1. Click "My Stories"
2. Find the story you wish to add to a Series or World
3. Click the Plus sign on the bottom right corner of the story listing and select "Add Story to Series" or "Add Story to World"

4. Choose which Series/World you wish to add.

For Series Only:

You can set the order of the series by pushing the "Up arrow" and "Down Arrow" on the stories until they are in the proper order. The red "X" will remove the story from the Series.

Definitions:

• Save Chapter - Adds chapter to the story and makes it visible to author and staff.  If you are still in the moderation queue, this sends the chapter to moderation.  You can edit the chapter in this mode but editing an approved chapter that has not been published, it will unapprove the chapter until a moderator reviews it again.
• Publish - This makes a chapter saved in the system visible publicly.  You can only publish 1 chapter per story per 24 hours.

Steps to add a chapter:

1. Click on the Stories tab in the red menu bar
2. Click on the My Stories button below the story categories and above the stories in the recent updates area 
3. Click on the Story Title
4. Click on the Story Menu Button (has a cog image) below the story metadata and above the chapter listing
5. Click on Add Chapter in the menu options
6. Fill in chapter title, notes, text, and end of chapter notes.  It is strongly advised that you save to the system and publish separately if presented with the option to publish. *Nothing but the story text should go into the chapter text box. Please use the appropriate title and note boxes for other content.*
7. Save (or submit to moderation)

So long as you did not choose to publish chapter, you can now edit the chapter to make sure it looks as intended.  It will be flagged as either Unpublished or Waiting Approval.  If you are satisfied with how it looks, then you can choose to publish once it has been approved. (approval is automatic if you are out of the Moderation Queue)

All chapters should be completely edited and ready for publishing before author set the Publish time. Followers are notified when authors update their content, so please do not publish and then immediately unpublish chapters as this will create what appears to be an error to readers which often results in site staff being repeatedly contacted with reports. If you accidentally publish the wrong content, or have extra chapters publish for some reason, please contact Cia via PM to have it deleted. 

If you decide to publish, you need to toggle the "Publish Chapter" toggle.

If you have not posted a chapter in less than the time shown, then you can also toggle "Publish Now" if you want to publish immediately.  Otherwise, the Chapter Publish Time defaults to 24 hours after the last published chapter or 5 minutes from when you loaded the page.  You will not be allowed to publish a chapter sooner than 24 hours that the previous chapter. 

Important: If you are just adding your Prologue and/or Chapter 1, then go to the publishing FAQ next:

https://gayauthors.org/faq/authors/author-questions/how-do-i-submit-a-story-to-post-date-and-publish-at-a-late-date-and-time-r28/

• Yes.  Prior to submitting your story, please run it through a spelling/grammar checker and read it over for anything the checker missed.  Stories with a multitude of spelling and grammar errors could be rejected until the errors have been fixed.  If you need help polishing your story prior to posting we encourage you to review the many topics in our Writer’s Forums. A single space should be used between each paragraph, with a double space used to indicate scene or timeline jumps. *See below to remove extra line spaces in Word*

Do I have to be a seasoned author to post at GA?

• No.  GA allows both seasoned and first-time writers to submit their stories. We do not expect grammatical and structural perfection in every piece.  We do expect as you post to apply the suggestions from readers and your editing team, should you gain one, to hone your skills as an author.

Can I post poems or flash fiction stories on GA?

• Yes.  However, all poems or flash fiction stories under 1k in length MUST be placed in collections.  You cannot post them all as individual stories.  You may create different collections, such as one for free form poetry and another for haikus, but please do not post more than 4-5 collections total.  Making a collection is as simple as choosing a title like “Author Name Poems” and then submitting each poem/flash piece as a chapter.

What are other tips so my story doesn't have any posting guidelines issues that would prevent it from being approved?

• Do not resize text size in the editor since this will eliminate a reader’s ability to re-size the text. 
• Only chapter text should be in the chapter text box.  There are other areas for chapter titles, chapter notes, and copyright information. 
• Disclaimers or content warnings should be placed in the story or chapter notes.
• The text editor was chosen because of its compatibility with Word formatting.  While it offers a lot of options, not all of them work as expected.  Using ‘bold’ and ‘italics’ is okay.  Much more than that and the formatting from the editor conflicts with the formatting for the site and you get unintended consequences.
• Bold and italics are for brief highlights and are NOT to be used in large amounts. This is an accessibility people for some people.

