Try-Fail Cycles and the Self-Published Writer

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Corporate Bullies

The blogosphere exploded last month when Paypal started threatening account holders who published "extreme" erotic fiction - things like incest, pseudoincest, rape for titillation and bestiality. Our little publishing company, Excessica, was contacted directly by Paypal. Mark Coker from Smashwords was too. He fought the good fight, got lots of bloggers and tweeters on board, we all made a great big stink, and lo and behold... The good guys won! Might doesn't always equal right! Paypal reversed their decision!

Or... did they?

I received an email recently from Stuart, who runs A1 Adult Ebooks. They've always been willing to carry content that's a little more extreme than most, so Stuart is very familiar with credit card processors and their particulars when it comes to sex. He heard the news about Paypal and Mastercard and Visa, and he rejoiced. Finally! He was going to be able to sell all those books the CC processing companies previously refused to pay for!

Except when Stuart contacted Paypal, the representative told him that, no, there had been no recent change in their policy in regards to adult erotic fiction. Incest, according to them, was still banned. He then contacted his credit card processors, and both of them agreed - that "icky" stuff was still not allowed. Just for chucks and giggles, I contacted Paypal as well, and received the same response from the CS rep - still banned. Then I called the guy I'd talked to before - the one who could get a CC processing account for practically anyone - and he, too, was aware of no changes in policy. Still banned.


Now, this could be the case of the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. They're all large companies, so it may take a little time for the word to filter down to the customer service department. That's giving them all the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Stuart and I are asking too much too soon. I hope so.

But what concerns me is that the credit card processors told me "NO!" before all of this went down with Paypal. And they're still telling me "NO!" afterward. And it's not just me--because Stuart is getting the same answers. And while Visa and Mastercard came forward and said they've never had policies or limits against selling erotic fiction of any sort... I was still getting processors telling me no, for very specific reasons (i.e. rape and incest).

So if the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing then... why would that change now? And what good is a policy change, if the actual policy doesn't ever go into effect?
I feel a little like we've been unsegregated... on paper. But I still have to sit at the back of the bus.
I truly hope that's not what's happening. But what's going on at Amazon right now gives me pause and makes me wonder. Can it all just be a coincidence? Yes, I sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist sometimes. But just because you're paranoid...

Oh, what's been happening at Amazon?

Well, for the past few months, Amazon has been filtering more and more erotica titles out of their main search page. This ADULT filter makes books unsearchable from the main/All Department Search page.Which makes some sort of sense - a kid looking for "What to Expect Babysitters Handbook" doesn't want to see my "Babysitting the Baumgartners," right? And their parents definitely don't want them seeing it. Heck, I don't want them seeing it!

And they both come up in the main search. The handbook is first, my book is second. So it makes sense to filter adult titles from the main page, okay, I get that.

The problem is that this "filter" is being applied without any rhyme or reason. It's totally arbitrary. For example, my Babysitting the Baumgartners isn't filtered. The one with the nearly-naked bum on the cover and "babysitting" in the title. But my Modern Wicked Fairy Tales Vol 2 is filtered. That cover doesn't even have people on it! And strangely, Modern Wicked Fairy Tales Vol 1 and Modern Wicked Fairy Tales The Complete Collection remain (as of this writing) unfiltered.

If you want to know if your book is being filtered, click HERE and put in your title. If you see a red ADULT next to your book - it's being filtered. If you see NOT ADULT next to your title, that means it was previously filtered and has been, for some reason, unfiltered.

What does Amazon say about it? As with the incest banning, Amazon will only refer to their so-vague-as-to-be-useless terms of service instead of being clear and transparent. So far, they won't tell us why certain content is filtered, or what criteria have to be met to keep it from being filtered. Previously, it's been nudity on covers - understandable. But my Modern Wicked Fairy Tale series has no people on the cover, so that's clearly not all the criteria they're using. But who know what it is? Because they're not talking.


I know Amazon doesn't want to be targeted as "censors," and go through what Paypal just did. They'd like to save face, I'm sure. So they're doing all of this secretly and sporadically and arbitrarily. And then denying it. Otherwise it would be clear, and we could call them on it. We certainly can't have that!

So what's the big deal about being "filtered" out of the main search?

Being filtered is a sales-killer. Because not only are you removed from the main page search and relegated only to Kindle Books search - your filtered book will now stop appearing with any UNfiltered books, in terms of recommended reads or also-boughts. Your filtered book also won't appear on any "hot new release" lists either. Your filtered book is now wrapped in plain brown paper and sold at the back of the store.

Which is where porn belongs, you say! Well fine. But then why aren't ALL of them back there? I won't name names here and put out titles - don't want to target anyone unnecessarily when Amazon is clearly going on a sniper hunt - but there are plenty of adult titles that have gone "unfiltered" that should be wrapped in brown paper and sold at the back of the store, if that's what they're going to do.
I've never had a problem with Amazon selling what they want to sell, how they want to sell it. I've always had a problem with their lack of CONSISTENCY and TRANSPARENCY. Even now, years after they've banned incest books from their site, erotic incest is still available on Amazon. They're still publishing it. Some of it has remained. For years. Amazon just targeted the most visible and obvious titles.

