I have a handful of stories with more than 30k views, but they're all from 2015-2017 era.

I have one story with 75k that I keep an eye on with the dream of getting that million view badge, but the number doesn't seem to go up (probably just because it's an older story that most people wouldn't stumble across unless they were viewing my profile).

Last year, I started taking my writing more seriously, and I found that I was averaging 50-100 flames on a new piece, but the drop-off after the initial few days of activity is really steep. Even when I got a recommended read, or posted my most popular stories, I never managed to to crack the top stories or top authors list, though.

I gave my typewriter a rainbow paintjob! (Fun to dust off my photoshop skills)

I've already got platinum, so if my name comes up, please feel free to redraw or donate to someone else.

I love the idea of displaying your rank on your profile page, and there are ways to present ranking information beyond just the straight number to avoid the demoralizing effect you mention.

- "You wrote your first story, congrats! (Rank 30,000)"
- "You've written more stories than 50% of the writers on this site! (Rank 20,000)" (shown after two stories)
- "You're in the top 50% of writers on the site! (Rank 16,384)"
- "Top 10% writer! (Rank 1,000)"
- "Top 1% writer! (Rank 300)"
- "Top 100 writer! (Rank 75)"
- etc

I would say that good cover art can make me more enthusiastic to read, but I've rarely skipped a story due to bad cover art.

The train wrecks are the most fun to write, for sure!

Thank you for bringing this functionality back! I just submitted all my ebooks (apologies for the flood of submissions, mods!)

Bonus, I discovered that naughtyannie has a new collection out that I hadn't bought yet, so I grabbed that right away.

+1 for removing Novels from Omnium. I hadn't considered this until someone suggested it, but I realized I don't actually care about whether the category exists, but I definitely don't want to have to write an novel to get the Omnium achievement.

a Similar Stories area displays up to three trending stories that either match the top three tags in the current story

"Top three" meaning "the three most popular" or "the first three"?

Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! 🥰

(Sorry, I was away for Thanksgiving)

The image eventually showed up in my Public folder. Normally they appear pretty much right away, but I guess it was stuck in a queue or something. Either way, everything's good now.

Yes, when i posted the image in this thread, it uploaded to my Misc folder. But I still can't upload it to my Public folder.

I've tried a few times now to upload an image to my public gallery. I always get the "your image has been uploaded and is being processed" message, but the image doesn't show up. The image I'm trying to upload is the high-rez copy of the cover art for my latest story (attached).

My two cents — If you're struggling to choose a category because your story has elements of several categories, I don't think you can really make a wrong choice. Obviously, if one is the primary focus of the story, choose that, but if they're all kinda equal, just pick one.

The only way to get this wrong is by miscategorizing in a blatant way. Readers in the lesbian category won't expect a story full of straight sex, etc. As long as you're not putting it in a category that will mislead or upset readers, don't stress yourself out about picking one.

I feel you on this — I tend to fall back on the same collection of descriptions. I don't have a good answer for you. I've tried the thesaurus answers others have suggested. I've also gone on research journeys, where I keep a document open and copy/paste interesting phrases that other writers use to help spark my brain. Mixed success on that front.

The best advice I can give you is to find a beta reader you trust and give them a heads-up that you're looking to reduce repeated words and phrases.

My resolution this year was to take my writing a bit more seriously. I've been writing erotic shorts off and on since 2010, but often months or years would go by between stories. So I set a goal of writing 100,000 words this year, or about 8000 words per month. The plan was that would let me bundle several more collections of shorts to sell as ebooks.

I'm pleased with my progress, though I'm currently just a little behind: https://www.rubypinkromance.com/goals/

Since I was completing stories more often, I was publishing here on Lush more, and resolved to engage a bit more with the site. Previously, I never really responded to comments, read the forums, or participated in competitions. Now I check my notifications every day and try to respond to every comment. I've also joined two competitions, both of which resulted in stories I'm very happy with and probably wouldn't have written otherwise.

Now that I'm engaged a bit more, I'm kinda somewhat seriously pursuing an Omnium badge (I may never get there, but I'd be stoked to get the "80% of categories" badge, too).

And of course, aside from goals like number of words written and stuff, my goal has always been to write interesting women who don't feel like one-dimensional props in a male fantasy.

Lately i've noticed when going through my notifications that I'll click on one and be redirected to the "down for maintenance" page. But when I go back, the site loads fine, except the notification I just clicked on isn't in the menu anymore. Is something going on?

To be clear, it's not every time. Maybe one in 10 or 20 clicks? But often enough to not be a total fluke.

I feel bad now because I posted a joke reply assuming others would give serious answers, and then no one else has replied. So let me make it up to you by giving you a serious answer as well:

I hate to say it, but it depends. You're asking all the right questions, but you'll get wildly different answers depending on whether you ask a teenager, a tradwife, an aristocrat, a sex worker, or a businesswoman.

