Instructions for Uploading Your Story to AO3

The upload process is a little different this year because of the move to the Archive of Our Own (AO3). If you're comfortable with upload interfaces, you should have no problem, although there are a few AO3-specific things to be aware of, like the tagging and warnings systems.

But first, and most important, there are two specific things that you need to do for the Yuletide story you upload:

IMPORTANT ~ IMPORTANT ~ IMPORTANT ~ IMPORTANT

Uploading Your Yuletide Story to the AO3

To upload your story to the Yuletide section of the AO3, you must specifically add your story to the Yuletide 2009 "Collection". You must also put in your recipient's name.



The "Post to Collections/Challenges" field comes right after the space for title, author, and co-author. If you navigate into the Yuletide 2009 collection (click on Collections, click on Yuletide, click on Subcollections in the bar across the top, and choose Yuletide 2009), you'll see a "Post New Story" link inside the collection:



If you click that link, you'll be brought to a posting form that already has "yuletide2009" filled in for the Collections, and you'll be all set.



If you prefer to post a story from the regular "Post New" links in the archive, when you get to the "Post to Collections/Challenges" field, start typing Yuletide. This will bring up an autofill option for "yuletide2009", which you can pick.



Double-check to make sure that "yuletide2009" is completely filled in, in exactly that format.



If you don't add your story to the yuletide2009 collection, it will not be posted to the Yuletide collection. It will not be anonymous. It will show up in the regular archive as a regular story.

Once you've added your story to yuletide2009, go to the next field and type your recipient's name in; the archive will give you autofill options to pick from, or you can type it in yourself (but please double-check to make sure it's correct!).



For more detailed, step-by-step instructions, click the cut. The instructions includes some important differences between AO3 and Yuletide concerning fandom names, information on how the tagging system works, and detailed discussion of Archive Warnings and how to use them.


NOTE: There are some options available for uploading to in general that don't really apply to Yuletide, like the "import from URL" function. I'm ignoring those here.

Make sure you're logged in to your AO3 account.

If you want to post your story from within the Yuletide 2009 Challenge (which will automatically add your story to Yuletide 2009), you must navigate into the Yuletide 2009 collection.

Click on Collections in the top navbar; click on Yuletide; click on Subcollections in the top navbar; and choose Yuletide 2009.





Make sure you go all the way into Yuletide 2009 - you don't want to add your story from the parent Yuletide collection. From Yuletide 2009, you'll see a "Post New Story" link inside the collection:



If you click that link, you'll be brought to a posting form that already has "yuletide2009" filled in for the Collections, and you'll be all set.



You can also post your story from any of the regular "Post New" links on the archive; the only difference will be that "yuletide2009" will not be automatically filled in for you in advance.

From any page on the AO3, in the top right corner, you should see your login name, and underneath it a link to "Post New". Click that link.

From the front page:


From any internal page:


Clicking any of those links will take you to the Post New Work form. (click for a large screenshot of the full Post New form) Some information here is required; it will be in red with an asterisk. There are also blue question marks () next to several fields; clicking those will pop up an explanation of what the field is for, if you need more details.

Story metadata

The information fields are separated into sections. First up is the basic info about the sort of story it is – ratings, warnings, fandom(s), category, pairing(s), character(s), and additional tags/info. The archive puts in two default settings: "Not Rated" and "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings". You can change those to whatever you want, or you can leave them alone as an across-the-board "caveat lector" on your story.

Ratings

* Not Rated
* General Audiences
* Teen and Up Audiences
* Mature
* Explicit

Ratings uses a dropdown; click the arrow and pick the rating you want. The default choice is "not rated", which is effectively a "caveat lector". If you don't want to use that and aren't sure which of the others to use, click the question mark next to Ratings and decide which applies best to your story.

Archive Warnings

* Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
* No Archive Warnings Apply
* Graphic Depictions of Violence
* Major Character Death
* Rape/Non-Con
* Underage (for AO3 purposes, this specifically means humans under 18 years old)

This section is required: you must choose at least one of these options, and if your story contains more than one Archive warning, you have to account for all those warnings in what you choose. (Note: These are the warnings that the Archive will enforce, which is why you must either use them or explicitly say you're choosing not to use them. If you want to warn for other things, you can put more info in the Additional Tags field. (See below.))