Amazon knows its biggest strength -- and weapon -- is its search engine, algorithms and rankings/ratings system. They're using it now, hammering erotica writers right out of the top lists. And they're trying to do it without anyone (who matters) catching wind of what's happening.

Is this a form of censorship? Oh boy, here we go again. You know what, I don't care what you call it. It's unfair, any way you look at it. If you're going to have a policy, apply it--clearly, consistently, and fairly. It's very simple.


You you hear that Amazon?

Do you hear that Paypal?

Do you hear that Visa and Mastercard?

Stop being so afraid of sex that you can't even talk about it. You're perfectly willing to profit from it, but you don't want to make policies about it? Ridiculous. And stupid. It's bad business. There isn't anyone in this equation, from reader to writer to customer (in or out of the erotica genre) that doesn't want you to be clear about your policies!


Instead, Paypal pretends to have a policy change - but really doesn't. Visa and Mastercard claim they've sold this stuff all along, no problem - but they lied. Amazon claims they can "filter" whatever they want, whatever they want, willy nilly, without any consistency or fairness.

If these corporations want to be treated like citizens, then they should stand up and be a man about it, instead of slinking around behind the scenes, only making a statement when they're forced to, and then going back on their word. They're wussies. And they're bullies.
And I really hope they prove me wrong.

SELENA KITT
Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget
www.selenakitt.com

Even Academics Aren't Immune From Making The Author's Big Mistake...

The Author’s Big Mistake, apparently, is to respond to a bad review. All that happens is the writer makes themselves look foolish and unprofessional. Witness this spectacular meltdown from Jacqueline Howett over a bad review of her self-published book, The Greek Seaman. To compound her misery, this went viral enough to hit the major broadsheets. Even if they say bad things about us writers, the reviewer is meant to be aloof and sacrosanct. Otherwise it’s just a big circle jerk that helps no one.

What if the reviewer is less than honest in their intentions?

A link to another spectacular author meltdown appeared in one of my social networking feeds. This one saw Mike Coe attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost following Jane Smith’s negative review of his book, Flight to Paradise. A fellow writer had posted the link as a good example of a self-published writer overreacting to reasonable criticism. I thought the same, until I read down to the part that revealed the reviewer had only read four pages.

Four pages! How can anyone seriously review a book after reading only four pages? That’s like writing a review of a movie after seeing only the first three minutes. I’m sure there are many movies where the film critic would have liked to have walked out at the halfway mark, but they can’t, because they’d be violating their role as a critic. I know Smith has clear rules and a ‘fifteen typos and you’re out’ policy, but her review is four paragraphs long and talks about ‘poor characterization’…from a book where she’s read only the first four pages. I’ve read plenty of books where the main characters haven’t even showed up by then! Slamming a book because the writing is so bad it’s painful to turn the page is one thing, but I’d be peeved too if a reviewer read only the first couple of pages of one of my stories and started to comment on broader issues of characterisation and plot (although not enough to attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost).

I might be wrong, and I’m prepared to apologise whole-heartedly to Jane Smith if this is the case, but after reading more of her reviews my gut feeling is her selfpublishingreview is a troll site with the main aim of beating up self-published writers for the temerity of going it alone. She also runs a blog entitled “How Publishing Really Works”, which sets my ‘ulterior motives’ alarm bells ringing. A bad book is a bad book is a bad book, and this is true whether it was shat out by one of the Big 6 or a lone, misguided scribbler, but some people are vehemently against the whole principle of self-epublishing in general.

I’m sure plenty will keep on submitting to her for review. They’ll see the carcasses of past maulings and think, That won’t happen to me; my book is good. We’re daft like that. I think I’ll pass on this one, though. I don’t see the point when the game is so heavily stacked it’s impossible to win. Or rather, if someone has an axe to grind, the last thing you want to do is give them an axe.

Oh, and to prove it’s not just us crazy self-published types that go apeshit below the line, enjoy Eric Anderson making the Author’s Big Mistake over Catherine Hakim’s review of his latest book in The Guardian.

-M.E. Hydra
http://manyeyedhydra.blogspot.com/

Slippery Slope Part 2: Why Frogs Boil

"The difference between pornography and erotica is time..." -author unknown

When Amazon started banning erotic incest fiction in 2010, one of the things I heard again and again was, “So what? It’s not censorship. Amazon is a private corporation and they have a right to sell whatever they want. They’re not saying these books aren’t allowed to exist – just that they don’t want to sell them. So go buy them somewhere else.”

I also heard a lot of: “This is not censorship.” And: “This is not a free speech issue.”

Now that Paypal has started to target the erotic ebook market, I’m hearing much of the same thing. “Paypal is a private corporation. They have a right to accept what they want. They’re not saying these books aren’t allowed to exist – just that they don’t want to pay for them. So go buy them somewhere else.”

Okay. But where? Because now that Amazon has banned erotic incest FICTION from its site, and Paypal has refused to pay for erotic incest FICTION (and have taken it further too include “pseudo-incest”FICTION)…where is a reader supposed to go read it?

