Forum: Author Hangout

Yes. The simplest one is to use the color combo. I know it's more options and may complicate the submission process but it's simple enough.

Would you prefer if you can skip the thing by default?

This is why I asked if it's mandatory. I have novels that are both on Bookapy and SOL. For example, "The Nymphomaniac."

The pen name I use on Bookapy (S.W. Blayde) is different than the one I use on SOL (Switch Blayde). But you're saying it must be Switch Blayde on the cover on SOL (even though it's S.W. Blayde on the cover on Bookapy for the same novel).

There will be a cover. Whether you upload one yourself or not. If you don't upload anything, then it will be a color combo.

It's up to you what you want to put up as cover and which pen name you want to use on your cover.

I will add a 'Use Default' button which will be the exact same as if you click 'pick color' and then click 'use color' without selecting anything specific.

any way to preview cover art and text before posting for short stories?

No. The thing about the text is that it passes by a human moderator before it gets on the site and that step negates a lot of the benefits of a preview mechanism, and avoids a lot of problems with posting without preview.

Or are there formatting rules/guidelines for creating and uploading a custom cover that can be consulted?

I will add the cover guidelines to other author guides. Basically tasteful nudity, no penises and no vaginas allowed. Must contain the story's title, so if you change the title, you must update your cover, also must contain the author's name. Optional items are copyright notice and genre. I will add that tall covers are preferred.

It's after midnight here I'm unable to check at the moment. I will check again in the morning. We'll see what the logs say.

Uncaught ReferenceError: nfd is not defined

I hadn't pushed the updated Javascripts.

It's fixed now and it's working.

but I presume you have to evaluate it before it shows up in the story's front page?

Covers aren't being displayed yet.

I saw your covers and you uploaded them successfully, but the display code in stories is not yet deployed.

In the next couple of days the rest will be deployed and your stories will have the covers you uploaded.

Awesome! Thanks. I'll start working on more covers for my stories.

The covers' support has been deployed. The auto-switcher between tall and wide on desktops isn't working for some reason.

A 'nice to have' feature would be an indicator on the stats page/story manager page to show if a story has a cover.

It's only needed to check if it has a Custom cover. And usually only during the transition to see which ones you've done or haven't. I'll try to implement it.

Also, what happens with extant uloaded covers that are part of the story files?

Those need to be removed manually as they are manually inserted by the moderators when processing posts/reposts. Leave them to me, I'll find a solution as the image files need to also be removed from the images server.

If we don't wish to have a cover, will stories operate as before, allowing illustrations?

You can't opt out of the cover. If you don't provide one, then one will be provided (just plain box with words written in it).

I don't understand what you mean by 'Allowing illustrations'.

Image support other than the cover is not changing in any way.

I've looked into it. Yep, the caches clearing function is resetting the download flags.

I'll wait for two days until the covers are fully set and then restore the flags from backup.

Your patience is appreciated.

The old covers were statically inserted into the story's text as html tags. They need to be cleaned up. It will take some work. We'll get it done.

As for the solid color covers, we're working on more templates. When there are enough templates, we'll probably do away with the color combo covers.

There is.

If your stories have old style, manually inserted covers, it would help if you list those stories for us to save us the effort of searching for them.

Other than that, if you don't have covers yourself, create some or select one of the templates.

I would prefer that the text thereof could still be selected and copied.

The text is still there exactly where it was before, but simply styled to be hidden. So if you select to view the story's html source you can do whatever you want.

Also, with a modern Mac, if you have one, safari actually converts the text in the covers to copiable text.

Homepage, New Stories, and Updated Stories are crowded and busy enough for my tastes. I cringe to think what thumbnails will do to the word layout.

Maybe you should try the Minimalist theme for listings.

To switch themes:

https://storiesonline.net/sol-secure/user/my_account.php?cmd=listingFonts

May an option be to opt out of showing thumbnails? On the other hand, now that I know that EVERY story has a cover, I can delay opening that title page of a story until I am alone. ("Hey grampa, why is there a picture of a nekkid lady on your phone?")

If I make a Thumbnail based design, it will be another theme. The current themes will remain available and you can choose which one you want to use.

But will it be based off of modern or classic, or would you do a thumbnail version of both?

I don't exactly know yet, but at first blush, neither. Probably something completely different.

But I noticed the copyright notice is on the generated cover and it says it's copyrighted by Switch Blayde. But it's actually copyrighted by S.W. Blayde. That might be a legal issue for me if I ever have to defend my copyright.

The covers generator uses whatever used to be displayed before. You can change the copyright string to whatever you want using the manage stories functions.

I went to Authors/Editors - Story Stats - and then clicked on the story title. Then I clicked on "copyright:" and edited it to change "Switch" to "S.W." But it's still "Switch" on the cover.

There was a bug in the system. It wasn't using the one saved by the author. It was always generating it. I fixed that.

I don't see how to regenerate the cover.

Usually, you click to change the cover and if you're not using anything in particular, click 'pick colors' and then simply click save for the default options.

Why don't you upload the same covers you're using for the books on bookapy?

You said the cover on SOL had to be by "Switch Blayde" but the Bookapy cover has "S.W. Blayde" on it.

In your case it's close enough to pass and not confuse readers.

You might reconsider displaying the anonymous site URL on the covers for those that use it.

You're right. Fixed.

There is the 4th option not covered. I have the image but I dont have the ability to add the text before upload of a custom cover.

I guees I have to leave it to the editor and submit as a post / repost for cover page ?

Sure, as long as it's not many stories.

I fixed your two covers, but I don't have much time to dedicate to titling images to make them into proper covers; so if more authors chose option 4, I would be swamped easily.

I hate the generic covers being attached to stories.

To each his own.

This is the beginning. Things will change and I'll refine things.

Soon there will be enough cover templates provided that cover templates will be the default.

requires scrolling to get to the story.

Click the cover to jump to the contents.

Is there a 'reset to default' facility?

In the submission system there is 'Use Default', but not in the Story Management one.

I'll add it.

ETA: Done.

One has only that cover, but the other has two - the author-provided cover and the new, system cover. That one looks dumb and tacky - is there a way to designate only one cover?

If you let us know which story, we'll fix it faster.

By the way, there was a recent submission where the author submitted a cover the old fashioned way, and insisted that the story has a default one and the provided one.