That's about the size of it. With the proviso that I don't write in the same genre, many are the issues that plague Kobo Writing Life...

 

It's very unfortunate that this happened.  I hope they get their act together and redeem themselves.  My only real experience with them was a pretty frustrating one.  Took one of my books off their site because I wanted to give it a shot in KDP Select for a little experiment.  My dashboard on WritingLife was showing that it was delisted, so I enrolled the book in Select.  Apparently the book was still showing up on Kobo anyway, and it turned into a three-ring of awful customer service with KDP Select (a thread topic for another day) that, if it had happened a few days later, would have destroyed my BookBub promo and lost me money.  So I'm not super-thrilled with Kobo, either.  The site itself clearly has bugs that need to be fixed.

 

I like your letter, why should all self-published authors be made to pay for Kobo and WH Smiths lack of common sense. From what I read WH Smith was surfacing the "Daddy Fantasy" books along with children's titles. So if someone typed "Daddy" naughty titles appeared alongside the kids' books:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/14/whsmith-closes-website-after-rape-porn-ebooks-appear-in-search-results-for-daddy-4145030/

This is relevant because KOBO is the official eReader for the WH Smith Brand in the U.K. But instead of acting responsibly and just putting up some appropriate filtering - their reaction is to nuke everything.

That's supremely dumb and should have been dealt with long before this happened. This entire fiasco was 100% preventable.
As an erotica writer, I don't want my books to show where kids can read them. I mean jeesh just put up a filter or write some type of code that prevents books flagged as "Erotica" from appearing next to children's books.

 

Yeah, I can only echo what you are all saying too. My dashboard is a pain anyway. Each time I tried to add a title, the last publish page wouldn't ever show up for weeks. I tried sneaking up on it a few times to catch it unawares... worked a couple of times too.

I think it's beyond ridiculous that they are just going across the board anti self-publishing.

@Vicky It's really not my letter, but I do whole heartedly agree with it.

 

Did they write and tell her she was banned or did they deist the books.  All of my books are missing today.  They say they are on sale but when I search they are not there.  Not all of them are erotica either. They drive me crazy there.

 

Did they write and tell her she was banned or did they deist the books. All of my books are missing today. They say they are on sale but when I search they are not there. Not all of them are erotica either. They drive me crazy there.

To the best of my knowledge they didn't tell anyone they were delisting their books. They just did it. I lost 58 titles myself. The author in question (I believe, can't remember without going back to the thread) had some already pulled and then just decided to do the rest themselves.

The funniest thing though was that the Kobo interface wouldn't allow them to delist a title... although it was already technically delisted. Basically, the dashbaord is pants, and so is Kobo.

 

Kobo's delisting all aggregator-loaded books and will probably also hit direct uploads later, due to the WH Smith thing. But Kobo's been having problems for awhile.

I wrote Kobo a letter back on Sept 5th, because I was having so many issues with them. I couldn't change my book prices, I couldn't delist my books, it was ridiculous. So I took an informal author survey and all the issues seemed to be focused on aggregator uploads. When a friend of mine was flown out to Berlin by Kobo for a conference, he got me in touch with Mark.

In general, prior to the mass delisting, and in addition to payment problems, here's a list of problems people have been having with Kobo:

The site is so screwy, it causes constant problems.

There’s lots of problems with cover art changes and price changes not going through.

Kobo’s customer service personnel are not very helpful.

Authors are having to find workarounds to get price changes to go through, like pairing the price change with a product description change.

Readers are complaining to authors that they can't open the books they're downloading from Kobo, and after waiting for 2 weeks for Kobo's customer service to help them out and getting nowhere, they're going directly to the authors.

Readers are unknowingly buying books that are not compatible with their older generation readers, so when they open the book, they see nothing.

Authors are waiting for a month to get their covers changed.

Books are being published without the covers showing up, as long as a month later.

Kobo has been showing inconsistent performance and customer service.

