For over two decades, the Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository —better known as ASSTR.org —has stood as a digital monument to free expression. It is one of the oldest and largest archives of erotic literature on the internet. While mainstream publishing has become more sanitized and algorithm-driven, ASSTR remains a bastion of uncensored, community-driven storytelling.
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know: the history, the submission process, formatting standards, community etiquette, and how to make your work stand out. Before we discuss submission mechanics, it’s critical to understand why ASSTR matters. Launched in the mid-1990s by a group of Usenet volunteers, ASSTR was created to archive stories from the alt.sex.stories newsgroup. At a time when PayPal banned adult content and Amazon refused to list erotica, ASSTR offered a safe harbor. asstr.org new authors
If you are an , you are stepping into a rich tradition. However, the platform is famously "old web." It lacks the sleek dashboards of Medium or WordPress. It runs on FTP uploads, manual indexing, and plain text files. For over two decades, the Alt
So write your story. Save it as plain text. Check your line breaks. Upload it. And then—wait for that email confirmation. Welcome to the archives. Last updated: October 2025. ASSTR.org remains a 501(c)(3) non-profit literary archive. Support your local text repository. This guide will walk you through everything you
Category: Romance, Science Fiction, BDSM (choose from ASSTR's category list) Keywords: first time, alien, submission, etc. Rating: X (or R, etc.) Then skip a line and begin your story. Indicate the end of the story with a line containing only #END . Use lowercase, no spaces. Convention: penname_storytitle_YYYYMMDD.txt