*If you use Word, you can have hidden paragraph breaks that will cause double spaces between paragraphs in our editor. Complete these steps to remove that hidden break yet still see a space between paragraphs when you write in Word* 

• Before posting into the story text box, select all your text in Word. 
• Click the “find and replace” option. 
• Insert ^p^p into the find field and ^p into the replace field. 
• Then go to your paragraph/line spacing option.  Using the pop up box that appears, scroll down to paragraph spacing.  Set the ‘before’ option to 0 and the ‘after’ option to Auto. 
• Then click save. 
• You can now copy your text and paste it into the chapter text box on GA.

On the story page, Views = Chapter Views + Story Views (Table of Contents page).

On a chapter, the views indicate how many times the chapter was viewed.

*Important Notes*

• You must submit your story before you can add the chapter content. Complete all 4 steps to add your story content first.
• New stories are automatically posted with Prologue (Optional) and Chapter 1 as one unit. Do NOT add additional chapters until the story is approved. 
• System requires Story, Chapter 1 and if added, Prologue all be approved before you can set publishing time.
• All stories or poetry under 1k in length must be posted as part of a flash fiction collection.
• Do NOT add photos, links, videos, etc... in the story text box. Photos can only be added in the cover photo area, and links and videos should only be added in the story or chapter notes. These must also adhere to GA content guidelines.
• Gay Authors is intended to be a Story Archive that people return to read old favorites.  Do NOT post stories intended to be published off GA for profit. We understand that occasionally authors unexpectedly publish some content but removing stories from the site means authors cannot post later stories in the timeline if it is a series (becomes bait & switch requiring readers to purchase eBooks to understand series timeline/plot) and will prevent authors from ever becoming a promoted author on GA. One option prior to publication could be moving a story to our Premium Content subscriber only section to limit access without deleting the story from GA. Authors interested in requesting a review and possible move to Premium should contact Cia prior to publication. 

Where do I submit a story?

On the site menu bar, click ‘Stories’. Click on the 'Add Story' button below the story category list and just above the recent updates list of stories. Note: If you don't have this button, you have not become a site author by purchasing free author status (look at the very top of this page).  Please complete that step before asking for help.

This brings up a pop-up window to select the story category. Use the drop menu to select the proper category (fiction, fan-fiction, anthologies, etc...). Click outside the drop menu box to close the drop menu, if necessary, then click on the Continue box.

There are 4 Steps on 4 separate tabs to complete (unless you choose FanFiction, it has 5 Steps on 5 tabs). Click on each tab near the top of the webpage to complete: 

Step One

• Title: Your title will display everywhere, check your spelling.
• Link Title: This will self-fill when you type in the title, don’t change it.
• Authors: Your name is automatically added, and you can add any co-authors.
• Editors: You can add your Editor(s) if they are a GA Member.
• Beta Readers: You can add your Beta Reader(s) if they are a GA Member.

Scroll up and click on Step Two in the bar above the General Details title

Step Two

• Description:  This will tell people what your story is about in 500 characters or less. This is the same as a Book Blurb. Do not post images in this text box. This description should be for all audiences.
  • If you copy from another site, it is recommended you use the 'paste as plain text' option below the text box that appears to remove extra formatting. 
• Story Note: Similar to Description, but this is a personal message area to readers that will appear under the story information when the story is posted. This is also the field to use if you need to add relevant images that adhere to the site posting guidelines to the story detail page. Images should be hosted in a GA Gallery album and uploaded using the Insert Other Media option. 
• Story Copyright:  Basic copyright automatically added. Change if you have a custom copyright notice. If you post fanfiction, please adjust this automatic notice to reflect that information.
• Story Banner: Select browse to choose an image from your computer*. This is the story banner only promoted authors can use on a story.  *Images must comply with site content guidelines. 
• Story Cover Image: Select browse to choose an image from your computer. This is an image that will appear below the chapter listing. Please limit your image to a reasonable size and follow the signature guidelines in regards to gif/animations. *Images must comply with site content guidelines. 