The Archive uses "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings" as the default warning on every story, as a caveat lector to readers that any, all, or none of the Archive warnings may apply here. You can stay with that, or you can pick something else. In every case other than Underage, just use your best judgment about whether your story fits an Archive warning; if you're not sure, you can pick "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings" as a caveat lector to let people know that there may or may not be content in your story to be aware of.

If you prefer not to spoil anything in your story (including the fact that there's nothing to warn for), you can pick "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings", which also serves as a general caveat lector.

If your story doesn't contain any of the four Archive warnings, and you're fine with letting people know that, you can pick "No Archive Warnings Apply".

You can also choose more than one of these options. To pick more than one, hold down the Control (Windows) or Command (Mac) key as you click each one you want.

For example, if your story contains a torture scene that leads to the death of the main character, you can pick Violence and Death. If you prefer not to spoil the death, you can pick Violence and "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings", which will let people know that there may or may not be something else covered by the Archive warnings in the story besides graphic violence to be wary of, and if they choose to read it, it's at their own risk.

Fandoms

As you type your fandom name in this field, an autofill function may kick in and offer you a list of fandoms that match what you're typing. If so, you can either finish typing it, or select it from the list.

NOTE: The format of the fandom may not exactly match what you're expecting from the Yuletide lists!

• The AO3 handles books differently than Yuletide, so you should try typing the title or the author's last name, rather than the author's first name. (For instance, start typing "Vorkosigan" or "Bujold" to get an autofill option for the Vorkosigan series, rather than "Lois McMaster Bujold".)
  
  
• If your fandom is an album, with songs as characters, please use the individual song (or songs) as the fandom, instead of the form developed during nominations. You can simply leave the characters field blank, but don't use the songs as characters (unlike the Yuletide listing).
  
  
• For the fandom Fairy Tales (classic), you can list the individual fairy tales as your fandom, and list multiple tales, if necessary (for instance, 12 Dancing Princesses (Fairy Tale). You can also use the general tag "Fairytale," which should autofill for you. Don't put the individual fairy tales as the characters.
  
  
• For Gilbert & Sullivan's oeuvre, you can list the individual operas as the fandom, and then list whatever actual characters you want, rather than listing G&S as the fandom. Don't put the individual operas as the characters.

If your story is a crossover, you can include both fandom names, separated by commas. (Do not use a slash!)

Category

"Category" identifies whether or not the story is about a pairing (or threesome, or moresome, or several pairings/groupings) or not, and what sort of pairing/etc. it is. This field is a dropdown; you can choose one item off it.

* If your story is gen, pick Gen.
* If your story contains only one pairing, only one primary pairing (i.e., any others are background pairings), or only one type of pairing (e.g, two F/F pairings), pick the appropriate F/F, F/M, or M/M marker.
* If your story contains more than one kind of primary pairing, or contains a threesome/moresome, pick "Multi".
* If your story contains a pairing/threesome/moresome that isn't identified with females and/or males, pick "Other".

Pairings

This field obviously only applies if your story has a romantic/sexual pairing or grouping. ETA: I'm informed that the AO3 tag wranglers envision this as a place for either romantic/sexual pairings/other, or friendship pairings/other. You could input characters as "Char1-Char2 Friendship", for instance. Eventually they hope to have the "Pairing" name changed to "Relationships" or something similar.

As you type, an autofill will try to help you out by providing pairings that match what you've typed so far. If your pairing already exists in the AO3, pick it; if not, don't worry! Just go ahead and finish typing it in.

If you wind up writing the pairing in yourself, you can write the names however you want, but if you want to make things easier on the Tag Wranglers (who will be working their fingers to the bone trying to wrangle all of this as fast as they can *g*), use full names, alphabetically by surname where possible.

If you have more than one pairing, separate them with commas.

Characters

This is where you list the primary characters in your story; you don't need to list everyone who appears, just who the story is about. Again, you can write the characters however you want, but full names make the Tag Wranglers happy.

As you type, the autofill will kick in with suggestions that match what you're typing, and you can pick your character if s/he already exists in the archive. Otherwise, just go ahead and type the name(s) in. Separate multiple characters with commas.

