[Harriet Schultz]

I couldn't find my romantic suspense novels on Kobo yesterday, wrote to D2D to ask them to fix this and this was their reply today:

"We have discovered that over the weekend Kobo removed all books published through our account. While we have received no official word concerning this issue, we believe this is related to recent articles in the media concerning erotica titles available at WHSmith and Kobo's storefronts.

However, Kobo's response to this situation seems to have been removal of all books for any publishers (including distributors) that have offending titles until they find a solution.

I deeply regret that authors who have released books that are not erotica have been affected by this situation as well.

We are working aggressively to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we will keep you updated as we learn more information."

 

[MindyWilde]

Just got the email from them as well!  Well this sucks and I love D2D so I really don't want to go elsewhere.  I had already considered starting to write in other genres but with stuff like this I guess it really wouldn't have mattered.  I know it is the name of the game and the companies can do as they like.  We take a chance by working on the production end of the business cycle and relying on distributors but the uncertainty is not a lot of fun.

 

[KerryT2012]

Yep just got the same email from D2D. I am confused. What is going on? Why is erotica deemed so bad? But yet, vampires and mass murderers not getting the same treatment?

 

[dotx]

Yep just got the same email from D2D. I am confused. What is going on? Why is erotica deemed so bad? But yet, vampires and mass murderers not getting the same treatment?

Kobo deleted ALL books submitted through D2D. Not only erotica.

 

[N. Gemini Sasson]

Seems like an extreme and sudden move on Kobo's part, if that is indeed the cause. No troubles with SW books, then? Why would they target D2D books? And did we ever figure out why BN did the same thing a few months ago?

 

[Saul Tanpepper]

And yet all my books subbed through Smashwords are still there. Because, presumably, Smashwords has no questionable titles.

WTH?

 

[Quiss]

What's Kobo's relationship with Smashwords? Is there some backroom wrangling going on in terms of exclusivity perhaps?

Going by title is worrisome. For one, it'll exclude entirely "innocent" titles and, two, it'll just push authors into gaming the system by avoiding those types of keywords in the title. Euphemisms galore!

 

[Debbiek]

None of my books are showing up on Kobo. I have erotica and regular books. All are missing since yesterday.  I emailed them but have not received a response.

 

[41419]

All my books have been pulled. I upload direct, and don't write erotica.

Looks like a crazy overreaction to a tabloid story over the weekend about "filth" being sold beside kids books.

 

[71089]

All my books have been pulled. I upload direct, and don't write erotica.

Looks like a crazy overreaction to a tabloid story over the weekend about "filth" being sold beside kids books.

Odd. Very odd.

My books are erotica. I publish through them directly. Mine haven't disappeared.

Why am I excluded? Not that I'm complaining. Although I am expecting them to pull my titles any moment now. Checking every minute to see if my books are still there.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Yup. I got that letter too. Kobo is removing all aggregator titles while it figures out the erotica situation. It's probably going to hit the direct uploads next.

 

[Nathalie Hamidi]

I go direct. So far my books are still there, both on dashboard and search, erotica and non-erotica.

 

[mrv01d]

They are hitting direct uploaders simultaneously. If you're untouched (as I am) you're either lucky or at the end of the line.

M

 

[Guest]

And yet all my books subbed through Smashwords are still there. Because, presumably, Smashwords has no questionable titles.

WTH?

Maybe Smashwords does a better job of filtering the questionable titles. Or maybe Mark was already out in front of it since he's done this dance before with PayPal over erotic content.

 

[Guest]

Maybe Smashwords does a better job of filtering the questionable titles. Or maybe Mark was already out in front of it since he's done this dance before with PayPal over erotic content.

I just lost two Smashwords titles (both crime, not romance or adult in any way). I think they're just taking time working through it.

 

[Debbiek]

I publish direct but, my erotica is more of a romantic erotica...steamy...very vanilla and still says published and for sale but, it's not there.

 

[Gina Black]

My historical romance is still there. It isn't selling...but it's there. It's a direct upload.

 

[Mark E. Cooper]

Kobo deleted ALL books submitted through D2D. Not only erotica.

Incorrect, though D2D has been hit hard and it's not the first time. A couple of months ago Kobo screwed up and dropped everything from D2D and put them all back the next day. A so called glitch while they updated there rubbish search engine and store. It's not that much better now, but it is an improvement.

They dropped all my stuff this time and I pubbed through Kobo's own Kobo Writing Life. None are romance or erotic. This has nothing to do with D2D, but D2D being a large entity publishing self-pubbed books has been hit hard by it. Kobo itself is repairing its greenhouse with sledgehammer in my opinion. Instead of taking down a selection of categories and then going through them, it panicked and took all of them down so that none of its books could feed the pipe to WH Smith which takes a direct feed from them.

 

[Zelah Meyer]

I have deleted this post as I do not consent to the new Terms of Service that Vertical Scope are attempting to retrospectively apply to our content.  I am forced to manually replace my content as, at time of editing, their representative has instructed moderators not to delete posts or accounts when users request it, and Vertical Scope have implied that they will deal with account deletion requests by anonymising accounts, which would leave personally identifying information in my posts.

I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.

 

[dotx]

Incorrect, though D2D has been hit hard and it's not the first time. A couple of months ago Kobo screwed up and dropped everything from D2D and put them all back the next day. A so called glitch while they updated there rubbish search engine and store. It's not that much better now, but it is an improvement.

They dropped all my stuff this time and I pubbed through Kobo's own Kobo Writing Life. None are romance or erotic. This has nothing to do with D2D, but D2D being a large entity publishing self-pubbed books has been hit hard by it. Kobo itself is repairing its greenhouse with sledgehammer in my opinion. Instead of taking down a selection of categories and then going through them, it panicked and took all of them down so that none of its books could feed the pipe to WH Smith which takes a direct feed from them.

How is the statement incorrect? I said all books submitted to Kobo are gone. Or maybe some are still up, but what I meant to say is that Kobo took down D2D books regardless of the topic (I don't write erotica)