Some groups love and use the word "girl." Some would find it childish and demeaning.

Context matters. If my best friend says "girls, let's hit the bar!" it hits different than if my older male boss says "girls, let's go!"

The bad news is there's no clear answer for you. The good news is that there's no clear answer period, so it's hard for you to get it wrong.

The best advice I can give you is to try to put yourself in the head of the people talking, and imagine both the word the speaker might choose based on their intent, and how the listener would receive and interpret it.

You are the most beautiful FEMALE in the world

That tough for me to answer because I went to school for graphic design, and I love making cover images for my stories, stretching those skills that don't get as much use nowdays.

On the other hand (forgive me) many of the cover images people make here are pretty low effort and don't do anything for me.

That said, even the bad ones I don't find "repelling", more of a neutral.

A good cover image can be excellent. I don't need them, but I enjoy them when they're done well.

having set it all from her viewpoint, I fear it would be a longish story before any sexual content arrived, if at all.

I would recommend opening the series with the conversation between the youngest daughter and her Nan. That lets you jump into the action, as it were.

When writing erotica, I'd be leery of spending a LONG time before you get to anything sexy. If you feel you must tell the backstory before the youngest daughter is brought in, I'd recommend changing your POV character to the older sister, or even the mom. You can still tell the story you want, but look for ways to bring it back to the erotica part of the story.

Or, if that feels like it's compromising the idea too much, consider that this story may not be a good fit for the erotica genre. Perhaps you're telling a different type of story that won't be well served by the need to get to the sexy stuff.

In Scott McCloud's book "Understanding Comics," he discusses the style used in Japanese comics where the backgrounds are very detailed, but the main characters are often extremely simplistic, and suggests that it helps the reader to project themselves into the character.

I try to take this to heart — if a particular bit of description for a character is plot relevant, I'll mention it. But broadly speaking, I try to avoid over-describing my characters so it's easier for the reader to embody.

I usually come into a story with a clear idea of what it's about. In a longer series, like Only One Bed, there's a bit of a character arc planned (Emma's growing confidence, etc). In standalone shorts, it's more about what's happening in that scene, so I'm less invested in character growth than I am in writing something hot that feels like it could happen to a real person.

I often have the opposite problem. I come into a short story with little idea who the character is, and she reveals herself in the writing, demanding to be shaped a particular way. I'm often startled at how vividly I can picture the character's voice in my head, showing me how they'd react…

I have a Part 1 up for a series I had planned called "Teacher's Pets," which I still intend to return to someday, but other projects grabbed my attention first. I'm a firm believer that if I'm not excited about what I'm writing, I can't expect the reader to be, so in the past I've done a lot of flitting from project to project. This year I decided to take my writing a bit more seriously and committed to finishing a few longer series that could be packaged up and sold as ebooks, which is why I put so much work into Only One Bed (nearly done!). After that, I'm planning to do a lot more stand-alone stories to give myself a break from heavily planned stories.

I usually come into a story with a pretty clear idea, and maybe some snippets of dialog. Often the final version looks pretty close to what I was imagining.

But some characters take charge and demand you write them a particular way that surprises and delights you. The Coat Check Room was like that. Kim defined herself as I wrote her and took me to some unexpected places.

My partner knows, and is actively involved in planning and editing the stories.

My best friend knows, but I haven't told him my pen name, he only knows that I write erotica as a hobby.

No one else knows.

I'll preface by saying that while it would be nice, I'm not really trying hard to monetize my writing. So I'm not doing any traditional marketing, buying ads, posting to book lists, etc. I do have a personal website, which I'm pretty pleased with, and with luck that and a "my shorts are free, but if you want to support my writing buy one of my ebooks" messaging is good enough for my goals.

My partner and I collaborate on every story, though not quite in the way you're describing. I'm the primary author, and I'm the one who comes up with the ideas, but every story gets run through her. I gauge her reactions, and she often has excellent suggestions for changes to improve the story structure. It's more like she's my beta reader and trusted editor. Years ago, I wrote without any feedback or editing, and working with her has really helped me refine my "voice." It helped clarify that we care a lot about stories that clearly show women with agency,

What a fun question!

I think Lunch Buddies already feels a bit like a rom-com (granted, an X-rated one).

And I think One Wild Night would make a fun miniseries, since each episode could be from a different character's perspective.

Congrats, and well deserved!

FWIW, this is from the MILF category description: 'our Milf Stories section also includes "Cougars", who may not necessarily be Moms at all. The slang word "Cougar" may be defined as a woman over 40 who sexually pursues younger men, typically more than ten years her junior.'

Of course, category descriptions aren't carved-in-stone guidelines, but perhaps it's helpful here.