No, this isn’t government censorship. No, this is not a constitutional “free speech” violation.

But it is a form of corporate censorship, and it is a violation of your personal freedom.

Big corporations everywhere are eliminating your choices.They’re doing it quietly with no notice or warning to the public at large. They are starting at the fringe and working their way inward, eliminating the things they can get away with, one at a time.

And like the frog in the pot of boiling water, we sit oblivious until it’s too late.

Oh I know, I’m Chicken Little, the sky is falling, blah blah blah. There’s no such thing as a slippery slope, you say! Slippery slopes are a logical fallacy!

Yes, that is so. But all fallacies can be true sometimes. That’s why they sound so logical to begin with! Like stereotypes, if they didn’t have some truth in them, they wouldn’t exist. Stereotypes are so defined because they’re not always true. (Some Asian people are good at math, but that doesn’t make the stereotype true). The slippery slope is a fallacy only because it doesn’t have to be true,or isn’t always true.

It doesn’t mean it isn’t true…sometimes.

And the problem therein is that you never know when you’re standing on a slippery slope—or sitting in a pot of boiling water—until it’s too late.

While this may not technically be censorship, that doesn’t mean that a decision like Amazon’s, and now Paypal’s, doesn’t have a stifling effect on free speech. It does. Paypal and Amazon are giants in their particular industry. If they are starting to deem things “unacceptable” (and please remember this is in the realm of fiction!)it amounts to de facto censorship, even if it doesn’t technically violate the first amendment.

Cen·sor [sen-ser]noun:

any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.

Amazon has the right to remove books. Paypal has the right not to pay for them. But we don’t have to like it. And you have to start wondering about the slippery slope again. No, this may not be one. But how would we know?

I could be like WalMart’s decision to refuse to sell adult-only video games in its stores. That effectively eliminated any chance of explicit video games making it into the U.S. market. No, it wasn’t a violation of the first amendment, but one corporation had a large enough level of influence to eliminate your choice. That’s disturbing.

In 2007, Verizon attempted to block the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America from using their text messaging services to speak to their supporters. Verizon, like Paypal, fell back on a “policy.” They had a right to enforce a policy that didn’t allow their customers to use their service to communicate “controversial” or “unsavory” messages.

That's very disturbing.

And of course, most recently, the Susan G. Koman Foundation cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, basing its decision on a "policy change."

If corporations have more power than government (and you can argue this if you like, but the evidence is pretty obvious, given the state of things) and they can make decisions like this based entirely in "policies" alone, often made without regard to public safety or opinion, without a checks and balances, without regulation, without any way for the public to weigh in... really, without anything except an eye on the bottom line. Where does that leave you, the consumer?

Take a look at what's happened with Homeland Security since 9/11, at how many freedoms have been taken away from the American people in the name of protecting our safety. Just recently, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act. When do you think Americans will get that freedom back? When the war on terror is "over?" When everyone in America is "safe?" When will that be exactly?

It's easy to take away someone's freedom. A stroke of a pen. A policy change. It is far, far more difficult to get that freedom back.

Why do you think there have been so few “obscenity” cases in the US courts in recent years? Because corporate America has taken over the role of censor. Money talks and now corporations censor. They hold the purse strings and they have the control.

And Amazon has that kind of power. So does Paypal.

When a giant retailer like Amazon eliminates something from their store or when the largest online payment system in the world (Paypal)decides they don’t want to pay for something, it suddenly becomes less profitable to produce those “offensive” products at all. Now it doesn’t just effect people who shop at Amazon or use Paypal.

Now the decision of one corporation has reshaped the entire (arguably) free market.

These huge corporations have now limited your choices. And you probably didn’t even know it.

Censorship is about judging something – a book, a movie, a TV show – on content. Yes, it’s legal. It’s not against the first amendment.But customers don’t like it.

And we don’t have to stand for it either.

Corporations are exerting greater and greater control over society, and without regulation, the only force that could obligate them to be consistent is the market. A business doesn’t have a moral compass. Its bottom line is the almighty dollar alone. Companies can currently create whatever ambiguous rules and policies they want and apply them as arbitrarily as they want.

Without a backlash in the marketplace – why wouldn’t they?

Because the truth is, while the constitution protects free speech, corporations control it. They say what’s allowed and what isn’t. They tell you what you can read, what you can purchase, what you can think. But we don’t notice. We’re the frogs in the water.

Remember when Amazon decided to remove WikiLeaks? That happened just before they decided to remove erotic incest from their site.Apparently, both of them are bad for us. Oh, and don’t forget, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal decided to stop facilitating donations to WikiLeaks as well, right around the same time. Coincidence? Hmm…

Corporations continue to have a huge influence over what we can or can’t access. Yes, the constitution limits government. They have to go through the legal system if they want to limit our access to material. But corporations aren’t bound by that document. Lucky them. Too bad for us.

They can censor speech without warning and without penalty.And they can do it secretly, without your knowledge. How would you know, after all?