Additional Tags

Best thing ever! You can add any tag you want here. Is your story bdsm? Tag it! Is it a first time? Tag it! Is it schmoop? Tag! Is it a noir detective AU? Tag! Dubcon? Kidfic? Cross-species? Futurefic? Golden showers? Tag, tag, tag. This field is for descriptions of all sorts, that will act as warnings and lures to readers, depending on their own personal tastes.

Tags on AO3 are comma separated, so the tags themselves can contain spaces.

The AO3 has a lot of tags that are "canonical", which just means that that's the main form of that tag (e.g., "First Time" is a canonical tag; you can also use firsttime, 1st time, and so forth, and someone clicking on any of those tags will be brought to a page that has all stories that use a tag synonymous with the canonical "First Time"). If you start typing a tag, an autofill will appear with canonical tags to choose from; you can pick one of those, or keep typing your own.

Canonical tags have capital letters, so if you type "first time" and it shifts to "First Time", don't worry about it. :)

You are absolutely not restricted to canonical tags; you can use whatever you want. Just type the tag(s) you want in the Additional Tags field, and you're all set.

Story information

The next section is the basic story information: title, author, whether it's part of a collection, the recipient name if the story is a gift, the summary, and the story notes. This is where Yuletide-specific stuff really comes in.



Yuletide stuff!

Story Title

Self-explanatory! This is a required field.

Author

If you only have one default name on the archive, that will be your only option here. If you have additional pseuds connected to that username, you can pick any of them as the author name. Your default username will always be the default author name chosen in advance.

Add co-author(s)

This won't be an issue for most Yuletide stories, unless you're a proxy uploader for a Yuletider with an existing AO3 account who couldn't upload their own story. (If your author doesn't have an AO3 account, you'll need to create a pseud for their name on your own account. See the proxy info post for instructions.)

If you're a proxy uploader, after you choose your own name as author, click the "add co-author" link, which will open up a field for "enter co-author name(s)". Start typing the author's name in; you'll get an autofill offering you options, and you can pick the author.

If you don't see the author's name in the autofill, the author doesn't have an AO3 account, and you'll need to create a pseud using their name under your own account. Please see the proxy information post for instructions.

Post to collection(s)

IMPORTANT ~ IMPORTANT ~ IMPORTANT ~ IMPORTANT

This is what's going to put your story into Yuletide. Do not skip this step!

You can type in the name of any collection here. In this particular case, you want the story to go into the yuletide2009 collection.

If you chose to post your story from within the Yuletide 2009 Challenge, this field is already filled in for you, and you can safely move on to the next field.

If you chose to post your story from one of the other "Post New" links, you will have to fill this in yourself. As you start typing Yuletide, an autofill will offer you the full name. Select it, then double-check to make sure that "yuletide2009" is completely filled in, in that format.





If you don't add your story to the yuletide2009 collection, it will not be posted to the Yuletide collection. It will not be anonymous. It will show up in the regular archive as a regular story.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO PICK YULETIDE2009 WHEN YOU UPLOAD YOUR STORY!!

Recipient name

Just type your recipient's name in; the archive will give you autofill options to pick from, or you can type it in yourself (but please double-check to make sure it's correct!).

Summary

Self-explanatory! As usual, don't include any identifying info here – don't use it to thank your betas, etc. All that should be here is a story summary, if you choose to include one. You can use limited html here, if you want.

Notes

You can choose to add notes at the top of your story, at the bottom of your story, or in both places. Just check the box for whichever you want, and fill in the text you want. You can use limited html here, if you want (but note, not LJ-specific formatting – don't link to your beta's lj name with [lj-user="name"] If you want to link, use [a href="http://betaname.livejournal.com"]Beta Name[/a], with angle brackets instead of square brackets).

You probably don't want to put any identifying information in the Notes field, as this field will no longer be hidden for Yuletide. Any "compromising" information like beta thanks, etc. can be added to the story after the author reveal</i>

Top notes only:



Top and bottom notes:

Second story info section

This section is probably not relevant for most Yuletiders; you'll only need it if you're posting in chapters or in a language other than English.

Multiple chapters

If you're posting in chapters, check the box next to "Does this work have multiple chapters?". This will open two new fields, one to add the number of chapters (if you know it - the default is a question mark), and one to put in your chapter's title.

