[Alondo]

I'm confused.

All my titles are G-rated and they've all been pulled. Are Kobo stark raving mad?

 

[SunHi Mistwalker]

I'm confused.

All my titles are G-rated and they've all been pulled. Are Kobo stark raving mad?

They removed everyone. And they've closed some accounts according to some reports on this thread or another one.

ETA: Let me be more specific, they (Kobo) removed all self-pubbed content. And there was one report on another thread that at least one author's account was closed.

 

[Guest]

The first thing that comes to mind is the Chicago Tylenol case in 1982. Johnson & Johnson's management of that crisis has become the gold standard in the US. At first look, it seems WHSmith is following their lead.

The Tylenol case is the gold standard because they ACCEPTED responsibility.

All Tylenol was removed because, upon checking the lot numbers involved, it was determined that the tampered product had come from multiple manufacturing plants. In short, they looked INWARD and worked from a preliminary point that the problem was internal. This is also what was communicated to the public. In short, they were prepared to shoulder the blame if it turned out to be their fault.

WHSmith, on the other hand, is pretending they are the victim and pointing fingers at Kobo and, specifically, self-publishers. They are acting as if they have no blame whatsoever and the entire situation is someone else's fault.

In addition, J&J only shut down Tylenol production. They did not shut down production of all of their OTCs. In fact, they very shortly resumed sale of tablets when it was determined that only capsules were impacted. WHSmith has shut down all products. It isn't even "we won't sell any erotic titles until we know the bad stuff is gone." You can't buy any books from them right now.

I think WHSmith's behavior is much more in line with the Toyota recall debacle.

 

[Gentleman Zombie]

But where *is* Mr Coker? Not even anything on the smashwords blog, let alone an email to sw authors (as D2D has done). I emailed smashwords yesterday as I wanted to hear what their official line was - but no reply.

Honestly, Smashwords has had adult filtering for quite some time. It's defaulted to be on - so you have to enable it in order to see erotic works. They've also been pretty good about keeping the extreme taboo stuff to a minimum. This means there is nothing for them to say - they did the smart thing a long time ago.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

The Tylenol case is the gold standard because they ACCEPTED responsibility.

All Tylenol was removed because, upon checking the lot numbers involved, it was determined that the tampered product had come from multiple manufacturing plants. In short, they looked INWARD and worked from a preliminary point that the problem was internal. This is also what was communicated to the public. In short, they were prepared to shoulder the blame if it turned out to be their fault.

WHSmith, on the other hand, is pretending they are the victim and pointing fingers at Kobo and, specifically, self-publishers. They are acting as if they have no blame whatsoever and the entire situation is someone else's fault.

In addition, J&J only shut down Tylenol production. They did not shut down production of all of their OTCs. In fact, they very shortly resumed sale of tablets when it was determined that only capsules were impacted. WHSmith has shut down all products. It isn't even "we won't sell any erotic titles until we know the bad stuff is gone." You can't buy any books from them right now.

I think WHSmith's behavior is much more in line with the Toyota recall debacle.

Johnson & Johnson did accept responsibility. They did that by pulling the product.

WHSmith is also accepting responsibility by pulling the product. They were the ones selling it. They are the ones who shut down sales. That is action they are taking.

Both companies are responding in the same manner.

Johnsion & Jonson did shut down only Tylenol. They knew they could contain a Tylenol problem by shutting down that subset.

WHSmith shut down everything. I cant fault that unless I have evidence that they had the immediate ability to identify and shut down a smaller subset that wuld have contained the books. I suppose Id also ask how long it would take their IT people to fix the problem under total shutdown vs partial. I dont know those answers? Anyone know?

So, what would you have done? Think of it as a role playing game.

 

[Kia Zi Shiru]

This would make a great business school case.

The rules would be simple. Given the situation WHSmith faced last Thursday(?) Friday(?), what should they have done? How should they have reacted? What steps should they have taken?

Under the rules, we can't simply sit back and say what they could have done in the past that would have avoided the situation. Reciting that in their headquarters last week would not have solved their problem, and tells us nothing about what they should have done in the specific situation they faced.

So, what should they have done? If you were CEO, what would you have done?

(We can also apply the same case to Kobo. We can apply it to Amazon by asking, "Given the situation in the UK, how should Amazon react?")