The only recourse a consumer has today is a boycott. It’s a consumer’s right - no, duty - to tell a corporation when they think they’ve gone too far, because every corporation needs you, the consumer, to make the money they so covet. So yes, you have a duty, as a consumer, to stand up - not just for yourself,but for your neighbor as well.

Even if you don’t like his taste in music,literature or movies.

Yes, even if you personally find it reprehensible, or indefensible.

Because who do you think is reading this “unacceptable” material? Perverts? Psychos? Pedophiles?

No. For the most part, they’re your neighbors. The same ones who watch “Hostel” (labeled by some as “torture porn”) and read “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” (Rape themes anyone?) They aren’t people who go around doing illegal things – at least not anymore than anyone else in the rest of the world.

But if you won’t stand up for your neighbor’s freedom, how can you expect him to stand up for yours?

If public consensus is any indication, half of the people are "not caring" themselves toward an Orwellian world for their grandchildren that they themselves might not even recognize.

And the other half are cheering the elimination of such “icky” and “distasteful” subjects.

Neither of them realize they could very well be standing on a slippery slope. Or sitting in a pot of boiling water with the temperature on the rise.

And they all continue not to notice.

Because as Lucas captured so perfectly, whether it's giant corporations or evil emperors deciding what is best for the safety and security of society as a whole:

“This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.”

SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP INTERNET CENSORSHIP

JOIN "AMAZON CENSORS" ON FACEBOOK

CONTACT PAYPAL

CONTACT AMAZON

-Selena Kitt

www.selenakitt.com

Slippery Slope: Erotica Censorship

NOTE: Check out a PODCAST with me and Terry Mixon and Justin Macumber about this topic. (Interview starts at 9:00, if you want skip ahead ;) )

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Well, the morality police are at it again. And this time, it's scarier.

First, Amazon started banning books from their site. They backed down on their anti-censorship stance and removed the Ped0phile Guide. Then they went after books that contained incest, bestiality and rape.

After the dust settled, it was clear that, while biological incest was a no-no, Amazon would, however, allow sex between of-age adults who were related to one another in a non-biological manner--step-relations or adopted relations. Suddenly the top 100 in the Erotica category on Amazon exploded with "pseudo-incest" titles. And the covers were far more revealing than anything the category had previously carried. Titles like "Daddy Licks My Pussy" became commonplace. The line between "erotica" and "porn" had blurred even further.

Most (if not all) of these titles were written and published by "Indie" authors, who were distributing them not only through Amazon, but through other self-publishing platforms as well--Barnes and Noble, Apple, Bookstrand, All Romance Ebooks. The latter had even taken a stance against the "porn-like" covers and refused to allow them on their new releases front page, especially if they contained content relating to "pseudo-incest" and what they called "barely-legal" sex.

(I assume this is sex between an older person and someone in the age-range of 18-19. Of course, it's interesting to note that they didn't seem to object to the plethora of "Twink" m/m titles on their site--18-19 year old males having sex with older men. No, their objection seemed entirely against 18-19 females having sex with older men).

Soon after All Romance Ebooks had imposed these restrictions, and Bookstrand had taken Indie erotica authors off their front page as well, Bookstrand sent out an email to all of its publishers. This is from that email:

We were informed by PayPal, without notice, and by our credit card processing company, that we are required to remove all titles at BookStrand.com with content containing incest, pseudo incest, rape, and bestiality, effective immediately.

We request that you immediately log into your account and unpublish all titles that contain the restricted content. If you have uploaded titles containing restricted content and do not unpublish these titles as we are requesting, we will deactivate your entire publisher account, which will remove all your titles from sale.

We urge you to log into your account and remove these titles as soon as possible to prevent your account from being deactivated today.

If your account is deactivated, it may or may not be reinstated in the future. After deactivation, requests for reinstatement will require us to go through your catalog, which may take several weeks or longer for us to process.

Note that they list not only "incest" but "pseudo-incest" as well. Now, while "incest" is illegal in most states, "pseudo-incest" is not. (Woody Allen, anyone?) Having sex with a step-relation or an adopted relative is just... sex. It might seem creepy or weird, but it isn't illegal.

Now they're not just targeting illegal acts (this is in fiction mind you) now they're targeting acts that may simply just be "morally objectionable." Where else do they do this? Are they targeting authors who write about serial killers?

Of course, erotica writers everywhere were up in arms. How could they do this? Why? A petition even cropped up, and it has some excellent points, if you'd like to go sign it:

Earlier this week, PayPal told Bookstrand, a major distributor of erotic romance and other erotic content on the Internet, that if certain titles containing "objectionable" material were not pulled from Bookstrand's shelves, Bookstrand's PayPal account would be shut down and the funds within confiscated.

PayPal has a long track record of suspending, freezing, and terminating customer accounts on the thinnest of justifications, but this is going too far. By telling Bookstrand what books they can and cannot sell using PayPal services, they are also telling readers they don't have the right to read what they wish and telling authors that PayPal has the right to take away their freedom of speech and the press.

