Version 2026-09-22
1. Adult submissions only.
After Dark is an adults-only publication. Submissions must be intended for an adult audience and the person submitting must be at least 18 years old. Work involving prohibited sexual content, including sexual content involving minors, sexual violence presented as erotic entertainment, or bestiality, will not be accepted.
2. You must have the right to submit the work.
By submitting, you confirm that the work is yours or that you have permission to submit it, and that providing it to After Dark does not knowingly violate someone else's copyright, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
3. Submission is editorial permission, not automatic publication.
Sending work gives After Dark permission to privately review it for possible publication. A submission may be accepted, declined, held for later consideration, or returned with questions or revision requests. Submission does not guarantee publication, placement, a publication date, payment, or promotion.
Please allow 48–72 hours for the initial editorial review. If a submission is accepted, publication is not immediate and may take up to seven days after acceptance while the piece is edited, formatted, scheduled, and prepared for the site. Longer or more complex submissions, revision requests, or a busy editorial queue may take additional time.
Standalone story and erotica submissions may be up to 10,000 words. Guides, essays, articles, games, and other written submissions may be up to 5,000 words. Public serialized episode submissions are not open at this time; serialized episodes are house-published for now.
4. Accepted work may be edited and formatted.
If a piece is accepted, After Dark may edit grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence flow, structure, headings, titles, excerpts, formatting, accessibility text, content notes, and house style. Passages may be reworded or reorganized when an edit improves clarity, readability, or presentation.
Editing will not intentionally change the creator's core meaning, position, or creative intent. If a proposed change would materially alter what the creator is saying, After Dark may contact the creator for clarification or approval before publication when contact information is available.
5. Submissions are free by default.
Community submissions are placed in the free category by default. After Dark will not sell, paywall, bundle for sale, or otherwise monetize a contributor's submitted work unless the contributor gives separate, explicit permission for monetization.
The submission form contains an optional monetization permission field. Leaving it unchecked means the work may only be considered for free publication. Checking it allows a monetization discussion; it does not by itself set a price, revenue split, payment amount, exclusivity term, or other commercial arrangement.
6. Credit follows the creator's stated preference.
Credit will use the name, pseudonym, anonymous preference, or discuss-first preference selected on the submission form unless a different credit arrangement is agreed later.
7. Staff submissions may use an internal process.
Members of the Artificially Feral moderation or administration team whose contributor status and editorial expectations have already been directly verified may submit through the internal staff process instead of repeating the public contributor onboarding terms for every piece.
8. Withdrawal and removal.
A creator may withdraw work while it is under review and may request removal of published work at any time. After Dark provides a dedicated removal-request form and may use the original submission contact information to verify that the request comes from the creator. A creator does not have to justify wanting their work removed from the public publication.
If a separately authorized paid, licensed, or bundled edition is involved, any additional obligations are governed by that separate agreement rather than these general submission terms.
9. No hidden commercial agreement.
These terms do not create employment, a partnership, exclusivity, a guaranteed payment, or a revenue-sharing agreement. Any compensation, licensing, exclusivity, revenue split, paid edition, or special commercial arrangement must be agreed separately and explicitly.
10. Record of acceptance.
After Dark records the version of these terms and the time they were accepted with the submission. If the terms materially change in the future, a new version may require acceptance again before another public submission is sent.