Writing Sites in Review:

The Good, The Bad, The Worst

 Part 1: XNXX

Before I get to the sites that I do not like, I wanted to touch base on the one site that I still post to on a regular basis and why I continue to stay with this site.

As my readers know, I post almost exclusively to the story site of XNXX. Even though this is an adult literature site (read: adult porn site that deals with explicit stories involving sex), it is one of only two places that I know of that will allow unlimited story posts with unlimited story lengths and has but one rule when it comes to content: no blatant pedophilia stories. This ‘rule’ is vague for a reason. The owners of the website have the sole discretion as to what they want to pull from the site. And since the owners are pretty much AWOL, basically nothing ever gets pulled from the site. The forum, however, is a completely different story. Of course, you won’t get 1/1000th of the reads on the forum as you get on the story side, so while I do post to the forum on a trial run, it is to the story side of the site that I do the most story posting.

 With this said, I will systematically go through all the story sites I have tried over the years and give the pros and cons of each one, starting with XNXX.

Pros:

1.  No real rule on content. While the forum side of XN is actually moderated and the story must be reported, read by a moderator, and its fate decided upon, no one is actually reading the stories over on the story side of XN. So while the only ‘rule’ there is no blatant pedophilia stories allowed, you can actually post anything you want on XN and not have it removed, even if YOU are the one requesting it be removed by emailing the administrators of the site. There are no rules on character age, violent content, even non-sexual content is allowed. So whatever you are looking to write about, you can upload it to XN without fear that it will be taken down by the administrators of the site.

2.  Unlimited upload space. You can post as many stories as you want and they can be as long as you want them to be. The site does not have any type of size limit on files and does not limit you on how many pieces you can have in your online portfolio. Best of all, they provide this for FREE.

 3.  No charge. Authors are given the same privileges as the readers in that they can upload all they want and not be charged anything. The readers get to read all they want for free, authors get to upload as much material as they want for free.

 4.  HUGE traffic flow.  XNXX has the most traffic flow of any of site I have come across. While adult sites tend to get a lot of traffic, the stories of XN get even more hits than places like Lit and Lush simply because they have no restriction on content. It is not uncommon for some stories to reach more than one million views in under a year. One of the stories I posted had over 350,000 reads in under 30 days, and then I pulled it because it was being plagiarized all over the internet. The amount of reads that a story can gain is unprecedented and unmatched on any other site I have come across.

5.  Ratings. Unlike many other websites, the ratings you receive on XN secures a story’s place on how it is ranked on the site. If you have a high-ranking, your story will remain on the top pages under the theme tags you used to describe the work. You do not have to worry about it rolling off the one and only page that shows new stories simply because the site had 500 stories posted to it that day. It will get more exposure and more reads. However, there is a con to this. Because of the trolls voting negatively on the stories, the story could end up with a low rating and therefore steadily further down the list until it is no longer being found by readers.

Cons:

1. No way of deleting or editing a story without emailing an admin and then waiting, and waiting, and waiting. If you are going to upload to XN, you have to be sure you are happy with the final product because you have no way of editing and the only way to get it off the website is to email one of the administrators who are basically AWOL all the time. I have seen it take more than half a year for authors to get their work removed. However, since no one is actually reading the stories and not taking them down even when the author requests their removal, you don’t have to worry about your story being removed because someone found it offensive or because it broke some content or rating rule. There are no rules, so it is not going to be taken down. On the other side of the coin, if you post it and ever decide you want it removed, you may never be able to get the admins to take it off the site.

 2.  Trolls, trolls, and more trolls. The site is full of trolls making asinine comments and writers who will make dozens of sock accounts and use those accounts to vote other authors’ stories down in an effort to keep their own stories on the front page. It is a huge problem that has actually driven many fine authors from the site. The only problem is that there are NOT any other sites to go to that will allow any type of content to be posted. So if you want complete freedom to write whatever you want and not have to worry about it getting taken down, you will have to put up with the trolls and create your own sock army to try to do damage control to combat all the negative votes that other jealous authors will bestow upon you.

3. No control over the comments. Most other sites have some way of doing damage control over troll comments. They will either allow you to request their removal or remove anonymous comments altogether. XN, however, does not offer anything like this. The closest thing you have is to either allow comments or disallow comments. It is basically an ‘all or nothing’ setup. You either put up with the troll comments along with the encouraging comments and reviews or you do not allow any type of comments/reviews at all.

 To recap, XN does not charge an author to upload their material. There are no type of membership fees and you do not have to pay for more space. You have unlimited space to upload your material. You have unlimited control over what type of content to publish. In addition, you can possibly receive hundreds of thousands of hits in just a few short days because of the way the ratings and tag pages are set up. On the other hand, you have no way of editing or deleting out the stories once they are posted so you have to make certain you are happy with the story as is. You also will have to put up with troll comments and jealous writers who will consistently vote down your story which will keep it moving down the page.

 All in all, XN is one of the few story sites that will give your stories the exposure of tens of thousands of readers per day and neither charge you for your membership or only allow you a set amount of space and still allow you the right to post any type of content you wish. It does have its flaws, however, but the amount of exposure and ability to post as much as I want of any type of story that I want overrides the flaws and keeps me posting. The site is not for everyone, like those who are under the age of 18, which in itself can be a good thing. Because of the age limit of its members, I do not have to put up with all the teenagers who think they know everything there is to know about writing because they slapped some poetry down in a notebook. However, since no one is reading the stories, there is absolutely no standards on quality of work, so you will find novels that are worthy of publication sitting right next to stories that read like a blind dog tap-danced across the keyboard. It’s up to you to decide if you want to brave the murky waters that can be both beautiful and treacherous at the same time.