Need Help with publishing my new story. My story got rejected citing AI usage.

[MelissaJewels]

I've been trying to publish my work on this site for several weeks now, but each time my manuscript is rejected with the claim that it's AI-generated. I want to make it clear: I have not used any AI tools, including Grammarly or any other writing tools, to write my work.

It is the last chapter in my series Mike&Emma's tale.

It's been smooth sailing until now. I've submitted numerous drafts, especially for the final chapter, but every time I get it back, they claim it's AI-generated. It's just the last chapter - all the others went through fine, and my writing style hasn't changed.

This whole ordeal has been dragging on for weeks now. They take forever to send back my manuscript, and when they do, it's always the same rejection for AI use. I'm losing my mind here. My readers are getting confused and frustrated, and I've started posting on other sites just to keep my story going, but I don't want to leave this community.

Here's what I've tried:
-Sent a bunch of emails to the admin but got no reply. I even sent countless messages to Laura and Manu explaining everything, but no reply.
-Tried to tweet at Literotica official on X, but that didn't go anywhere.
-I've been posting in the help section here, but nothing's changed.

What else can I do? I'm at a complete loss. There's no clear point of contact, no one to talk to, and I've never had to deal with this before. It's only this final chapter - why? What's different?

I'm pleading here - what else can I do? Does anyone know:
-How they decide if writing is AI-made?
-If there's some kind of appeal process?
-Maybe someone who can actually help or at least point me in the right direction?

I just want to finish my series where it started, with my readers here. I posted another submission today and hoping for some sort of reply.

This situation is breaking my heart and my spirit. Please, if you've got any advice, if you've been through this, or if you know someone who can help, throw me a lifeline. I'm desperate here.

 

[onehitwanda]

-How they decide if writing is AI-made?

we don't know. There are a lot of theories but we have no concrete idea.

 

[Bamagan]

The only appeal process, really, is to resubmit the story and plead your case in the 'Notes to the Editor' section. I think we can be reasonably confident Laurel reads those, even if other forms of messaging are too voluminous to be reliable. You seem to be saying you've already done that, though, so unfortunately you may be stuck.
Since your earlier chapters passed muster, you might consider removing them as individual submissions and combining them into a single work with the rejected one(s). If there's some automated checking system, as we suspect, that might tilt the probabilities back in your favor. Or it might get the whole thing kicked back. It's kind of a Hail Mary option.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The only appeal process, really, is to resubmit the story and plead your case in the 'Notes to the Editor' section. I think we can be reasonably confident Laurel reads those, even if other forms of messaging are too voluminous to be reliable. You seem to be saying you've already done that, though, so unfortunately you may be stuck.
Since your earlier chapters passed muster, you might consider removing them as individual submissions and combining them into a single work with the rejected one(s). If there's some automated checking system, as we suspect, that might tilt the probabilities back in your favor. Or it might get the whole thing kicked back. It's kind of a Hail Mary option.

Unfortunately, this site long ago became too big and unwieldy for just two people to run it. I guess they make money selling sex toys merchandise (there is a separate page for that) and the authors are merely there to bring in prospects. And the site is very "opaque" about what happen behind the scenes.

The irony is that the site probably uses it's own "bot programs" to scan for things like AI usage and such. Whatever those say is taken as the truth and then they move on to the next story.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'm pleading here - what else can I do? Does anyone know:
-How they decide if writing is AI-made?
-If there's some kind of appeal process?
-Maybe someone who can actually help or at least point me in the right direction?

We assume that story admins use some kind of AI detector but it's unknown which one and where they set their threshold for rejection. There is no appeal process. Also, Literotica's admins are notorious for not replying to most PMs sent to them, especially PMs related to AI usage. So as frustrated as you must feel, there aren't many options left to you.

There is one crude idea that comes to my mind that might "fly." Assuming the rejections are based on the percentage of AI-suspected text in the submitted story, there is a way for you to lower it, sort of. It's far from ideal but it's a possibility.
What you could do is submit your whole story - all previous chapters and the last chapter together, as an integral submission with the name, say, Mike&Emma's tale - full story. Since your previous chapters passed under the AI threshold and considering that your last chapter would then be a part of a much larger text, the part of the text that is suspected to be AI-generated would make a considerably smaller percentage of the whole story and thus possibly pass under the threshold. Of course, we can't know the AI percentage that your previous chapters showed on Literotica's AI detectors so it's possible that it wouldn't work, but if you are desperate, it's worth a shot.