Kobo only works correctly when you publish direct through The Writing Life. When you publish through an aggregator, it's almost like Kobo is punishing you for not going direct.

What I heard from D2D was that at the time, they had over 90 books that authors had asked to have unpublished from Kobo, and the only response they were getting is ‘we’re working on it, thank you for your patience.’

I know a number of authors who are scared to list their books on Kobo. I think that's a huge problem for any distributor. Although given the mass delisting, maybe Kobo just doesn't care.

What strikes me is that almost everyone who was having issues, (with the exception of the readers), is publishing to Kobo via aggregators. So, whatever server they had assigned to fielding the aggregator requests, seemed to be in serious need of an overhaul. I wonder if the payment issues were part of the same thing?

 

Check your inboxes, guys. Kobo just sent out an e-mail responding to their recent removal of books. Below is the e-mail, for anyone who doesn't directly publish with Kobo.

"To our Kobo Writing Life and self-publishing partners:


As you may be aware, there has been a significant amount of negative media attention in the UK regarding offensive material that became available across a number of eBook platforms. Kobo was included in the reports from media and we are taking immediate action to resolve an issue that is the direct result of a select few authors and publishers violating Kobo’s content policies.



In order to address the situation Kobo is taking the following steps:

1.      We are removing titles in question from the Kobo platform.

2.      We are quarantining and reviewing titles to ensure that compliance to our policies is met by all authors and publishers. We will ensure that content meeting the policy is made available online as soon as possible.

3.      We are reviewing our policies and procedures to implement safeguards that will ensure this situation does not happen in the future.



We are working hard to get back to business as usual, as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.



Our goal at Kobo is not to censor material; we support freedom of expression. Further, we want to protect the reputation of self-publishing as a whole. You have our promise that we will do all we can to ensure the exceptions that have caused this current situation will not have a lasting effect on what is an exciting new channel that connects Readers to a wealth of books.



Sincerely,



Mark Lefebvre

Director, Kobo Writing Life "

 

I just got this, too.
It offers a little reassurance that the Kobo sky isn't falling.

 

The email is from Mark Lefebvre, who is responding on Canadian Thanksgiving (Mark is Canadian) and either the day of, or the day immediately after his wedding anniversary, and he's moving house this week to boot.  

 

I just got this, too.
It offers a little reassurance that the Kobo sky isn't falling.

Yeah. I imagine that most non-offending titles will probably be back up within the next few days/weeks.

 

"We are working hard to get back to business as usual..."

Not exactly reaching for the stars with that...

 

I'm curious as to where the lines will be drawn.

Glad they stepped up to the plate and said something. Have to wait and see where this goes.

It makes sense if they ask everyone to keep it legal. Beyond that, shutting out legal content that's properly indexed because some crusader thinks it's icky... 

 

All this stuff got me curious, so I went over to Kobo to check on my three books.

Interesting aspects:

1) I think Kobo redid their category database because two of my categories were missing out of three, but I redid them.

2) They also seem to have vastly improved their on-site search engine. When I put "Craig Hansen" in the search box on their retail site, KoboBooks.com, all three of my books came up... and ONLY my three books. I know they carry the books published by a "Craig J. Hansen" who is not me, and even his books didn't come up in the search results.

So not all of the complaints in that guy's Open Letter to Kobo are current complaints, it seems. I'm wondering if re-checking your categories might help things? Maybe?

 

Our goal at Kobo is not to censor material; we support freedom of expression.

Which is obvious bullshit, considering the rest of the letter.

 

Just highlighting this list again. I have had almost all of those problems.

In general, prior to the mass delisting, and in addition to payment problems, here's a list of problems people have been having with Kobo:

The site is so screwy, it causes constant problems.

There's lots of problems with cover art changes and price changes not going through.

Kobo's customer service personnel are not very helpful.

Authors are having to find workarounds to get price changes to go through, like pairing the price change with a product description change.

Readers are complaining to authors that they can't open the books they're downloading from Kobo, and after waiting for 2 weeks for Kobo's customer service to help them out and getting nowhere, they're going directly to the authors.

