This is a long post, but it is important because I am making a necessary change to how stories are published on Noveltrove. Please read it to the end and then ask any questions you have in a reply.
Lately I have noticed a few authors have submitted multiple stories on the same day. I wrote about why this is a bad idea in the blog. Today, one author submitted 17 stories, some that are extremely long with multiple chapters, on the same day.
Why is this important?I can only put three stories on the Noveltrove main page, and Noveltrove will put those stories in the order submitted. That means if I approve more than the first three stories in the "pending", they will all show up in each author's story page, but only the last three I approve will show up on the main page.
When a reader signs on to Noveltrove, the first page they see is the main page, and they will probably read those three stories first. They will never see the first story I approved if I approve more than three. This is why sometimes your story gets published a day or two after you submit it. I only publish three a day because I want to give every author's story at least one day on the main page.
Multiple story submissions by the same author on the same day make the situation worse. In the case of the 17 stories submitted on the same day, there were a few stories by other authors mixed in among them. All were dated February 24. If I published 3 of the same author's stories on February 24, it could be as long as six days before any other author's stories are published .
I have been writing erotica for several years and I understand the desire to have your stories published in a timely manner, but trying to have them published at the same time at the expense of other authors is not fair to any author, and especially hurts new authors. New authors have not had time to develop a following, so few if any readers will take the time to search for their stories. If any author doesn't get reads, they will become discouraged even though they may be writing excellent material. The truth of the matter is they aren't getting reads because they keep getting crowed out by multiple stories by the same author.
Submitting multiple stories on the same day also does not help the author of those stories. Readers generally have preferences for what they enjoy reading, but also enjoy variety. Most authors tend to write in a small number of genre, so your six stories about lesbian fan fiction might not find a lot of readers since those are not among the most popular genre. It's also possible that some readers might leave Noveltrove altogether if they don't find variety in the stories Noveltrove publishes. You would have a better chance of getting reads, votes, and comments if you submitted one story every few days to a week.
To fix this in the future, I will not publish more than one story per author per day.
You may submit as many stories on the same day as you wish, but only the first will appear on the main page. That will give all our authors a chance to have their stories read soon after they are submitted and present a variety of stories to our readers who, after all is said and done, are the reason we write stories and the reason Noveltrove exists..
What this also means is that most of the stories you submitted on the same day will never appear on the main page. That's because of how Noveltrove works. I've written about this before, but I'll recap.
The first time you write or paste a story into the input screen, Noveltrove assigns the story a story number and a date. No matter what you do after that - let it sit as a draft and later edit and then click "Publish" or immediately click "Publish" - that story number and date do not change. For instance, if you started writing a story in the input screen on February 4 and saved it as a draft, that story is dated as being submitted on February 4 with a sequential story number. If you paste your story into the input screen on February 4 and then click "publish", the story is dated as being submitted on February 4 with a sequential story number. If your story is published and you go back and make an edit, the story is still dated as being submitted on February 4 and has the same story number.
Let's assume you submitted 3 stories for publication on February 24 and two other authors submitted one story each. Your three stories are numbered 101, 102, and 103. The other two stories are numbered 104 and 105. I will publish the first story you submitted (101) and the stories of the other two authors (104 and 105). Now, let's assume two other authors each submit a story on February 25 and these are numbered 106 and 107. I can publish the second story of the three you submitted (102) , but Noveltrove puts stories on the home page by the order determined by story number, newest first. Since there are two submissions by other authors, the home page will show the last story I published on February 24 (105) and the two stories with story numbers dated February 25 (106 and 107). I can publish the rest of your three stories, but the story number will prevent them from ever showing up on the home page.
I don't like doing this, but what I'm seeing is several authors are submitting stories that I publish, but they aren't getting the benefit of having their stories on the home page. We need to be encouraging new authors instead of relegating their stories to what is basically an archive.