 

[Plathfan]

I've been trying to publish my work on this site for several weeks now, but each time my manuscript is rejected with the claim that it's AI-generated. I want to make it clear: I have not used any AI tools, including Grammarly or any other writing tools, to write my work.

It is the last chapter in my series Mike&Emma's tale.

It's been smooth sailing until now. I've submitted numerous drafts, especially for the final chapter, but every time I get it back, they claim it's AI-generated. It's just the last chapter - all the others went through fine, and my writing style hasn't changed.

This whole ordeal has been dragging on for weeks now. They take forever to send back my manuscript, and when they do, it's always the same rejection for AI use. I'm losing my mind here. My readers are getting confused and frustrated, and I've started posting on other sites just to keep my story going, but I don't want to leave this community.

Here's what I've tried:
-Sent a bunch of emails to the admin but got no reply. I even sent countless messages to Laura and Manu explaining everything, but no reply.
-Tried to tweet at Literotica official on X, but that didn't go anywhere.
-I've been posting in the help section here, but nothing's changed.

What else can I do? I'm at a complete loss. There's no clear point of contact, no one to talk to, and I've never had to deal with this before. It's only this final chapter - why? What's different?

I'm pleading here - what else can I do? Does anyone know:
-How they decide if writing is AI-made?
-If there's some kind of appeal process?
-Maybe someone who can actually help or at least point me in the right direction?

I just want to finish my series where it started, with my readers here. I posted another submission today and hoping for some sort of reply.

This situation is breaking my heart and my spirit. Please, if you've got any advice, if you've been through this, or if you know someone who can help, throw me a lifeline. I'm desperate here.

It’s hard to believe that the same AI detector that approved 11 submissions would repeatedly reject the 12th, especially when neither the writer nor the style has changed. There’s something arbitrary, maybe even mean, going on here.

Since your chapters average around 3.5K words, merging them might make sense. However, doing so would mean losing the 187 comments and 425 favorites the series has accumulated.

Hopefully, this thread will be helpful. Whatever you do, don’t listen to anyone suggesting you change your writing style or deliberately add errors to "dirty" the text.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Since your chapters average around 3.5K words, merging them might make sense. However, doing so would mean losing the 187 comments and 425 favorites the series has accumulated.

The OP doesn't need to take down the chapters that are already published so there would be no loss of comments or favorites.

 

[StillStunned]

Whatever you do, don’t listen to anyone suggesting you change your writing style or deliberately add errors to "dirty" the text.

Wise words. No writer has ever evolved their style to suit the preferences of a publisher or their readers. Never.

Listen to Plathfan, who is after all the AH's resident expert on not being published.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The OP doesn't need to take down the chapters that are already published so there would be no loss of comments or favorites.

They would, if the story was consolidated. The site doesn't allow two versions of the same story.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

It’s hard to believe that the same AI detector that approved 11 submissions would repeatedly reject the 12th, especially when neither the writer nor the style has changed. There’s something arbitrary, maybe even mean, going on here.

Since your chapters average around 3.5K words, merging them might make sense. However, doing so would mean losing the 187 comments and 425 favorites the series has accumulated.

Hopefully, this thread will be helpful. Whatever you do, don’t listen to anyone suggesting you change your writing style or deliberately add errors to "dirty" the text.

What you might consider is using one or more of the readily available AI detection software programs you can find online to help identify what might be triggering the false positive. Then you can make an informed decision on how to revise your work within your style to help it pass muster.

After all, your style is sacrosanct. I should never change or evolve or grow as your skill as a writer does. You should never alter it to explore new vistas in your writing or test the waters of new writing experiences. I mean, heaven forbid you decide to write a limerick or a Haiku, right. Your style should be carved in stone forever, immutable, unchanging, forever a bastion of the writer you were and are forever more. Always exactly the same.

 

[Bamagan]

Unfortunately, this site long ago became too big and unwieldy for just two people to run it. I guess they make money selling sex toys merchandise (there is a separate page for that) and the authors are merely there to bring in prospects. And the site is very "opaque" about what happen behind the scenes.

