[B. Justin Shier]

I find any attempt to prune the thoughts of others rather odd. I cannot even manage my own thought processes during my dormant hours and struggle to do so during my wakeful ones. That anyone would presume to hold their peers to an unachievable standard is odd. That anyone would seek to prosecute and jail them is the height of peculiarity.

B.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

I find any attempt to prune the thoughts of others rather odd. I cannot even manage my own thought processes during my dormant hours and struggle to do so during my wakeful ones. That anyone would presume to hold their peers to an unachievable standard is odd. That anyone would seek to prosecute and jail them is the height of peculiarity.

B.

I think that is in the realm of means and practicality. Prosecution and jail may be an odd means of achieving a rational intent. But the intent of preventing a return of Nazis or suppressing violence against women is not odd.

It is reasonable to ask if speech can influence to an extent that people can be led to action. I think history shows they can. Leaders can rouse people to act. Persuasion works. Whatever happens in the psyche of an individual may forever be a mystery, but there is a strong correlation between persuasive speech and action. Its not odd to recognize that.

 

[Someone]

Terrance and everyone else

Although I agree with some of your points, disagree with others, and haven't participated in much of the discussion, I just wanted to pop in the thread to mention how refreshing it is to read what has been a long but very civil and polite debate. Regardless of the differing views on this subject in all the various threads about, a great deal could be learned by how this community has handled itself as they have discussed.
Thank you for that

 

[Raquel Lyon]

Just wondering if anyone who had their books removed has now had them reinstated. I'm particularly interested in those of you who publish through Smashwords. I'm trying to decide if I should contact Smashwords or just keep waiting.

 

[Austin_Briggs]

I find any attempt to prune the thoughts of others rather odd. I cannot even manage my own thought processes during my dormant hours and struggle to do so during my wakeful ones. That anyone would presume to hold their peers to an unachievable standard is odd. That anyone would seek to prosecute and jail them is the height of peculiarity.

B.

I agree about the thoughts. There seems to be a beast inside each one of us that, if uncontrolled, can think rather extreme thoughts. Yesterday, while writing a horror scene after midnight in my attic, I just about terrified myself to death. I can't control those thoughts, and I don't want anyone to do so.

But I do take issue seeing some of those Thoughts of the Beast (haha) in print. Rape for pleasure? Girls violated by animals? Children violated? Hatred against people? Texts like these shouldn't appear in print, in my opinion.

I was browsing Pinterest yesterday, looking at documentary photos from the Nazi concentration camps. Those images must be there, with thoughtful commentary, because they show the human consequences of hateful speech.

As a writer, and as someone who used to live in a Communist "dictatorship", I'm the last person to enforce censorship. But I do advocate the humanity of books we write. We're accountable, not our sales partners, for producing books that are compatible with being human.

Like it or not, words are the most powerful thing in this world. I believe the cries about the "freedom of speech" to write and distribute violent porn through mainstream channels are misguided.

ETA: having said that, I believe the actions of Kobo and other stores to ban the whole category of books, while they took their time to sort out the issue, are fully justified. Yeah, they share accountability by having had lack of controls. Yes, they've pointed fingers at all self-publishers as a class, which is wrong. Yes, they hurt our sales (one of my children books is still being blocked). But stopping sales was the right thing to do.

Now, as they put in place better control, the non-offending books will return. It's a natural part of our development as an industry.

 

[Guest]

Just wondering if anyone who had their books removed has now had them reinstated. I'm particularly interested in those of you who publish through Smashwords. I'm trying to decide if I should contact Smashwords or just keep waiting.

Interestingly enough, my small press title was reinstated this morning. The Smashwords ones are still unavailable.

 

[Patty Jansen]

My Smashwords titles have been reinstated a few days ago.

I have huge catalogue issues with the rest of my books (via KWL). When they changed the site, all my books lost their categories. They have since put most of them back, but have also shunted my bestsellers into "Religious Fiction". Making any changes to this takes the book offline, and still keeps the damn religious category. The books also no longer have ratings, and my books had a lot of those (ratings = books are being read).

My sales have gone from 5-10 a day to 2 a week. I could cry.

Kobo is 70% of my income.

 

[Gertie Kindle]

My Smashwords titles have been reinstated a few days ago.

I have huge catalogue issues with the rest of my books (via KWL). When they changed the site, all my books lost their categories. They have since put most of them back, but have also shunted my bestsellers into "Religious Fiction". Making any changes to this takes the book offline, and still keeps the d*mn religious category. The books also no longer have ratings, and my books had a lot of those (ratings = books are being read).