The first thing that comes to mind is the Chicago Tylenol case in 1982. Johnson & Johnson's management of that crisis has become the gold standard in the US. At first look, it seems WHSmith is following their lead.

Kobo gave them the categories under which the books are listed on their website, Kobo has 3 of them.
You can't make me believe that they couldn't simply filter out all the erotica categories? Or even erotica and romance?
I don't believe that all these "bad" titles were categorised wrongly? Why? Because a lot of people browse through categories, so categorising them the wrong way wouldn't make them show at the right places.
That would at least have made a lot less people mad.
Anything that might have slipped through the cracks from that, well, that they might have had to deal with themselves.

On the other hand... There are so many people with totally innocent titles that got pulled that the whole problem gets way more attention and that a lot of people are getting upset with the companies who might not have cared as much if it was just erotica titles that got pulled.

Just to note, I remember being 14 or so and I read a traditional published children's book (teen book, pre YA time) about a set of twins, boy and girl, who had a sexual relationship. This was a book for teens, about teens, so they weren't even 18 yet, possibly closer even to 14. It was traditionally published and in the 12-16 year old section in our library. Remembering that book just makes me shake my head at the titles that are getting pulled. That and I've read The Cement Garden by Ian mcEwan, talking about disturbing books with sex in them...

 

[Terrence OBrien]

You can't make me believe that they couldn't simply filter out all the erotica categories? Or even erotica and romance?

I agree. I dont know enough about their computer systems or categorization to make an effective case to you. Nobody calls to confide anymore.

In other threads I have said I dont think the material they are looking for can be adequately described with words. I still sympathize with US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who wrote that he knows obscenity when he sees it.

And if it cant be described with words. Im not sure how we tell a computer what to look for. Anyone know how all these books get the categories they have? Where do they come from? Can they be trusted? Why?

Im looking at this as a purely management problem, and taking it from the perspective of the folks running the company. What should they have done when this hit the media a few days back?

 

[Someone]

Off Topic but mentioned in thread

Johnson & Johnson didn't know anything about why the Tylenol was bad. They didn't know if it was a madman, manufacturing process, distribution problem. All they knew is they had a product they wanted off the shelves and they had to act.

There is a J&J researcher who begs to differ - saying the Tylenol was tainted in a J&J distribution location rather than different non-J&J owned stores and that J&J was aware of this - and considering his argument includes the point that one victim's Tylenol came from a secure hospital pharmacy, his case looks mighty possible airtight.
Considering what may have actually occurred with the J&J situation, their response begs to be looked at in a whole different light. And certainly no longer being one to hold up as the ultimate business model and instead the ultimate dodge of admission and liability.

On Topic
I write erotica - just want to get that out there.
IMO retailers are not going after their real problem and are busy cleaning up the damage the tail has done instead of looking for the dog.

These books are the products of internet marketers - I'd bet the percentage is as high as 97%. That could not be more obvious. These people are chasing money and that is never going to stop. When this money maker - daddy and doggy erotica is closed down - they are going to move on. And the evidence shows they saw the writing on the wall much before The Kernel did and are already starting to make their moves out of erotica and into other genres. ( the evidence being the increase in requests for ESL material for Kindle and other retailer publishing in many genres on the hire-a-freelancer sites and, as the retailers react to the latest crisis, these requests are shooting the moon in numbers. )

Erotica authors have been pounding fists about the IM problem in their genre for years. And what have the retailers and/or all their fellow authors said or done? Nothing. Instead they say it is an erotica problem. Well I am here to tell you that this air that was and is currently being released out of the balloon has caused and is only causing these IMers to seek out non-erotica genres. So mark my words non-erotica authors, the problem is coming to you.

The issue is not the individual books or the genre, like some want to claim as they look around at the tidiness in their genre - the tidiness in their genre that one glance on Odesk reveals is living on short and borrowed time. If one looks at what the IMers are currently soliciting, it doesn't very long to see the problem is not about erotica and instead is solely the result of people cutting corners to chase the almighty Benjamin.