Scroll up and click on Step Three in the bar above the Details title

Step Three

• Genre:  Set Sub-Genre. Choose 1-3 for contemporary stories and no more than 6 or 7 for speculative fiction.
  • For more details, see Genre FAQ: https://gayauthors.org/faq/stories-archive/author-questions/how-do-i-select-the-correct-genre-r138/
• Audience Rating: Everyone = No sex, explicit violence, excessive swearing; Teen= off-screen sex, or non-explicit touching/making out, violence, swearing;  Mature = Graphic sexual content, violence, other graphic content of any kind on-screen (Note: These ratings can be utilized for violent or graphic content other than sexual, but specific warnings should be included using the story/chapter note areas); Mature - Member Only = Same as mature, but only people logged into their Gay Authors account will be able to see it.
• Status: Complete = Done; In Process = Working On It; On Hold = Currently Not Working On. Do NOT post a new story in any of the On Hold categories. Those are utilized by an automated system that will change the story rating as needed.

Scroll up and click on Step Four in the bar above the Groupings title

Step Four

• Tags:  Select up to six.  These help readers find your story, so make sure they apply to the story content.
  • If you have sensitive content requiring story warnings, you must use the applicable tags as well. 

For Some FanFictions, Scroll up and click on Step Five in the bar above the Tags title

Step Five

• Custom Tags:  Create / Select up to six.  Custom Tags are limited to FanFictions as of 9/2023 update. These help readers find your FanFiction story, so make sure they apply to the story content.
  • If you have sensitive content requiring story warnings, you must use the applicable tags as well. 

Click Save Story (Or Submit to Moderation) (only after ALL 4 or 5 Steps are complete)

*After the story is saved, chapter content may be added. 

Your Story is Now Added to the Archive, Now What?

• Once your story is added, it will display a bunch of status banners at the top.  Each of these banners tells you the actions that need to occur.
• Included picture shows a FanFiction example, which has extra fields to add. (Fandoms, Characters, Relationships)

Next step:

• If you are a FanFiction story, your next step is to click "Setup Fandoms" and add the correct Fandom(s).
  • Optionally: Set up Characters if there are any listed for your Fandom. You may also set up Relationships if you have characters listed.
• Otherwise, you are ready to add Prologue and/or Chapter 1: https://gayauthors.org/faq/authors/author-questions/how-do-i-add-a-chapter-to-an-existing-story-r29/

Saving stories into the system has been separated from Publishing the stories publicly. 

Process flow for Author in Moderation Queue:

1. Add story to system
2. Add chapter 1 to system
3. Add Prologue to system, if you have one.
4. Make sure you have everything edited and ready for approval.
5. Moderators will review your Story, Prologue (if it exists) and Chapter 1 and approve them. (you will have an orange banner until it is approved)
6. Do NOT edit a story, prologue or chapter 1 after approval and before you publish, as you will lose approval and have to go through the process again.
7. Once approved, you'll see the publish button at the top of your story. You can then choose to publish and either choose Now or set a date and time.

Process Flow for Authors Not in Moderation Queue

1. Add story to system
2. Add chapter 1 to system
3. Add Prologue to system, if you have one.
4. Make sure you have everything edited and ready for publication.
5. Once everything looks the way you want it, you can then choose to publish and either choose Now or set a date and time.

• posting a new story
• using a title like “Author Name Poems” or "Author Flash Fiction"
• adding a description that explaining to readers this is where the author plans to post multiple short works
• submitting each poem/flash piece as a new chapter

*This is NOT the same as a reading collection which is simply a list of links to stories readers want to save. 

The Manage Story menu is where you control items for your story. This menu is dynamic, in that the options change depending on the current status of your story.