The irony is that the site probably uses it's own "bot programs" to scan for things like AI usage and such. Whatever those say is taken as the truth and then they move on to the next story.

There's nothing ironic about using scripts or bot tools in an effort to detect and filter out potential AI content. I expect they use similar tools to flag other prohibited materials like potential underage and snuff stories. Using such a detector is not equivalent to helping an AI create a 'story' and then trying to distribute it as one's own work. As far as I know, the site has not advocated any position that suggests AI tools have no legitimate uses or should be abolished, outlawed, etc., just that they do not wish to host any stories that were created that way. Given the murkiness on whether or not such works deserve copyright protections, or are themselves illegal infringements of other copyrights, it's quite sensible for the site to want to avoid association with such content, whether that's simple pragmatism or a case of principles.

 

[onehitwanda]

Wise words. No writer has ever evolved their style to suit the preferences of a publisher or their readers. Never.

Listen to Plathfan, who is after all the AH's resident expert on not being published.

Whoooooooo needs his fwuffy tummy tickled? You do!

 

[Bamagan]

Whoooooooo needs his fwuffy tummy tickled? You do!

I advise using caution. Most cats have a murder button there, and I understand his has a (red)hair trigger...

 

[Plathfan]

Sometimes, when bad things happen, they are for our own good, even if we don’t see it right away. If someone slams a door in our face, perhaps it’s better not to step inside. Encountering ugly people can help us cherish the beautiful ones in our lives. Everything happens for the best... to the best.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain." – Vivian Greene

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Sometimes, when bad things happen, they are for our own good, even if we don’t see it right away. If someone slams a door in our face, perhaps it’s better not to step inside. Encountering ugly people can help us cherish the beautiful ones in our lives. Everything happens for the best... to the best.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain." – Vivian Greene

And imagine what a wonderful dance you might experience if you deign to add new and different, possibly more exciting steps.

 

[gunhilltrain]

There's nothing ironic about using scripts or bot tools in an effort to detect and filter out potential AI content. I expect they use similar tools to flag other prohibited materials like potential underage and snuff stories. Using such a detector is not equivalent to helping an AI create a 'story' and then trying to distribute it as one's own work. As far as I know, the site has not advocated any position that suggests AI tools have no legitimate uses or should be abolished, outlawed, etc., just that they do not wish to host any stories that were created that way. Given the murkiness on whether or not such works deserve copyright protections, or are themselves illegal infringements of other copyrights, it's quite sensible for the site to want to avoid association with such content, whether that's simple pragmatism or a case of principles.

They haven't banned those aspects, that's true. I have never used them. I don't know if actual AI-generated text has copyright protections or not. Mostly it just reads as rather "artificial" - dull in another words. How the site decides anything is usually a guess. In this section they suggest that it's just bad for creative writing, I suppose.

https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-ai

"These type of apps are replacing original human written text with generic AI generated text, and should be avoided when submitting work to Literotica. Readers prefer to experience your worlds and your fantasies in your own unique voice, rather than having them smoothed into a generic artificial voice available to everyone else using the same software."

The modern world in a nutshell, perhaps.

 

[MillieDynamite]

They recommend that you not let ProWritingAid, Grammarly, or other such editing tools rewrite your words because that can make the work less distinct and cause a flag. It is right in the rejection asking you to be sure you haven't done that.

They haven't banned those aspects, that's true. I have never used them. I don't know if actual AI-generated text has copyright protections or not. Mostly it just reads as rather "artificial" - dull in another words. How the site decides anything is usually a guess. In this section they suggest that it's just bad for creative writing, I suppose.

https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-ai

"These type of apps are replacing original human written text with generic AI generated text, and should be avoided when submitting work to Literotica. Readers prefer to experience your worlds and your fantasies in your own unique voice, rather than having them smoothed into a generic artificial voice available to everyone else using the same software."

The modern world in a nutshell, perhaps.

EDIT: @gunhilltrain, not sure this should've been directed at you.

 

[gunhilltrain]

They recommend that you not let ProWritingAid, Grammarly, or other such editing tools rewrite your words because that can make the work less distinct and cause a flag. It is right in the rejection asking you to be sure you haven't done that.