My sales have gone from 5-10 a day to 2 a week. I could cry.

Kobo is 70% of my income.

So sorry to hear that, Patty.

Not one of my sweet romances have been restored through D2D. Anyone had their D2D titles reinstated? I just published a new book and I opted out of Kobo.

 

[Sapphire]

As a writer, and as someone who used to live in a Communist "dictatorship", I'm the last person to enforce censorship. But I do advocate the humanity of books we write. We're accountable, not our sales partners, for producing books that are compatible with being human.

This is what I was attempting to say in an earlier post. Austin says it so much better.

 

[68564]

My Smashwords titles have been reinstated a few days ago.

I have huge catalogue issues with the rest of my books (via KWL). When they changed the site, all my books lost their categories. They have since put most of them back, but have also shunted my bestsellers into "Religious Fiction". Making any changes to this takes the book offline, and still keeps the d*mn religious category. The books also no longer have ratings, and my books had a lot of those (ratings = books are being read).

My sales have gone from 5-10 a day to 2 a week. I could cry.

Kobo is 70% of my income.

OH man that stinks. I sell almost nothing at Kobo, so being off line there does not effect me... but that freaking sucks for you. Sorry

 

[Writer1000]

My Smashwords titles have been reinstated a few days ago.

I have huge catalogue issues with the rest of my books (via KWL). When they changed the site, all my books lost their categories. They have since put most of them back, but have also shunted my bestsellers into "Religious Fiction". Making any changes to this takes the book offline, and still keeps the d*mn religious category. The books also no longer have ratings, and my books had a lot of those (ratings = books are being read).

My sales have gone from 5-10 a day to 2 a week. I could cry.

Kobo is 70% of my income.

Hugs, Patty.

 

[Andrew Ashling]

We're accountable, not our sales partners, for producing books that are compatible with being human.

Okay… and who is going to decide what exactly is compatible with being human?

Is there a list I can check off?

Alternatively, give us a few examples of what is not compatible with being human.

===​

What actually happened is this.

An incompetent and irresponsible hardware store had chainsaws on display, with the plug left in for demonstration purposes. Additionally they let seven-year olds run around the store unsupervised.

Then the inevtibale happens and one of the youngsters saws off his own toes.

The store management clutches its collective pearls and cries out indignantly, "What? Chainsaws? In our store? We never knew that. Those evil, evil chainsaw manufacturers. We'll close up shop immediately and make sure our inventory doesn't contain any harmful articles anymore, like sponges and plastic cups."

Who is to blame?

Certainly not the manufacturer of machinery that is useful to responsible adults who know what they're doing.

More likely candidates are the irresponsible parents who let their kids run around unsupervised in a hardware store, and the hypocrites who manage the store and didn't take the necessary safety measures.

 

[Guest]

Like it or not, words are the most powerful thing in this world. I believe the cries about the "freedom of speech" to write and distribute violent porn through mainstream channels are misguided.

I think for the most part nobody is complaining about vendors that refuse to sell rape porn. What everyone is complaining about is that Kobo and others pretended they didn't know rape porn was on their storefronts, and then because someone called them out on it decided to punish EVERYONE by removing everyone's erotic books from the site.

Kobo didn't go throw with a scalpel and get rid of the stuff that simply violated their TOS. Nobody here would be batting an eyelash at that. Kobo did what WHSmith and others have done. They removed EVERYTHING that remotely sounded like it might sort of have some relation to sex in some way, and then threw indies under the bus to boot by saying it was all their fault.

And yes, I say they pretended they didn't know it was there. They either willfully turned a blind eye to the stuff OR they were so incompetent that they didn't know it was there. This is really the root issue. The vendors did not have systems in place, or failed to enforce the systems they had in place, to make sure content that violated their TOS was not on their site. When they were "caught" with the content on their sites, instead of taking responsibility for it and acting like adults, they pitched fits, blamed all indie authors, and removed all all indie books en masse.

 

[Lydniz]

One of my D2D titles is back on Kobo; the other one is still pending. It's mystery, not erotica.

 

[AnitaDobs]

But I do take issue seeing some of those Thoughts of the Beast (haha) in print. Rape for pleasure? Girls violated by animals? Children violated? Hatred against people? Texts like these shouldn't appear in print, in my opinion.

I know you are possibly just saying in general Austin. But someone popping into the thread and only reading this page might get the wrong idea.