If you use the Internet to find new reading material, if you use PayPal, and/or if you support the rights of authors and readers to have the widest possible selection of topics to read and write about, please sign this petition and let PayPal know that censorship, no matter what form it takes or how it is implemented, is not acceptable. Readers, publishers, storefronts and authors have the right to choose what books are sold and bought.

Don't leave it up to PayPal to choose how you spend your money or where.

The fact is, and we all know it--sex and porn make the Internet go-round. It's a huge industry, even if there is a vocal minority who doesn't like it. People like their porn, and they want access to it. So why would Paypal refuse to sell something that wasn't even illegal in any state in the U.S.?

I got my chance to ask that question, because a few days after the BookStrand debacle, Excessica received a phone call from Paypal. THE phone call. And then came the follow-up letter:

After a recent review of your account activity, it has been determined that you are in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy... In order to comply with our Acceptable Use Policy and avoid the limitation of your account, you will need to:

- Remove those items from http://www.excessica.com that violate PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. Example/s: all ebooks containing themes of rape and incest.

Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for certain sexually oriented materials or services or for items that could be considered obscene.

When I asked if "pseudo-incest" was included (since that was mostly all we had on the site) the representative confirmed that yes, that would have to be removed. "What about BDSM?" I asked--a category full of dubious consent. "That would have to be removed as well."

That's right--they weren't just targeting illegal acts between non-consenting adults. Now they were targeting legal sex between consenting adults.

When I asked her why they were doing this, I received no answer except, "We've always had this policy." Perhaps, but it seems that they weren't previously enforcing it very seriously. Why now?

The only answer I received from Paypal was silence.

So I started to search for alternatives to Paypal. Not an easy task, I might add. Like Amazon, they are a veritable monopoly in their field. At least they graciously (ha) gave us thirty days to comply, after which the account would be frozen or cancelled. So I had some time. What I discovered was that most merchant-services (i.e. companies that allow you to use Visa and MasterCard on their site) which allow adult products charge a $5000 up-front fee to use their service. Then, they take exorbitant percentages from each transaction. Some 5%, some 14%, some as high as 25%.

Now it was starting to make more sense. The credit card companies charge higher fees for these "high-risk" accounts because there is a higher rate of what they call "chargebacks." You know that protection on your credit card, where if you dispute the charge, you don't have to pay for it? Well they've determined that happens more with porn and gambling and other "high-risk" sites than others, so they're justified in charging more money to process payment for those sites.

Paypal doesn't want to have to pay Visa and MC for carrying "high risk" accounts on their books. You have to remember that Paypal is a middleman. Sites that carry high-risk material have to pay the high-risk costs of doing business. If you're going through Paypal, you don't have to pay that. Until Paypal catches you. And then they insist you take down your high-risk content or lose your account.

What Bookstrand did was use this as an excuse to get rid of a problem. They were having difficulties integrating the harder-core Indie books into their site (although to be fair, the books in question, in terms of content, weren't actually any more hardcore than many of the books in their Siren collection--they just had more revealing covers and more conspicuous titles) and so they used this crackdown by Paypal to eliminate hundreds of Indie books.

Who would be next? All Romance Ebooks? Smashwords? Amazon itself? Erotic writers everywhere said that Amazon was immune from Paypal's clampdown, but were they? No, they didn't accept Paypal on their site. But they did accept Visa and Mastercard. Where, exactly, did the buck stop?

I'm not sure, but I did find out an interesting piece of information that made me pause and consider where all of this may be leading.

Someone suggested the new "Amazon Payments" to me as an alternative to Paypal. I thought it made sense - if Amazon sells our books, why would they refuse to pay for them through their payment service?

Well guess what? I opened the account, and they closed it a day later, stating:

Thank you for registering with Amazon Payments. We appreciate your interest in our product.

Unfortunately, at this time, we are not able to approve your request for an Amazon Payments Business Account based on our review of your intended use of our payments service.

As stated in our Acceptable Use Policy the following product or services are prohibited from using Amazon Payments:

Adult Oriented Products and Services - includes pornography (including child pornography), sexually explicit materials (in all media types such as Internet, phone, and printed materials), dating services, escort services, or prostitution services.

While we appreciate your interest, the blocking of your account is a permanent action. Please feel free to write to us for any questions that you may have.

Which means, Amazon may not be "immune" to the Paypal rules after all. Because they still have to process credit cards through the same credit card companies that Paypal does.

I don't know what this means for the future of erotic self-publishing, but like the banning of certain titles begun by Amazon, it is a very slippery slope indeed. Today it's "pseudo-incest" and "rape" (including BDSM titles) which is nothing more than legal sex between consenting adults.

What will it be tomorrow?

-Selena Kitt

www.selenakitt.com
http://www.selenakitt.com

EDITED TO ADD:

I'm putting this addendum here, rather than create another blog post, because so many people are linking to it. Bookstrand took the final step and completely eliminated "most of the Indie titles" from their site. They sent an email stating they wanted to "go back to their roots." Whatever that means. Of course, this decision came without warning, and while Indie authors were still trying to comply with their (ever-changing!) new Terms of Service.


