[**DONOTDELETE**]

I hereby offer an alternative, and I have already posted this idea in the General section of the forum.

If enough authors respond, I propose to start a new stories-only website at a free site provider, and give certain authors the password to post their OWN stories on the site. I would attempt (mind you, ATTEMPT) to do regularly scheduled notices about those stories that have been posted, though the schedule has yet to be determined.

The success of this venture will depend in large part on whether or not enough well-known authors decide to join in. This will be a COOPERATIVE effort, with my own role being that of coordinator, rather than editor and/or updater.

If successful, of course, this will provide another outlet for BE stories, and perhaps prod Mr. T into action by providing a viable alternative to his own story archive. A competitor might just give Mr. T the incentive to update his own archive a bit more often!

Remember, authors, the success of this venture depends on YOU, not on ME! So let's hear from those that want to be in control of their own stories being posted!  

--Just Another David

[MrHHH]

Why not make it so anyone can post a story, with the webmaster being able to delete the stories that are off topic?

[Fret Pearson]

Don't forget that there are already alternatives to Mark's archive like (prohibited L).  If you submit a story Diana has it up the next day.

The more sites the merrier.  I have nothing against your idea, but it's not like the BEA is the only source for BE stories.

Fret

[Prophet_Tenebrae]

Just Another David: This is a good idea but as you said you need to get author's to submit stories - I'd suggest posting this in the general forum and kicking up a fuss as many authors are hardly proactive in ensuring that their work reaches the public.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Tenebrae,

Tried that, the thread got closed... guess the Moderators over there don't want any discussion of any competition for the inept and slow Mr. T.  

Oh, well... until updates get more regular, and not just story archive, but all updates, my membership dollar is going somewhere else.

--Just Another David

[Leviathan]

I'm with Fret on this. If an author wants his work published, there are lots of venues available for him. (prohibited L), Wren Spot, Fictionmania, Erotic Mind Control Story Archive, Transformation story archive, and even the smaller sites like Cheviot's Place publish stories, or have places to publish stories. And those sites currently can provide a decent reader base for a (smut) writer's stories.

Frankly, I don't really think your idea of a site where authors can "self publish" is any better or convenient than the current methods. If anything, it's a set-up for an even lower quality of stories. At least the current sites will (hopefully) get a one-time screening from the site owners before being posted. A self-posted story site might turn up the same level of quality as the Addventure. Not to knock the Addventure, but isn't one of that level of the medium enough?

It seems to me the only thing Mark T's site has to offer, that the other sites don't, is higher quality, expanded readership, the best-seller's list, and (recently) the ability for readers to rate the stories. What can your proposed idea offer that would be more appealing than this?

The only sensible answer would be if this proposed site were ON the BEArchive itself. Only then would it have even a glimmer of hope of surviving, because of the high number of people who visit this site every day. So, your real problem, it seems, is not a lack of stories, but the inconvenience of not having them here, on the BEArchive.

Perhaps if you yourself had a means of creating such a system (being able to post stories), you could do it and present your idea to the owner, with yourself as the site leader. That's what the BEArchive is for, after all. Otherwise, I'd say that your idea won't go very far.

In short, what you're proposing still would take a lot of HARD WORK from SOMEBODY, and if you aren't volunteering to actually write the code and server scripts for this author-publishing system you're talking about, then who's going to do it?

In the end, it's far easier just to set up a site where people send you stories and you, the owner of the site, publish them as you get them. But like I (and Fret) said, there's already a LOT of sites out there like that already. The only real problem left is that you aren't going to be doing 100% of your reading here at the BEArhive. I don't think there are that many people out there who have as big of problem with it as you do...

[Prophet_Tenebrae]

http://www.(prohibited V).com/(prohibited L)/stories/average/cometocoll.htm

If you want a new story.

Of course Big L is correct. It's that a lot of people don't want to check other sites and also that a lot of authors don't hand send stories to more than one place.

[Leviathan]

Ooh, I read that one. It's only so-so, for an 'Average' story. Heh. (I hope he didn't read that.)