Pretty much. I'm going to college now, and I work full-time, too. (and more than full-time, if you count looking after my friends...god, they really need help)

Aw, oh well. I hope you'll have more time in the future!

If you're serious about writing and want to improve, Scribophile and CritiqueCircle are nearly unmatched. You'll get valuable input from other writers there on improving your craft. I highly recommend these, but only if you're looking for critiques (although on Scrib you don't have to post your writing if you don't want to, their forums are fantastic for writing advice).

If you're trying to just get your story out there (you want more reads/comments and not critiques), those others you have listed are fine. That being said, it's important to read the fine print, because their publishing terms vary.

Booksie I would personally stay away from. It's not as friendly to use and in my opinion, not going to give you a lot of viewing time or feedback unless you're going around asking people to review your story.

Figment, I don't like. They've modified their publications clause somewhat since I last reviewed it but it still bothers me.

[Unless otherwise provided in the terms and conditions of a Special Promotion, you will retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. You do, however, hereby grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content, your name, and your screen name on the Website and elsewhere in any media now known or hereafter devised, along with the right to excerpt, analyze, and index your Content. The above license granted by you in Publications will terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your Publications from the Website or deactivate your Account. You understand and agree, however, that Figment may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of your Publications that have been removed or deleted. The above license granted by you in Content other than Publications (for example, user comments) is perpetual and irrevocable. ]

Wattpad is an can be handy, but you've got to be active if you want to have some success, and if you're not publishing something mainstream/popular, it could be difficult to get noticed without some hard work. It is active though.

Fanfiction/fictionpress tends to give a lot more reads than comments. The forums are kind of slow, the admin system Stinks, and if you aren't participating in feedback exchange sometimes it can be hard to come by reviews.

Hope this helps!

-Veles

No, that definitely helped. I'm glad you mentioned the flaws with the other websites, I wouldn't of wanted to go through hell with a website that took me no where.

writing.com great writing community. they even give out awards. they've got every genre imaginable. perfect place for compliments and criticism. there's forums, contests, and groups. i loved it during my time there. the only con is you can only put so many pieces in your portfolio. then to get more you have to upgrade your account. but you can win free upgraded accounts and lots of people just give them out out of kindness.

Awesome! I'll go check it out. Is it a lot to upgrade?

I don't remember it costing a fortune. They do it by year though. So you can get more storage in your portfolio for $20 a year. With a free membership you can store 10 writing pieces. For $20 a year you can store 50. For $50 a year you can store 250 and can create books. For $140 you can store 1000 and get a custom url. You get a lot more stuff too, though. Here's the perks to the memberships if it'll let you see the article without being a member. And everyone these is so friendly and helpful. Throughout my time on there I never came across a rude person once.

All right, it doesn't sound too bad. I'll consider it, thanks. :)

, wattpad has a large user base, and forums for writing improvement, publishing advice, multimedia designs and general chat! I feel like the best aspect of it is that you feel part of a community and you get to make friends from all over the world. you can basically post work of any genre, including fanfiction, non-fiction, short story, romance, comedy etc. also it's free and has unlimited storage for your work!

I've definitely heard quite a bit about wattpad lately. Is it true though that you need to be fairly active on the site in order to get noticed, or is it very free and open?

I do think its quite free, as readers can add your book into their library, and they will be notified when there's an update. however, some readers look for works that are frequently updated (every three days, or weekly) because they don't like to be held by a cliffhanger for months! So if you are quite active, it does help. However the most important part is still good writing and an interesting plot. (Though I do find that fanfiction (eg. 1D) tends to get quite a lot of attention mostly because wattpad has a lot of teenage users, but not all of the most popular fanfic is that well written!)

Alright, it sounds pretty simple, I'll check it out for sure. Wattpad seems to get the most positive and frequent reviews, so I think this one might be a winner. Thank you :)

no problem! my user on wattpad is ciellity if you decide to join ^_^

(I'm not sure if you're still looking or if you've found a nest at any of these sites already but I figured I'd give my input anyway.)

I'll be honest, I've only used writing.com but I really enjoy it. It doesn't have much in the way of pretty colors or an overall theme, really, but I don't find that to be a big deal. It can be a bit difficult to navigate but I find that when you get the hang of it, it has so much to offer. It has a bunch of little contests - some give you prompts, some are vague, some are specific - that are mostly run by fellow members if I'm not mistaken. There are daily prompts if you just want to do some fun free writing. You have your own personal "dashboard" where you can see some new contest updates or whatever you select to have shown there but there's also a "community" place to go to.

You have what they call your "portfolio" where you put your writing and they're tagging system is great. They have so many ways to classify your writing including an age rating and three genre sections to specifically classify your piece.

What I've saved for last is probably the best feature. What I really love about the site is that it strongly encourages reviewing. It has a "point system" where you get this sort of currency (though I'll be honest I'm not sure what it's really for yet) and you get so much by reviewing other people's work and all kinds of other things. What I found out recently is that, even if you don't win a contest you've entered, the judge with still send you a message with a very short review. The message I got pretty much said that they liked my story but that I should put extra spacing. So while it's not a drawn out explanation of what I could have done better or what was perfect, it's still really great encouragement.

You can also collect "badges" on the site for doing different things - most that I've seen seem to be received for entering/winning contests.

There's a lot of connection and encouragement and interaction on the site and I think, once you get the hang of it, it's very beneficial.

Here are the two daily contests I get most of my prompts from: The Writer's Cramp Flash Fiction

Thank you for your input! I've unfortunately been to busy to even get a chance at picking a website or testing one out for myself.

What I've just finished doing though is I've added everyone's input to the first post, so if it doesn't help me choice, your input could most indefinitely help someone else decide.

Thank so much :) If you have anything else to add about the website, please let me know so I can add it up front.

nice idea turning this into a guide of sorts. i think this should be put in the useful threads thread.

Thanks. I thought all this info would be put to some good use.