EDIT: @gunhilltrain, not sure this should've been directed at you.

No, it's okay. I guess I was surprised that the site, if that FAQ page can be believed, is so concerned with creative - call it integrity, purity? Maybe they have a point, and maybe they are fighting a losing battle.

This is something of a digression beyond the topic here, but I whole point of modernity and technology is standardization and the elimination of local differences. It wasn't quite planned that way, but it's the result of looking for efficiency and quantity by mass producing lots of stuff. Maybe it will inadvertently standardize "creativity" too. I'll just leave it at that for the moment.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

No, it's okay. I guess I was surprised that the site, if that FAQ page can be believed, is so concerned with creative - call it integrity, purity? Maybe they have a point, and maybe they are fighting a losing battle.

This is something of a digression beyond the topic here, but I whole point of modernity and technology is standardization and the elimination of local differences. It wasn't quite planned that way, but it's the result of looking for efficiency and quantity by mass producing lots of stuff. Maybe it will inadvertently standardize "creativity" too. I'll just leave it at that for the moment.

As a global society we are continuously sacrificing quality for convenient mediocrity and have been for a long time. My brother can afford to have his shirts custom made. The other 95% of the worlds population, not so much. The upside is, like my brother's shirts, a real human will always write better than an AI and there will always be a market for that quality.

 

[Bramblethorn]

No, it's okay. I guess I was surprised that the site, if that FAQ page can be believed, is so concerned with creative - call it integrity, purity? Maybe they have a point, and maybe they are fighting a losing battle.

I'm not sure whether their position is motivated more by considerations of creative purity, or by uncertainty around the legal status of "AI"-assisted work. Is it protected by copyright? Does it violate the copyright of the authors whose works were used to train it? We're probably in for several years of legal wrangling before such issues are settled.

But if it were me, one of the biggest considerations would be volume. Many publications have been absolutely swamped with AI-generated submissions and unless Lit were to change its current moderation approach that would be hard for Laurel to absorb.

 

[kiwibat]

AI detectors do not work. i’ve tried it with stuff i’ve written from 2015 that came back as “AI written”. there’s passages from the bible or the US constitution that are marked as AI. meanwhile i tried generating a short story with chatGPT that passed no problem.

there just aren’t any reliable ways to detect AI writing at this point in time, so it’s a bit disturbing to see them being used to judge stories on here.

 

[ElectricBlue]

there just aren’t any reliable ways to detect AI writing at this point in time, so it’s a bit disturbing to see them being used to judge stories on here.

We have no idea how the site does its screening, but something works - judging by the significant drop in the number of, "My story has been rejected for AI" threads we've seen over the last six months.

Threads like this one were constant a year ago, now they're occasional. That doesn't help this person, but it either means : a) the volume of actual AI story submissions has dropped (which I tend to doubt); or b) the site has found something that acts as a filter (which might still be imperfect).

Judging by the amount of AI junk you see all over the place, the site had to do something. It's done something, clearly, even if we don't know what.

 

[kiwibat]

sure it’ll catch most of the actually written AI stories, but it’s also going to catch a bunch of well written non-AI stories as well. maybe that’s an acceptable trade off, maybe not.

 

[StillStunned]

sure it’ll catch most of the actually written AI stories, but it’s also going to catch a bunch of well written non-AI stories as well. maybe that’s an acceptable trade off, maybe not.

Presumably it is, from the site's perspective. And to be fair, I've been reading complaints about other story sites being swamped by floods of AI-generated drivel. Whether it's to keep standards on Lit higher, or because of the potential IP issues, Lit is doing a good job of holding back that flood.

Of course I understand that's no comfort to anyone caught in the middle. Still, is asking people to evolve their style any worse than telling them to rework a story to comply with the 18+ rule or the NC rule? Some people might argue that their vision for a story is more important than the style it's written in.

 

[Plathfan]

Ancient cultures across the northern hemisphere revered the solstice as a time of renewal and hope. From this sacred observance, Christmas and Hanukkah emerged. The children of the night thrive during these long hours, but with the dawn of tomorrow, the Earth will tilt, the days will lengthen, and light will once again triumph over the shadows.