So, as the title says, I'm just looking for alternatives to Literotica. I'm not looking for profit, I'm more looking for user engagement at this point. I've been a reader of the site for a long time, in spite of the older and clunky coding of the website. I decided a few months ago that I would start to publish as I had some stories I've been thinking about and I used to write long ago and thought it would be a great way to have some fun and get back into it. That is where my frustrations have started.

I'll rant below if anyone cares why I want to find an alternative, but if you'd prefer to skip the rant, I'd love just some feedback, suggestions, and/or advice. I checked this page and did some searches, and there were some links to some websites I found in past discussions of this same topic, but some of the posts that came up were older and the websites don't work or seem inactive. If this was answered recently and I just didn't seem to get that prior post in my search, feel free to just redirect instead of repeating anything and I apologize for the trouble.

Anyways... Start Rant!

I don't want to just knock on the site, again, I've been a reader on it for a decade or so. That being said, transitioning to the author side... good lord, it is frustrating.

I have a multi chapter book, each about 10,000 words \- 2000 for each chapter. I didn't realize the stories went through an approval process, but I thought alright, no big deal. First Chapter got up in about 2 days, figured I could live with that. Got a handful of comments, a user rating of 4.3, and felt fairly motivated for my first post. The second chapter, yeah that took 10 days to get approved. Was never sent back, just took that long. I kind of wanted to see if there was any feedback before I posted chapter 3, so I held off on submitting chapter 3 until 2 was up. Once Chapter 2 was up, I improved with twice as many comments and even a 4.7 rating, so that sort of satisfied me at the time. While I was waiting for Chapter 2 I tried to get more involved in the website, even made a short profile bio and an avatar... except, oh yeah, the avatar... that needs approval also. It is going on 30 days, and that is still in a pending status. I mentioned the avatar issue in the post, and one person commented they've been waiting 14 days for their avatar to be removed, because they wanted to delete it.

I submitted Chapter 3 and sat around waiting again. At 10 days in I checked into how the forums work, and asked about it. I was mostly told to shut up and be happy the website exists, which, I mean it is free to use (though it does appear they make money on advertisements and stuff), and one person said I should email the person who does the approval, which surprised me that a single person is in charge of all of that. Some of the longer term authors said you have to get to the point she recognizes you, and usually it won't take more than a 7 days once you're on her favorites list. That sort of annoyed me, but again, I strive to be understanding.

I sent a message to this designated woman in charge, and ten more days went by and I did not hear back. The story sat in Pending Approval for a whopping 20 days ago altogether, until this morning, when it was rejected. No message as to why, no input on what went wrong... just sit around for 3 weeks and get rejected for some reason. In the meantime I had a handful of people ask about additional chapters to the story in the comments, so in an attempt to keep some momentum, I tried to post a comment that it was pending approval and would be out... yeah, my COMMENT has been on pending approval for 3 days, lol.

I was unaware that the stories have to be worded a certain way to be put into a series, but they have a manual series option where you can group them yourself. So I did make that, and yeah, that says it is Pending Approval also. I feel like I went to sneeze, and yep, I was unable to, because ya know, pending approval. Did the website get into some sort of issue in the past to have so many things on lockdown and such extreme control? Are other websites fairly similar to that as well?

Anyways, end rant, thanks for listening