Then Bookstrand said to DearAuthor that Siren "NEVER has and NEVER will publish books with the disgusting themes of incest, pseudo incest, rape for sexual titillation, or bestiality with naturally occurring animals."

No, they don't publish them. (Except for this one. And this one. Oh and this one). But they sure as heck didn't have a problem distributing them and making 50% commission on selling them before Paypal said, "Hey, you can't do that!" did they? Nope. No problem cashing that check. And they've been selling our stuff (incest and pseudo) since 2008. Hypocrite much?

Well I guess we couldn't expect them not to cave to Paypal. I just wished they'd done it with more regret and class.

And I wondered who might be next, didn't I? Well... here we go...


All Romance Ebooks has been contacted by Paypal and given the same ultimatum as Book Strand. They have now changed their policies and are implementing a new structure, splitting erotic romance from erotica. Of course, the concern is that perhaps they, like Bookstrand, will simply use that structure to lop off erotica as a category and go without it. Only time will tell.


In the interest of transparency, here is the letter from All Romance Ebooks:

This communication is being sent out to all publishers since it involves a process change:

From the beginning, we conceived of All Romance as a niche bookstore that would sell a wide variety of romance novels. Our primary demographic is adult women who enjoy reading romance subgenres featuring stories between two consenting adults. We opened with an “Erotica” category and, until fairly recently, that category was dominated primarily by Erotic Romance, which was our intent. “Vampires/Werewolves” was intended to carry romances featuring Vampires and Werewolves. “Gay” was intended to carry romances featuring Gay men. Over the past few months we’ve begun to receive more and more pure Erotica titles. Admittedly, there is a segment of our readership that wants to read Erotica. There is another segment that prefers to read Erotic Romance. Still others enjoy both, or neither.

In order to improve discoverability for all, we’ve decided to create separate Erotic Romance and Erotica categories. The “old” Erotica category will soon be retired. All titles in that category will need to be re-shelved prior to its retirement to avoid inactivation. We have also made some amendments to our restrictive section to provide some further guidance as to the types of books we feel will resonate best with our Romance community. Please review section 7 of the publisher contract here. If the amended terms are ones you can’t abide by, please let Barbara know and she will accept your notice of termination. If they are, accessing your publisher panel after today will be sufficient to constitute acceptance. We request that you take immediate initiative to remove any titles that may be in breach.

In order to help publishers shelve titles appropriately and aid readers in finding the types of books they most want to enjoy, we’ve worked in conjunction with a team of Erotica and Erotic Romance authors and publishers to craft some guidelines. We appreciate that this division is rather nuanced and that our views may not equate with yours. None-the-less, these guidelines will serve to direct customers, so we ask that you refer to them when deciding upon category placement.

In the next one to two weeks, you will receive notice that re-shelving has commenced. You will have seven calendar days in which to complete the re-shelving process. During the seven-day period, only titles in the New Erotica and New Erotic Romance categories will be visible to the public. If you publish all Erotica or all Erotica Romance, you’ll be able to complete the process with one simple step upon login. If you would like us to complete that step for you, please send an email to me, Subject: Shelving. Indicate in the body of the email if you publisher only Erotica or Erotica Romance. I will confirm with you via email when your migration is complete.

If you publish a mixture of Erotica and Erotic Romance, when re-shelving begins upon login you will be directed to a pop-up page that lists only your current Erotica content along with summaries. You will need to check a box for each title, indicating whether it falls into the Erotica or Erotic Romance category.

I’m including our guidelines below so that you can begin planning for this process:

Erotic romance is a Romance containing frequent, sexually explicit love scenes. The main plot centers around two or more people falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. The love scenes are a natural part of the romance and described using graphic and frank language. Typically these stories have an HEA (happily ever a fter) or HFN (happy for now) ending.

Erotica is a sexually explicit story, which explores and focuses on a character’s sexual journey rather than an emphasis on a developing romantic relationship. While such an erotic story may have elements of romance, it is the sex that primarily drives the story.

I find this rather questionable:

"...accessing your publisher panel after today will be sufficient to constitute acceptance."

So if we want to log in and see our sales or look at our titles, we have to accept these new terms of service? This smacks of what Bookstrand did. They gave no notice to publishers of the terms of service changes (and seemed to change them every five minutes!) and certainly gave no indication that they would be removing the entire "Indie" section of books until it happened. All Romance Ebooks has followed their example, deactivating books and then saying, "Oh by the way, when you log into your account to find out what's going on, you agree to our new Terms of Service." Really!? No box to check, nothing. The contract was amended without anyone's knowledge or consent and then come to find out that logging in to figure out what's going when publishers find their books gone means they somehow agree with the stuff they weren't told about? That's so not cool.

And what are All Romance Ebooks' new restrictions? Funny, they look similar to the issues Paypal was having with the Bookstrand books. Incest, pseudo-incest, bestiality and rape. All Romance, however, has taken this one step further, and has banned "barely legal" (their term) books. This is, apparently, sex between 18-19 year old women and older men, at least if the books they've banned so far are any indication. Of course, they have lots and lots of "twink" books (18-19 year old males having sex with older men). So far, no banning of those. Double standard much!?