• Publish/Unpublish Story - This link allows you to Publish the story if all other conditions to publish are met. If you are already published, this allows you to Unpublish.
• Change Status - Lets you set the Story Status directly. (Such as In Process, On Hold, or Complete)
• Edit Story - This is where you can edit all of your Story's meta data
• Add prologue - This option will be shown if you do not have a Prologue on your story. For the system, Prologue is treated as Chapter 0 and will be shown first in the Table of Contents, no matter when you add it.
• Add Chapter - Allows you to add a new chapter to your story.
• Add Discussion Topic - This lets you add your preferred discussion topic.  You must create the topic first and then type the title of the topic into the search box.
• Add/Set Genres - Allows you to add additional Genres (Add) or allows you to replace all genres with a new selection (Set)
• Add/Set Tags - Allows you to add additional Tags (Add) or allows you to replace all tags with a new selection (Set)

• Click on the Stories tab in the red menu bar
• Click on the My Stories button below the story categories and above the stories in the recent updates area. 
• Click on the Story Title
• Click on the Manage drop menu next to the story title OR
• Click on the title of the chapter that needs to be edited then Click on the Manage drop menu below the chapter text
• Click on Edit Chapter in the menu options
• Make changes to the chapter title, notes, text, end of chapter notes, and change the date/time if needed.
• Save

Important Note: Editing chapter while still in the moderation queue and before chapter has been publish, will require chapter be approved again.  Make sure your chapter is ready for moderation with all edits completed immediately after saving it to the system.

• Click on the Stories tab in the red menu bar
• Click on the My Stories button below the story categories and above the stories in the recent updates area. 
• Click on the Story Title
• Click on the Manage Story drop menu below the story meta data and above the chapter listing
• Select the Edit Story option
• Make changes to the original story submission form as needed
• Click on the last Step tab and Save

Do NOT edit story after you have set publish date.  If you are in the Mod Queue, editor story will remove your approval until the story is reviewed again. 

Authors in the moderation queue: When submitting a new story to the site, do NOT post more than the first chapter, or prologue and the first chapter.  Additionally, while you remain in the moderation queue, do not post more than one new chapter or new story until the existing chapter/story is approved.  The moderation queue is typically reviewed once per day.  Do not use the post-dating system while you remain in the moderation queue.

All other authors: When publishing a new story to the site, do NOT publish more than the first chapter, or prologue and the first chapter.  For existing stories, one new chapter can be published per day.  No more than two stories can be updated per day with at least 8 hours between updates. 

You can save as many chapters to the system as you like per day.  The system will enforce publish times for chapters when you set publish times.

Why the limitation you ask?

We want our site's visitors to have a chance to read or sample a variety of works submitted each day by our authors.  When authors submit too many stories or chapters at once these other works are sometimes lost in the process.  We've found stories posted over longer periods of time attract more attention and therefore readers.  Not every reader visits daily, so they are more likely to give your story a chance if each time they visit they see a new chapter in the list of recent story updates.  Spacing out submissions is a win/win for both your work and your fellow authors' work.

A list of all genres/sub-genres with their descriptions can be found here: https://gayauthors.org/stories/browse/genre-tag/

To select a genre for your story:

1. identify the most prominent part of your story.
   • Example: If you are writing a Romance, where you are focused on the Romance, then go to the Romance Primary Genre and select an appropriate Sub-genre. If your romance occurs in the modern day select Contemporary Romance as your sub-genre
   • Example 2: If you are writing a Romance that happens to be set in the Old West, you can select Romantic Western but if you happen to be writing a Western that as romantic elements you can select Western - Western Romance.  The difference is about what is primary.  Is it a Western that happens to have romantic elements or is a Romance that happens to be set in a Western?
   • Example 3: If you are writing a Drama, Coming of Age, or Rich Boy type story that is very common in our corner of the internet, then the Primary Genre is "General Fiction" and there are sub-genres for each of the examples above.
2.  Select 1-4 Sub-genres.  If you are going over that, then it is highly likely your story has one of the following issues:
   • Not focused.  Your story cannot be crossing a dozen genres and have much meaning in most of them.
   • Experimental.  If you are trying to make an epic Western Fantasy Sci-fi Romantic Thriller Drama, I'm happy for you and your editor.  Good luck finding a reader that isn't turned off by one or more of that combination. If you really want to do that much, go to General Fiction and select "Experimental" as the sub-genre.  
   • Probably violating a sub-genre trope.  A fairly large number of the sub-genres are actually defined by their tropes. And if you're not following the trope, you're not appropriately using the sub-genre.
3. A larger number of sub-genres can be used on longer stories, especially those stories in speculative fiction (such as Fantasy, Science Fiction and Paranormal).  Even then you should not be going above 6-7 sub-genres on an epic.