Posting in a language other than English

If you're posting in a language other than English, use the dropdown to pick it from the list. (If it doesn't exist on the list yet, you can send feedback to the Archive team asking for it to be added, and just upload your story as is with "English" picked for now - you can change it later when the correct language has been added.)

Story Text

This is where you actually paste in your story. Don't post anything here but the actual story itself – you should not include the story title, your name, your recipient's name, your author notes, etc. All of that has already been taken care of in the earlier parts of the form.

Once you're ready to paste, there are two options: "Plain text with limited html", and "Rich text". The default setting is Plain text:



Use this if you prefer to code your own text for things like headings, emphasis/italics, strong/bold, and so forth. The available html codes are listed above the edit box.

If you're pasting from Word with already-formatted text, or you prefer to use buttons to format text, click on "Rich text" in the upper right corner of the edit box:



Which will bring you to the Rich text editor window:



In both edit boxes, you can paste up to 500,000 characters, which works out to roughly 80,000 words or so. You should have no trouble pasting your entire Yuletide story in one go.

Story with plain text & html formatting:


Story with rich text formatting:

Posting your story

Posting happens in two stages: Preview and Post.

Preview

You have to preview your story before you post it; it's your only option (other than canceling the whole thing). Click the Preview button below the story-edit box:



This may take a minute to work, but then you'll be taken to a screen that tells you a draft has been successfully created, and with the words "Preview Story" prominently displayed. This is where you can check everything to make sure it's correct.

The top of the story will show you lots of information: the date it was published, the word count (must be at least 1,000!), the ratings, warnings, and tags you put on, etc. Check all of that over to make sure it's correct - you can still change it if it's wrong.

NOTE: This screen does not tell you if your story is part of a collection, because it won't be added to the collection until it's actually posted. Don't panic when you don't see that info!



Scrolling down will bring you the story itself, including the "for [recipient name]" line. Double-check all of that. Then re-read your story to make sure you didn't miss anything, no formatting got lost in upload, etc.

At the bottom of the story, there are three options: Post, Edit, or Cancel. Click post if you're happy with the story; click edit if you want to make changes; click cancel if you borked it so bad you just want to start over from scratch. *g*



If you edit your story after Preview, please double-check all the fields you filled in, as sometimes the information may be lost. Be sure to check the Collections/Challenges field! If you post without the yuletide2009 Collections tag, the story will post to the main archive, and not be hidden, and it may generate an email to your recipient early.

Post

Once you're happy with your story, hit "post". You'll be taken to a screen that tells you that the work was successfully posted, and that it's part of Yuletide 2009. \o/ The title that shows up in your browser will be "Mystery Work", which is all anyone else will see.



The story appears a few different ways in different places.

If you look in the AO3's "Works" page, and/or in the Yuletide "Works" page, right after you post, you'll see something like this:



If you go to your own account page, your Dashboard "Recent Works" section will show this:



What everyone else sees in your Recent Works on your Dashboard:



NOTE: Clicking on "My Works" in the sidebar will bring you to a list that does not include your Yuletide story. The only way to see your story on your account page is in the Dashboard.

Keeping track of your story

If you're planning on uploading more stories and are worried that your Yuletide story will scroll off your Recent Works page and you won't be able to find it again in case you need to edit it, you can bookmark it, but be sure to flag it as private.

Just pull up your story, and click "bookmark" at the top:



This will pop up a screen that lets you fill in information if you want. Then flag it as private:



Then go to "My Home", click on "My bookmarks" in the left hand sidebar, and voila, there's your bookmark, keeping your story handy for you.

Editing your posted story

As noted above, do not edit your stories until we give the all clear here in the Admin LJ tomorrow. There is a bug that will "unhide" your stories during Preview, so please wait.

You can edit your posted story now! \o/ You can get into the story by clicking on the edit button on any Works listing page:



Or by pulling up your story and clicking on the edit link in the upper right corner:



Once you click edit, you're taken to the posting interface, where you can make any changes you want, then preview and post as normal.


In short: \o/

MOD NOTE: The instructions were put together by aka_arduinna, of the awesome SG1 Handbook!