So let me make one thing clear to anyone who's reading into what you posted...

There were NO children violated, not even in the fictional sense, in any of the erotica that started all this.

 

[Gertie Kindle]

Good analogy, Andrew.

But the reality is that when a woman bought coffee at McDonald's and put it between her legs in the car to open it, the coffee spilled and burned her. She sued and won. Probably, if she'd caused an accident, the driver of the other car would have also sued McDonald's and would also have won.

When a woman shopper in a furniture store tripped and fell over a child, she sued despite the fact it was her own child she tripped over.

 

[Guest]

Good analogy, Andrew.

But the reality is that when a woman bought coffee at McDonald's and put it between her legs in the car to open it, the coffee spilled and burned her. She sued and won. Probably, if she'd caused an accident, the driver of the other car would have also sued McDonald's and would also have won.

Sidebar: But the often forgotten fact about this incident is that the coffee WAS hotter than was drinkable. The coffee in question was served at between 180 to 190 degrees, a temperature that would cause 3rd degree burns in 2 seconds. Most experts say coffee should be served at around 150-160 degrees to avoid potential injury, because it would take longer skin contact to actually cause real injury. I only bring this up because people often use this case as an example of a frivolous lawsuit, but the facts of the case were actually rather interesting.

 

[swolf]

But I do take issue seeing some of those Thoughts of the Beast (haha) in print. Rape for pleasure? Girls violated by animals? Children violated? Hatred against people? Texts like these shouldn't appear in print, in my opinion.

I was browsing Pinterest yesterday, looking at documentary photos from the Nazi concentration camps. Those images must be there, with thoughtful commentary, because they show the human consequences of hateful speech.

As a writer, and as someone who used to live in a Communist "dictatorship", I'm the last person to enforce censorship. But I do advocate the humanity of books we write. We're accountable, not our sales partners, for producing books that are compatible with being human.

Like it or not, words are the most powerful thing in this world. I believe the cries about the "freedom of speech" to write and distribute violent porn through mainstream channels are misguided.

Since censorship is defined as excluding books found to be objectionable, and you're advocating that books you find objectionable 'shouldn't appear in print', then you're in favor of censorship. For the most part, books that would fall under your 'compatible with being human' criteria would probably never require protection from censorship.

There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with what's in a book, or criticizing someone for writing something, or advocating the humanity of books. But when you enter into the 'shouldn't appear in print' area, you're advocating censorship, and attempting to make decisions for others about what they can read.

And no, those pictures aren't the consequences of hateful speech. They're the consequences of hateful actions.

 

[Austin_Briggs]

I know you are possibly just saying in general Austin. But someone popping into the thread and only reading this page might get the wrong idea.

So let me make one thing clear to anyone who's reading into what you posted...

There were NO children violated, not even in the fictional sense, in any of the erotica that started all this.

Thanks for this clarification, Anita. You're right, I'm stretching the point to make the point. I realize that this can backfire against my own argument if read of out context, which you kindly provide - thanks!

 

[Austin_Briggs]

Okay… and who is going to decide what exactly is compatible with being human?

Is there a list I can check off?

Alternatively, give us a few examples of what is not compatible with being human.

===​

What actually happened is this.

An incompetent and irresponsible hardware store had chainsaws on display, with the plug left in for demonstration purposes. Additionally they let seven-year olds run around the store unsupervised.

Then the inevtibale happens and one of the youngsters saws off his own toes.

The store management clutches its collective pearls and cries out indignantly, "What? Chainsaws? In our store? We never knew that. Those evil, evil chainsaw manufacturers. We'll close up shop immediately and make sure our inventory doesn't contain any harmful articles anymore, like sponges and plastic cups."

Who is to blame?

Certainly not the manufacturer of machinery that is useful to responsible adults who know what they're doing.

More likely candidates are the irresponsible parents who let their kids run around unsupervised in a hardware store, and the hypocrites who manage the store and didn't take the necessary safety measures.

This is a good argument, I believe, and we can take it quite far. Your example is about gross negligence with a physical product.

In my mind, I'm struggling with the impact of the fictional stories I create on my readers. The compatibility with "humanity" is in my own heart when I write my stories -- it's my own definition. When you write your stories, the definition is yours.

A more general definition would probably have to do with "incitement of hate" and "making violence for your own gratification look normal" by repeating stories about pleasure from violating others enough times.

It's an endless argument, but probably a necessary one in a self-regulating industry that sells dreams and ideas.