2. Fill in the series title. (Or World Title for Worlds)

3. Fill in the name of the contributors.

3. Fill in the description.

4. Add cover images as applicable for your member group. Please use the correct image sizes shown below the upload field.

5. Click save.

This works exactly the same for Worlds.

• Topic- This can be a link to a specific topic on the forums.
• Forum - This can be a link to a specific forum.  The default for all Promoted Author groups is for the Promoted Author discussion forum.  The default for the Author group is for the Story Discussion forum.
• Club - This can be a link to a club. This is used for Signature Authors that have a Fan Club.

On the Author Story Listing Page, click "Change"

For Forums and Clubs, you will get a drop down box where you can select the forum or club by name.

For topics, you type the title of your topic in the box and then select the desired topic:

Hit Save. 

Note: You can only have one.  The link will appear on the Author listing page and for topics, should also default for story discussion link at end of chapters on your stories.

https://gayauthors.org/stories/browse/reading-stats/

• Default Stats display: All stories by all site authors shown in descending order by most views first.

To Filter Reading Stats: 

• Timeframe allows you to select to select time. 
  • NOTE 1 - While you are allowed to set precise dates, in the background, stats are compiled in such a way that what displays is approximately monthly chunks.  Meaning, if you set Jan 15 to Feb 15, you will get data for Jan and Feb, approximately.  Stats are not intended to be precise down to hours, as that serves no purpose.
  • Note 2 - Timestamped data started collection in Jan 2018.  Settings earlier than that date will have no effect.
• Genre allows you set the Genre(s) of the stories.
• Tag allows you to set stories with specific tags.
• Readers allows you to select group to see if there are differences between groups of readers. Default is All members.
• Sorting allows you to select order of viewing stories.  Default is Most Views. Other options include title, date published, etc...
• The minus sign clears all filters.

• Authors with a reputation of less than *250 in GA Stories* must have their stories/chapters approved by site staff before they can be viewed by the general membership.  Once an author exceeds a reputation of 250 their stories receive automatic approval and will be visible within the hour. *This is the reputation on your author account which can be found when viewing your author profile in Stories, not your overall site reputation found on your general profile. 

What do you check in the Moderation Queue?

• Stories in the moderation queue are checked to make sure the author has followed the Stories guidelines for content and posting, the story falls within a basic editing standard, as well as a plagiarism check. 

When does the Moderation Queue get checked?

• Typically the moderation queue is checked once per day. If you have waited longer than 24 hours since you posted your new story or chapter, please check your personal messages (envelope in the upper right corner) to see if you have a message from site staff regarding your content. If you don't have anything there, please PM Cia. 

• Stories with characters that are not like age groups. A 15 and 18 year-old couple in high school are a like age group even if one is technically ‘overage’. A 13 and a 19 year-old couple are not like age groups. Minors and adults are NEVER like age groups.
• Stories sexualizing children and preteens 12 and under, or portraying them in a light to appear sexually arousing to adults.
• Stories solely adult in nature. All stories on GA must have a plot that exists beyond the sexual theme of the story. We recommend no more than 50% of the story be focused on sexual activities or themes.
• Stories with necrophilia.

What types of story content will trigger a story review by the FMT on GA?

• Stories with rape or sexual abuse for titillation, glorifying suicide or drug use, bestiality, or cannibalism are moderated content. Any stories with these themes are subject to further moderator review and may be rejected.*

*Any approved story containing content listed above MUST be properly rated Mature, have accompanying tags, and include written warnings in the story note and each chapter note that contains questionable content so readers sensitive to these subjects will not be unaware of the story's themes.

Type the title of the topic you wish to link and then select the topic.

Click Save.

Topic will appear below each chapter and above the comments section.