Readers are unknowingly buying books that are not compatible with their older generation readers, so when they open the book, they see nothing.

Authors are waiting for a month to get their covers changed.

Books are being published without the covers showing up, as long as a month later.

Kobo has been showing inconsistent performance and customer service.

Kobo only works correctly when you publish direct through The Writing Life. When you publish through an aggregator, it's almost like Kobo is punishing you for not going direct.

What I heard from D2D was that at the time, they had over 90 books that authors had asked to have unpublished from Kobo, and the only response they were getting is 'we're working on it, thank you for your patience.'

I know a number of authors who are scared to list their books on Kobo. I think that's a huge problem for any distributor. Although given the mass delisting, maybe Kobo just doesn't care.

 

Folks,

I know the Kobo/WHSmith/Amazon situation is huge, but it will really make it easier for members to keep up if you try to use existing threads where possible.  If this gets too splintered people will miss important information.

I've merged a couple of threads that deal with Kobo's comments and responses to Kobo.  Sorry for any confusion.

Betsy
KB Moderator

 

This entire situation has really made me lose trust in Kobo. And it's not just this recent crackdown, it's also their payment problems. In the past I've advocated for publishing to Kobo, but now I'm not so sure that is a good idea if this is how they handle problems. I'm curious to see which books will be allowed on their site and if they will block accounts that had "offensive" content.

 

I just realized I have a very serious question for Kobo.

If, as they say, titles that contravened their guidelines slipped through - due to those unscrupulous self-publishers - then what was all that 72 hours (if you were lucky) or more review process?

I mean titles hardly flew through did they? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Here's the latest update from D2D. Bolding is mine:

***

Late yesterday we received some initial communication concerning the titles Kobo removed from distribution.

Kobo confirmed that the bulk removal was conducted in reaction to a spate of recent negative media attention. Their initial solution was to immediately remove from sale books from self-published authors and small presses as well as from digital aggregators like Draft2Digital until they pass an additional review by Kobo.

To our knowledge, Kobo has not yet begun the review process to reinstate any books. This matter could take some time. However, they insist that they have a strong commitment to free expression and to the self-publishing community as well. They have assured us that all titles that comply with their content guidelines will be fully reinstated.

We will continue to do everything we can to bring this matter to a timely and satisfying conclusion. In the meantime you have our sincerest sympathy for the interruption of your business and our gratitude for your continuing patience. We'll keep you posted as we learn more.

Sincerely,
Kris Austin
President and CEO
Draft2Digital, LLC
https://www.draft2digital.com

 

My Smashwords/Kobo books are still up.

 

I go direct to Kobo with KWL for all but one of my books. Those books are still on Kobo.

The one that I use D2D for is a 3-author bundle. Each of the underlying books contained in the bundle are also on Kobo through KWL. Those underlying single title books are still up on Kobo, but the bundle containing them went through D2D and that one is gone.

Interesting that readers need to be "protected" from this really sweet YA bundle, yet the "offending" books are all fine.

 

Fingers crossed they'll get most books back up after the media buzz dies down and they get them through their review process. I searched Kobo the other evening and couldn't find a single title of mine on there.

Majorly unimpressed with Kobo and how they've handled this whole thing.

 

The email is from Mark Lefebvre, who is responding on Canadian Thanksgiving (Mark is Canadian) and either the day of, or the day immediately after his wedding anniversary, and he's moving house this week to boot.

None of which matters. This is business not a hobby. When things go this badly wrong you take care of it.

ETA: I have refused to do business with Kobo for a couple of years. About six months ago, I decided to give them another chance, tried out their dashboard to list a novel and found it SO dire, I decided I had been right to ignore them. They have never, unfortunately, managed an efficient or well-run operation. This pretty much shows how incompetent they are.

 

According to the BBC teletext news service this afternoon, Kobo said, "Titles that do not violate it's policies will go back on sale in a weeks time."

No mention of what WH Smith whatsoever.