These will sound familiar:


7. Restrictions

All Romance reserves the right not to accept any particular Work submitted by Publisher at All Romance's sole discretion, and may remove any particular Work from sale at any time and for any or no reason. Pornographic and obscene Works are restricted and not allowable for upload on the All Romance site, including without limitation, Works depicting sexual acts involving persons under eighteen years of age (exceptions may be made for certain works of literary fiction involving time periods wherein the age of consent was less than 18 and the purpose of the depiction is not for sexual titillation), Works involving any exploitation of minors, sexual or otherwise, Erotic Works which contain incest or pseudo-incest themes, Works that are written for or being marketed to the barely legal market, rape for the purposes of titillation, scenes of non-consensual bondage or non-consensual sado-masochistic practices, bestiality with naturally occurring animals, sex with non-animated corpses, snuff or scat play.

Well.

Two distributors down.


Next?

-Selena Kitt

www.selenakitt.com
http://www.selenakitt.com

There is no self-epublishing bubble (but you might not find gold…)

GuardianBooks announced on twitter “Two epublishing doom-sayers on @guardianbooks today.” I’m not sure I’d trust either with a crystal ball to be honest. In particular, I think Ewan Morrison’s argument that self-epublishing is a bubble is spectacularly off.

At the risk of sounding like a bargain-basement Joe Konrath, ebooks aren’t going away. It’s a technology shift. Ebooks are a bubble in the same way music CD’s, then .mp3 downloads are a bubble, or movies are a bubble, as in they’re not a bubble at all. There are people who still like vinyl records and theatre, but neither has the cultural significance they once had.

I can see why Morrison is trying to make an analogy between bubbles and self-epublishing, but I suspect Gold Rush is a better analogy. Fuelled by the success stories of writers like Amanda Hocking and John Locke, a bunch of folks have decided there’s gold in them thar hills, grabbed a shovel and charged off to make their fortunes. A rare few will strike a motherlode, some will eke out an existence panning dust and a whole lot of folks will return empty handed and disappointed.

This is what we’ll see with self-epublishing. There’s a lot of interest and excitement now, but that will fade once the Get-Rich-Quick merchants realise how much work is involved for little guarantee of success. The current glut of self-published ebooks will subside, but it won’t pop and collapse completely. People have put quill to parchment, or whatever equivalent, for a very long time now, mostly without any promise of riches and rewards, and there’s no reason to think the future is going to be any different.

As always with articles like this I get a slight whiff of Writer vs. writer snobbery. Writers are big, important people who write big, important words. They must receive cheques to support them writing their big, important words otherwise the whole of culture as we know it will collapse into the sewer. writers are hobbyists who scratch words out in their spare time after they’ve finished their shift and popped the kids off to bed. While what they do is nice and commendable, they’re not really important and, besides, they already have the financial support of their day job, or their partner.

When I read articles like this complaining about future hardships for publishing, I tend to substitute writer with Writer, because that’s what they really mean—the few deemed worthy enough to pass through the sanctified gates. Morrison talks about how bad it is when a newly self-epublished writer puts their book out and earns only £99 in a year. Um, the vast majority of writers never make anything, not a single penny. They spend six months, a year, whatever, writing a book and it doesn’t get published. THE END. Oh that’s right, I forget, those folks don’t count because they’re writers not Writers.

And Morrison thinks writers are going to suddenly stop overnight even though a century or more of receiving nothing failed to deter them in the past. Oh wait, my bad, he means those other Writers.

For the majority of writers, the old publishing paradigm was terrible. They couldn’t get published and no one read their work. Yes, this benefitted the reader by protecting them from an awful lot of crap, but it also atrophied choice, especially in marginal areas where publishers were afraid to take risks. Now it’s much better for the majority of writers—they get a chance to be read. These next few years will see more books available to read than at any previous point in human history. If there aren’t a few future classics amongst that lot we should give up as a species and all go and drown ourselves in the Atlantic.

The argument against that is the good books will all drown in the swamp of badly-written dreck. It’s bullcrap. If a book is good it will be found by someone, because it’s out there, to be read, forever. It’s available to be found, as opposed to being locked in a drawer somewhere, never to see the light of day, because it didn’t fit what the publishers of the time thought would make them money.

Morrison’s apocalyptic crash scenario is one where the competition between all the desperate self-pubbers creates a whirlpool of ever-lowering prices, which sucks in the major publishers and leaves no one able to make any money at all apart from Amazon. This could happen. As I mentioned earlier, over a century of receiving—on average—nothing has not deterred writers from writing. This would leave writing as the province of only eager amateurs. Purists would argue it should be done for the ‘art’ rather than money anyway, but they probably haven’t read a book written after 1870 either.

It could happen, but I don’t think it will. There is a bottom. Both Selena Kitt and Joe Konrath have experimented with pricing and come to similar conclusions. The 99c thing was fun for a while, but readers are prepared to pay more for better quality books, although probably not the crazy-high prices set by most mainstream publishers.

