If you are having a lengthy delay in publishing, please add the name of your story and when submitted here.

[SmilingLez]

It's my understanding from reading other posts, that stories go live around 11:00 p.m. mountain time. If your tag is still pending it won't be picked up.

I usually have two tags when one of my prose will go live that evening. The gray pending tag and a red new tag. However the hyperlink is dead until all of the new stories go live

 

[MetaBob]

It's my understanding from reading other posts, that stories go live around 11:00 p.m. mountain time. If your tag is still pending it won't be picked up.

That has been my experience, too. But before, the "Pending" tag had an attached date. This is how things currently look:

Travel Nurse, or The Final Ward
Part 3 of The Travel Nurse series.
21 hours ago in Romance Stories

I submitted the story about 8 hours earlier. So yeah, weird.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

I submitted a new story (actually a new chapter) yesterday. For several hours, its "Pending" status reflected the date and time I submitted it. After I woke this morning, when I checked again, the Pending status submitted datetime reflected midnight last night as the time associated with the story, so basically deducting about 8 hours from the time that story had been submitted.

That seemed weird. It still does.

Change seems to be afoot.

I'm experiencing the same. Submitted on the 22nd, though it now says the 23rd. Previously, the time between submission and publication was <48 hours, so this is new for me.

Usually if the date changed it would reflect the day on which the story would go live.

Ah well, not the end of the world. Authors who serialise might be more miffed.

 

[MetaBob]

I'm experiencing the same. Submitted on the 22nd, though it now says the 23rd. Previously, the time between submission and publication was <48 hours, so this is new for me.

Usually if the date changed it would reflect the day on which the story would go live.

Ah well, not the end of the world. Authors who serialise might be more miffed.

My new story part sat in Pending status for 10 days from January 24 into last night (February 3). Now it is indicated as "Published", though it is still in my Pending folder and cannot be accessed except through the editing interface. It also has an affiliated date: 02/05/2026. So I assume it is in some new in-between state that'll get resolved in about 13 hours. We'll see:

Travel Nurse, or The Final Ward
Part 3 of The Travel Nurse series.
02/05/2026 in Romance Stories

PUBLISHED 0 0

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

My new story part sat in Pending status for 10 days from January 24 into last night (February 3). Now it is indicated as "Published", though it is still in my Pending folder and cannot be accessed except through the editing interface. It also has an affiliated date: 02/05/2026. So I assume it is in some new in-between state that'll get resolved in about 13 hours. We'll see.

I ended up waiting just 8-ish days, which is honestly not bad at all.

The in-between state has existed for a while. It means it has been approved and should be live at around 06:30 GMT on the stated date in my experience.

 

[MetaBob]

I ended up waiting just 8-ish days, which is honestly not bad at all.

The in-between state has existed for a while. It means it has been approved and should be live at around 06:30 GMT on the stated date in my experience.

I haven't seen this before; until recently, I would submit a new story and it would be accepted for publication 12 - 48 hours later, then published a day after that. Edited stories would take longer, 7 - 10 days to publication, with roughly a day in 'Approved' Status (actually "Pending" status with a future date).

My last two stories (one was an edited re-submission) both took roughly 10 days, including this one which currently shows a "Published" status even though it has not yet been actually published. So something definitely seems to have changed.

 

[old_prof]

including this one which currently shows a "Published" status even though it has not yet been actually published. So something definitely seems to have changed.

Showing a Published status in the window between being accepted and actually published has been true for my almost full year here. Did it not used to do that?

 

[SoCalAshley]

I'm experiencing the same. Submitted on the 22nd, though it now says the 23rd. Previously, the time between submission and publication was <48 hours, so this is new for me.

Usually if the date changed it would reflect the day on which the story would go live.

Ah well, not the end of the world. Authors who serialise might be more miffed.

I am not sire if this has been covered before on this thread

I'm experiencing the same. Submitted on the 22nd, though it now says the 23rd. Previously, the time between submission and publication was <48 hours, so this is new for me.

Usually if the date changed it would reflect the day on which the story would go live.

Ah well, not the end of the world. Authors who serialise might be more miffed.

I am not sure if this has been covered before on this thread, but I suspect what is happening when the date is reset is that your story failed Lit’s LLM (it’s an AI detection system that Lit uses). The LLM also checks other factors. At that point the story goes to manual review, and it could stay pending for a couple of days, or it could stay pending for months. Again, that’s just my theory. I have never seen anything from Lit to confirm or deny this.

 

[MetaBob]

I am not sure if this has been covered before on this thread, but I suspect what is happening when the date is reset is that your story failed Lit’s LLM (it’s an AI detection system that Lit uses). The LLM also checks other factors. At that point the story goes to manual review, and it could stay pending for a couple of days, or it could stay pending for months. Again, that’s just my theory. I have never seen anything from Lit to confirm or deny this.

I've never received a rejection or any other notification based on suspicion that I used an AI. I like to think that's because I don't use an AI except for running my story through the free online version of Grammarly, but that's only to catch grammatical errors, and frankly I reject 90-95% of what it suggests (among other things, it likes commas a lot more than I do), and I NEVER let it rewrite anything I compose.

My newest piece, which was in limbo for 10 days, seems on schedule to be posted in about 6 more hours. I will update when I learn more.

 

[MetaBob]

I've never received a rejection or any other notification based on suspicion that I used an AI. I like to think that's because I don't use an AI except for running my story through the free online version of Grammarly, but that's only to catch grammatical errors, and frankly I reject 90-95% of what it suggests (among other things, it likes commas a lot more than I do), and I NEVER let it rewrite anything I compose.

My newest piece, which was in limbo for 10 days, seems on schedule to be posted in about 6 more hours. I will update when I learn more.

It's posted: https://www.literotica.com/s/travel-nurse-or-the-final-ward