looks like to me is that some people expect special treatment and are mad they aren't getting it.

 

[ChloeTzang]

What percent of the actual Lit Authors are active or even occasionally present in the AH?
This is a tiny slice of the Lit pie.

Absolutely tiny. Most writers on LIt never make an appearance here. I'd suspect 90% of them don't even know it exists - I didn't for the first 6 months I was here. Only found it when I had a problem and started looking for a solution

 

[ChloeTzang]

Could you clarify? I publish on Smashwords via Draft2Digital and am not aware of any problems.

No, it's not a problem

It's more a generic observation that quite a lot of self-published work is pretty low quality - and it has a detrimental effect overall on how readers see self-published books.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

I can sympathize with you, you at least have been consistent on this matter, but I simply don't agree it's some huge problem.

I think that the main points Emily made are valid. I have (independently) come to a similar end result as she did. I started here and quickly reached a point where I was posting 5-6-7-8 stories a month. I've ended up with two ~100K-word novels, a dozen or so 40-60K-word books, compilations of shorter (1-2K-word) stories... But now I don't even publish one story a month here. And those that I do, were mostly written for other purposes/sites and I just post them here to keep a toe in the water.

I, for one, do not believe that Emily is wrong. She has just decided to speak up. I took a quieter approach and just moved most of my work elsewhere. For what it's worth, I have a story that I submitted for a contest that actually ENDED two months ago, and my story is still just sitting in pending. I can understand how an author can become frustrated with that. I have seen my stories (that have won contests on other sites) go from a 4.8 rating (and a handful of positive comments) to 4.2 virtually overnight.

It's also worth noting that the most popular authors that frequent the AH aren't complaining about this supposed problem.

Perhaps because this site means peanuts to them? I don't know. But why does that matter?

Emily feels how she feels and I know that her complaints have validity. And even if they didn't (they do), she feels how she feels and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[PennyThompson]

Emily knows my feelings about her, and her decision, and this situation, so I don't feel like I need to share them in detail here

I'm not planning on going anywhere currently, I still receive generally excellent engagement and feedback here, and while I've had one frustrating publishing delay so far, I still plan on publishing my next story here once it's ready. I still receive a lot of personal benefit from interacting here on the forum.

But I'm also backing up some forum posts, private messages, and story topics into my own documents. And I'm also looking at other sites and considering if I should try to become more active on them, as a possible supplement or backup to my activity here.

Systems often collapse "gradually, then suddenly." I don't put high odds on that being what's happening right now, but it's also not zero.

 

[EmilyMiller]

PS I’m not going to argue with anyone on this thread.

Just repeating

Mostly as there is no real argument to be had here and I have no interest in fabricated drama.

 

[alohadave]

Absolutely tiny. Most writers on LIt never make an appearance here. I'd suspect 90% of them don't even know it exists - I didn't for the first 6 months I was here. Only found it when I had a problem and started looking for a solution

I was here for a while before I ever ventured to the forums, and it wasn't until I started writing that I even came into the AH.

The site claims 100,000 authors, and there are maybe 4 dozen regular active posters here, with a couple dozen occasional posters.

 

[dirk2024]

Even though the number of AH posters are few in comparison to the total on this site, we could be seen as "canaries in the coal mine".

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

A streak across a moonless sky,
disappearing seamlessly into the vastness of the ocean at my feet,
the violence of its demise insignificant in its grandeur.
The expanse upon which I gazed
made me feel small, insignificant, unworthy.
Then that single gift of unexpected splendor,
proof of the elegance, grace, and beauty of this creation.
Such a random thing
to be so alluring, so moving.
It was something I’d only yearn to know.
Yearn to know but never touch.
Just its appearance in my life,
the simple fact it chose to share that small piece of its existence with me,
made my life better,
made me better.
I smiled.
I thought of those I’d wished to have shared the moment with,
those who had, like the meteor, crossed my path,
touched my imagination,
my heart.
Some I knew.
others I never would.
That didn’t matter.
For that too brief moment,
no matter the days, weeks, years,
is always too brief.
They, it, had shared a bit of magic with me.
Come what may,
their essence,
their spirit,
their soul had flashed across the horizon of my life
and emblazoned their reflection upon the very marrow of my existence,
never to be forgotten.

 

[Britva415]

The site claims 100,000 authors

That's 100,000 authors ever. On a daily or weekly basis, it's probably a couple hundred. In a year, maybe as many as a couple thousand.

Last year someone came up with data about how many and when stories are published by individual authors, and there was an overwhelming proportion of authors who only publish one story ever, or only publish for a few months and never again.