More likely, rather than crashing, self-epublishing will stabilise and mature. Readers will get savvier at both avoiding the crap and finding the books they want to read, and will ultimately benefit from greater choice. Despite this, it won’t be that different from traditional publishing in that a few lucky/talented writers will earn huge while the rest won’t make enough income to quit their day jobs.

The majority of writers are still better off. They make some money, whereas before they made none. They’ll find some readers, whereas before it was only friends and family. As for the Writers, they’ll have to prove they are Writers by being popular enough to sell enough books to support themselves, or by being good enough to win the awards/garner the reviews that will generate enough book sales to support themselves. If they can’t do this, then maybe they weren't that different from the rest of us writers in the first place.

If self-epublishing creates a stable ecosystem where writers that wouldn't have been published are able to supply readers whose tastes wouldn't have catered for, and allows those writers to make a profit, then it will be performing its role quite admirably.

M.E. Hydra

A Ghost's Chance in Kindle Land Hell

I smell the fresh scent of excitement in the air.  What is that?  Because my stomach is in knots to the point where it feels tingly.  Not like a fart or anything.

A Ghost's Chance is here!  I had originally titled the book Ghost of a Chance, thinking how very clever I was.  Then I found out that a gazillion people have used that same title.  If you search it on www.goodreads.com, you will see what I mean.

A few years ago, a friend of mine died unexpectedly.  He was a guy who I thought I'd eventually have something more with.  We'd had great conversations.  The thing was we were always seeing other people.  The last time we saw each other he said he missed seeing me (we worked together until I had gotten a better job) and then he said, maybe I'll see you again.  Which I'd thought was a weird thing to say.  Maybe?  He died the following week.

So A Ghost's Chance is kind of my what if.  I like to think that my guy is with me.  He's there for me like a guardian angel.  I've had some very close calls accident-wise and...not that I believe in ghosts or anything.  I don't want to sound like a freak.  But there are times when I'm alone and I think I hear him talking to me.  But why me?  I was never his girlfriend.

There you have it.  It's autobiographical.  Maybe my Jeffrey is really with me, maybe I'm just crazy.  I must be crazy to spill my secrets like this!

The ebook will soon be available on all the sites.  So far it is here -

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-aghost039schance-671190-140.html

Thirty-nine-year-old Ellen Murakami is still single. Her success in pharmaceutical sales has allowed her to own her own home in Watertown, New York. However, she’s still a bit of a failure at relationships.

As St. Valentine’s Day approaches this year, Ellen’s luck seems to turn. Will she finally find her soul mate in businessman Paul Webber?

Told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old ghost, Jeffrey Brayden, A Ghost’s Chance chronicles Ellen’s love affair until Jeff finally gets a chance to compete for her affections and fulfill his destiny. Will love conquer all – even if it is completely unconventional?

Follow Jeff as he searches for true love from beyond the grave in this heartwarming Valentine tale.

Then I started thinking about that movie I’d seen when I was eight. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Could I do that? Could I invade Paul’s body and make it my own? Maybe that was why I was here – but how the hell was I supposed to do that? Maybe I could just concentrate, I thought, and just make it happen. I mean, I am supernatural, right? And anything is possible. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried that concentrating on the positive outcomes thing.  
Get inside his body. Get inside Paul Webber’s body!

When I finally opened my eyes, I saw only the mist of the steam room, and my own transparent image as reflected within the glass door, which looked a little like the dead guy on that Stones album cover, Aftermath. I was alone in there. But in movies, like Heaven Can Wait, the body looked like the spirit inside. Hmm. Had it worked? I reached to open the door and my hand slid through. Nope, still me.

Paul had already exited and was now showering. He sang Paparazzi by that Lady Gaga person. Kind of made him sound like a narcissist, thinking that people would want to take pictures of him – naked I mean. Plus, I thought, Ellen’s taste in music is trapped in the ‘80s just like her heart. She likes Duran Duran - stuff like that. Was he really right for her? My instincts said no – unless it was my heart talking. I hated myself just then, because I thought it would hurt Ellen if she ever found out I’d tried to shit on her happiness somehow.

Anyhow, I tried again. I took a running start and leapt half way, kind of like a circus tiger jumping through a hoop of fire. I wondered if my ghostly ass might plop straight down to hell for this. God, I felt so guilty! I sprang through the shower curtain and hit Paul in the chest - thump-thud - and just ricocheted off, landing on the floor near the sinks.

Paul jumped out of the shower stall. “What the hell?” he shouted. “Is someone there?”

He looked scared. Clutching his chest, he started to breathe a little heavier. I could tell that his adrenaline level was rising. Then I watched his cock jump into an erection. Wow, it was a pretty impressive one as hard-ons go.

Hmm. I wasn’t supposed to steal his body, I thought. I guess I felt a little defeated, because it didn’t seem fair. I’d always been taught that love contained the power of the universe – a great love being the strongest of all. It was rock hard clear that I was supposed to remain on the outside and help Ellen find her love. And since it was almost St. Valentine’s Day, I’d settle for being Ellen’s cupid instead, and maybe this whole thing between us would end up making sense.