Forum: Author Hangout

What do you mean 'upcoming posts'? Do you mean things that you submitted, scheduled for later? They should be listed in the wizard when you click it.

That's the thing, when I've posted lately (especially that one time), there was no way TO see the submission. It took almost an hour before the chapter posted, so you'd think I would have seen it, but maybe an admin was already processing it, so it was no longer 'accessible' by us mere mortal authors.

More than likely though, I'm guessing there's something about my account (multiple pen-names perhaps) that's doing something funky with what I'm able to see.

The anonymous site is not included in the author premier service and even premier authors need to purchase it to be able to use it. Yours expired.

Understood (though I still don't understand why I didn't receive the traditional two-day notification), but the bigger issue is, if a single event (hiccup) causes every single open story to be physically erased, there's a problem.

As it turns out, it wasn't permanent, as the only ones which were permanently erases were those I click, trying to determine why I couldn't access them. So maybe a notice that "activation may take up to a few hours to process" might help.

Again, if it's a matter between supporting the site results in erasing my open, ongoing stories, then I'm going to rethink continuing to resubscribe. After all, there's really NO reason to contribute to the site since I have a generous free account. Of course, we're supposed to not leave open tabs, but instead simply 'flag stories', but it's still a disincentive, rather than a positive encouragement to participate.

Are you sure you logged into the site for the two days before the final notice?

I didn't actually log in, but I've been reading stories daily on the site, so I should have gotten a notice (or at least an SOL message regarding it).

Any tab that is untouched until the decision is made will retain its content after the decision is made.

Reiterating, whenever I clicked on ANY SOL tag, it would put up the 'Purchase a Subscription or Revert to a Free Account" message (but only after the purchase was processed, as before that, I couldn't escape it no matter WHAT I did). The ONLY way to escape it was to hit the "View Contest" tab at the top of the page. I could return to the warning, but it NEVER returned to the original story I was reading.

But the next time, I'll wait until the subscription expires, click "Revert to Free Account" and THEN renew the subscription before shutting down my computer for the rest of the day. Lesson learned.

I recall that there is an automatic login process when you reconnect to the website. So if you close your browser, the link is ended; when you reconnect the next day, you are logged-in automatically.

I had the same experience as VB. I received no email to notify me my subscription was due for renewal in 3 days, the renewal page just appeared while I was on the site; I think I was trying to open a story that was in my library.

As an author, I can elect to receive a free Premier Membership. However, I prefer to support the site financially, so I pay for the Premier Membership. At the moment, my finances are at a low point, so I can't renew the account until next month; so I selected Free Membership. When I went back to check on how much the annual fee was, I couldn't find an option for Premier Membership. It took me a while to realize that the options listed under the Heading labeled "Library, ebook downloads, premier-only stories, category search, etc..." were the Premier Membership account options (i.e. the heading is a description of the account not the account name). Adding Premier Account to the heading would help clarify what the heading means. Lazeez could then label the four options as "Premier Account - 30 days", etc.; instead of, "Library, ebook downloads, premier-only stories, category search, etc... 30 days, etc.

The site always displays the notification. It's not selective.

However, it only displays the expiry notification on the home page and in the Library; nowhere else. Some people never visit either one.

Except, not only do I update my various series every day, I do it by refreshing by main page, which should notify me, but didn't.

It sounds like you've got a couple hidden bugs, depending on circumstances not always occurring (ex: maybe jumping a chapter flags the 'display new status' flag for each user)?

Um, how do you want the site to notify you if you are not logged in? Without being logged in the site doesn't know it's you :D

I log in once, and remain logged in for weeks, rather than logging out and back in on a daily basis. Duh!

@REP:

At the moment, my finances are at a low point, so I can't renew the account until next month; so I selected Free Membership.

I'd frequently do that, however what i'd usually do was to simply sign up for 6 months every year, rather than a full year. After all, two half payments generate the same income as a full single payment, especially when it's a Bonus payment to begin with.

But, as I noted before, I think I'll simply automatically choose the 'Free Membership' option from know on, to persevere all of the tabs and other settings, and then resubscribe once the dust settles. After all, there's no sense cutting off your foot to pay the butcher a tip!

It would be nice if the system generated a message when renewal was almost due; that way, there would be a flag on most pages.

Personally, I typically don't pay much attention to the messages posted along the top of the page—especially when I'm between stories and don't need to check my stats often, and am focused on cranking out new chapters.

Typically, I pay attention to email notifications, which don't require a login every single day (either physical or automated), as I check my various emails (I check 6 of the 8 I use on a daily basis). In fact, if it wasn't for the automated email message feature (which I'm pretty sure is now discontinued), I'd never know whether anyone was trying to contact me on SOL!