On the other hand, all those stories are still here, so, Lit can continue to capitalize on them.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I think that the main points Emily made are valid. I have (independently) come to a similar end result as she did. I started here and quickly reached a point where I was posting 5-6-7-8 stories a month. I've ended up with two ~100K-word novels, a dozen or so 40-60K-word books, compilations of shorter (1-2K-word) stories... But now I don't even publish one story a month here. And those that I do, were mostly written for other purposes/sites and I just post them here to keep a toe in the water.

I, for one, do not believe that Emily is wrong. She has just decided to speak up. I took a quieter approach and just moved most of my work elsewhere. For what it's worth, I have a story that I submitted for a contest that actually ENDED two months ago, and my story is still just sitting in pending. I can understand how an author can become frustrated with that. I have seen my stories (that have won contests on other sites) go from a 4.8 rating (and a handful of positive comments) to 4.2 virtually overnight.

Perhaps because this site means peanuts to them? I don't know. But why does that matter?

Emily feels how she feels and I know that her complaints have validity. And even if they didn't (they do), she feels how she feels and there is nothing wrong with that.

As to why the popular authors not speaking up matters, because who do you think Laurel should be more concerned about? The opinions of the popular authors who might actually drive traffic to the site, or all the little people?
Go to a casino, the guy dropping quarters in a slot machine doesn't matter to them. It's the whales they care about, and the AH isn't it.

I've been very clear that the delays in submissions is a problem, I've also been very clear that there is a little doubt that Laurel and Manu are aware and working on it. Crying on the AH isn't helpful.

Sure, we all feel how we feel. So what? Does that mean someone can't disagree? Or must we all march in lockstep? Perhaps we could sit around in a bongo circle, play Kumbaya and cry, "woe is me, Lit is so unfair!"

Lit is a business, if they, as a business, aren't meeting your needs, then find someone else. What we have here is a bunch of people who eat at a restaurant, decide the service was shitty, go home, bitch on the internet about it, then come back the next day and repeat the process.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Even though the number of AH posters are few in comparison to the total on this site, we could be seen as "canaries in the coal mine".

Only if we are similar to all those other authors as a population, and there is no reason to believe we are.
Besides, Laurel doesn't need a canary. Don't you think the site can tell her how many new authors there are? All the trends and data in submissions, views, everything else?

To continue your analogy, she has a very sophisticated air monitoring system throughout the entire mine, which is why they don't use canaries anymore.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

That's 100,000 authors ever. On a daily or weekly basis, it's probably a couple hundred. In a year, maybe as many as a couple thousand.

Last year someone came up with data about how many and when stories are published by individual authors, and there was an overwhelming proportion of authors who only publish one story ever, or only publish for a few months and never again.

On the other hand, all those stories are still here, so, Lit can continue to capitalize on them.

There are already more stories on this site than anyone could read in a lifetime. If the submissions slowed to a dozen a day, lit would be a viable site for decades. They'd probably have to shake things up somehow to "stir" the pot to keep different stuff on top, but that wouldn't be hard.

 

[ElectricBlue]

What percent of the actual Lit Authors are active or even occasionally present in the AH?
This is a tiny slice of the Lit pie.

Tiny tiny, we're not representative of anything, just ourselves.

 

[dirk2024]

Only if we are similar to all those other authors as a population, and there is no reason to believe we are.
Besides, Laurel doesn't need a canary. Don't you think the site can tell her how many new authors there are? All the trends and data in submissions, views, everything else?

To continue your analogy, she has a very sophisticated air monitoring system throughout the entire mine, which is why they don't use canaries anymore.

This is the first time I have seen the word "sophisticated" linked to this website. Now, "antiquated", seems more likely of the two words.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

This is the first time I have seen the word "sophisticated" linked to this website. Now, "antiquated", seems more likely of the two words.

Even an antiquated system can give them all the data they need, and it would be more accurate and more useful than a few loud people in the AH.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Tiny tiny, we're not representative of anything, just ourselves.

Exactly, which is why it is ludicrous to think that Laurel should be beholden to the demands of people here.

 

[alohadave]

That's 100,000 authors ever. On a daily or weekly basis, it's probably a couple hundred. In a year, maybe as many as a couple thousand.

Last year someone came up with data about how many and when stories are published by individual authors, and there was an overwhelming proportion of authors who only publish one story ever, or only publish for a few months and never again.

On the other hand, all those stories are still here, so, Lit can continue to capitalize on them.

Very valid points.