Submitting Literotica For Beginners

When I first went to submit an article I was baffled by how to actually do it. I guess like most authors, I had been a long time reader of stories on this site and posted comments before I submitted a story. The one thing I did when I made comments was to type into Microsoft word, and copy and paste it into literotica. I did this to beat the spelling Nazis that only seem to comment when an author has one or two misspellings. The one thing that I noticed was that a lot of the stories had

italics

,

bold

, and

underline

in the context. But when I first noticed where you could submit, I experimented and couldn't figure out how to get it to work by copy and paste. Even when I made comments hitting enter between paragraphs didn't even show up. I was left wondering about getting all the different formatting to show up.

When you first go to submit a story on Literotica, there are two options to choose from.

1. Write directly into the space provided. (I would suggest not doing this so you can save what you are working on if you do not finish as well as spell check.), or

2. Copy and paste what you write directly into the space provided, or

3. Upload a file to load.

Like I said before, when I first tried to copy and paste I would loose all my

italics

,

bold

, and

underline

. So I typed my stories into Microsoft Word and uploaded the document onto the site, except I couldn't preview the story like you could if you copy and pasted and I was worried the first time that something would go wrong, or something would not show up correctly. When it was finally posted to the site all the formatting was included and looked just how I wanted it to.

If you are anything like me, after you submit a story you are checking Literotica every day, every chance you get to see if your story has been posted yet or how it is doing, and every time you see it isn't posted you loose a little bit of your soul. Okay, maybe not your soul, but you are a little disappointed.

On the submissions page there is a warning about submitting a file instead of copying and pasting. "it may take slightly longer to be posted because we must process .doc and .rtf files manually"

I have found that my stories submitted through .doc took 3 days longer than copy and paste. Yes, I know that in the Literotica Q&A they say it is all dependant about the volume of submissions and blah, blah, blah. But on the submission page they say it will take less time to submit when you copy and paste.

The problem is you have

italics

,

bold

, and

underlining

in your story and you don't want to lose it when you copy and paste it into the site.

Below please see a simple guide as to how to copy and paste and still have all of your formatting. I had to remember web page design and then trial and error to get it to work. In addition to working on submissions they also work in the comment section, yet for some reason they don't work in the feedback portal yet. You might have seen a couple things in the feedback portal and wondered what they were, some of you might have already known about it, but this is for beginners on the site.

All three of the

Italics, Bold, and Underline

are done in the same way. There are several steps involved.

1. Before the word or words you want formatted start with a less than sign from math class, it is obtained by pressing "SHIFT" and comma "," and it looks like this "<"

2. Next comes the format that you want. Type "i" for

Italics

, "b" for

Bold

, and "u" for

Underline

.

In the comment section the following additional formats can be used: "br" for break and "p" for paragraph. The difference between break and paragraph is that break goes directly to the next line, and paragraph skips a line leaving a blank line in between your text. Break and Paragraph are not needed in stories since they appear correctly by copy and paste. (Like I said above, they do not appear correctly in the feedback portal, but look correct on the story you commented on.)

3. After the format that you want type a greater than sign by pressing "SHIFT" and period "." the greater than sign looks like this ">".

4. If you are leaving feedback as a comment and ONLY use break "br" and paragraph "p" then STOP. If you are using any other type of formatting, continue.

5. If you want two or more different types of formatting for the same selection of text, then repeat steps 1, 2, and 3.

6. Now type everything you want in that format.

7. After you typed what you want formatted you must do the following. The process is the same except for an additional step. Repeat step 1 and type a less than sign "SHIFT" and comma "," and it looks like this "<"

8. Type a backslash "/" it is the same key as the question mark.

9. Repeat step 2 and type the letter that corresponds with the format you used. Type "i" for

Italics

, "b" for

Bold

, and "u" for

Underline

.

10. Repeat step 3 and type a greater than sign by pressing "SHIFT" and period "." the greater than sign looks like this ">".

11. If you used more than one type of formatting you must repeat steps 7, 8, 9, and 10 for each different type of format used.

The final product should look like this: "<" "i, b, u, br, or p" ">" What you want formatted "<" "/" "same thing you just used" ">"

After you copy and paste your text into the selection, the best thing to do to make sure you entered it right is to preview your text to make sure you entered it right before submitting.