IOW, if we do insist on the Tylenol comparison, the issue is not the pills (books) or the bottles (genre), but is the shelves the bottles sit in within the store ( the author accounts in the retailers database ). And right now Chicago happens to be erotica, but just as J&J's Tylenol problem reached out of Chicago, so will the IM problem. This, like that, will be a nationwide/genre wide problem. And when it involves other genres, the complaints will not be kids are seeing porn books when they search daddy. Nope. The customer complaints to the retailer will be that all the genres are filled with dreck. I can't find any quality books and have wasted a fortune. And the one commonality will be indie accounts.
Think about that. All genres infected with what will be labeled as an indie problem - retailers then, just like they are now, excusing themselves by saying indie authors refuse to follow the rues - when the problem is not author accounts and is, just like now, IM accounts
Look at Odesk and tell me it is not coming

Retailers, if you truly want to fix the problem, and that is up to debate, you need to stop chasing the tails and look for the dogs. All these problem books have one thing in common and it is a lot easier to find than the mass nuking of words like daddy, brother, sister, werewolf, babysitter, etc.
Look at your data - these books are all on the same accounts. Yeah, you have an outlier here and there, but the vast majority of the problem book were and are together on accounts with another 400 plus books that are all like wise titled. Titled like the books below. Amiright? Yes, I am - I saw The Kernels' smut list just like you did. I just looked at it deeper. One account with how many daddy, babysitter, brother, etc keyword diarrhea "titles" and Captain Obvious tells you those aren't actual titles. Instead they are just a string of tightly packed keywords meant to work your algo, and as The Kernel article shows, doing a d*mn good job at it. Do you really think an author interested in craft titles their catalog as follows?

• Babysitter F*** Werewolf Billionaire Daddy While Slu*, Barley Legal, Voyeur, Daughter Masturbates With Whips and Handcuffs ---- By Lick A ____ , a BDSM 69 Publishing Author
  
  Bigfoot, Submissive Family Dog Shapeshifts Into Step-Daughter Student Master And Shaves Teacher ---- By Suck A ___ , - a 69 Publishing author
  
  Billionaire, Tentacle Daddy Rapes Submissive Virgin Daughter In 50 Shades of Incest ---- By Barely Legal Daddy , a 69 BDSM Dominant, Alpha Male, publishing author
  
  Followed by 300 plus books with titles resembling the same

But, since the fix is in and the bust has gone down, Odesk tells me the next books from these authors will be

• 50 Shades of a Young Adult, Hunger Games, Vampire, Twilight Werewolf By E.L. Collins
  or
  Steven King, an Amityville Wall Street Lawnmowerman, meets Chainsaw Massacre By James Patterson Grisham

If the retailers stay the course and keep on playing book-whack-a-mole instead of addressing the real problem, IM accounts, this will the world we share with them.

The retailers need to gatekeep at the right level and our problem goes away. It is that easy.

So perhaps the author contingent made up of It's an erotica problem and it doesn't affect and/or bother me. And if I could say, I don't like those books and want them gone, I would, would acknowledge and rally around the real issue instead of thinking it is an erotica problem, we could help them preempt this.

We need the retailers to grasp that this problem is an internet marketer problem. It is the PLR problem just hidden by putting on an erotica coat. Right now, while we are all ( we = authors, publishers, and retailers ) bickering and moaning, rehashing free market principles, and focusing conversation on what kind of erotica retailers should sell, a little time on Odesk will tell anyone who looks that the internet marketers are busy making new costumes to hide with. IMers see this heat and they know it isn't good. This is not their first rodeo, they know it is time to change bulls. They have no interest in staying in a difficult arena to maneuver in. Any old high-demand market works for them, the easier entrance the better, and right now the freelance writing job sites are saying it looks like it is going to be both romance and young adult, maybe horror and kid lit too.

Be proactive, not reactive
Being reactive is putting everything into chasing the symptoms - all that does is keep an illness in maintenance illness with no curative intent
Being proactive is focusing major effort on curing the disease, curative intent, while treating symptoms as they pop up
The books are the symptoms. The disease is the IM accounts
If the retailers would change their approach, this would be a very easy thing to deal with
But if they continue on with approach they have taken thus far, they are going always be in maintenance mode chasing an evolving, growing and increasingly chaotic disease that will eventually invade all of the body's system.

 

[Guest]

Johnson & Johnson did accept responsibility. They did that by pulling the product.

WHSmith is also accepting responsibility by pulling the product. They were the ones selling it. They are the ones who shut down sales. That is action they are taking.

No, they are throwing a public temper tantrum and closing their entire online store over a handful of products. This would be if J&J shut down all of their factories and distribution centers instead of focusing specifically on the problem products.

Johnsion & Jonson did shut down only Tylenol. They knew they could contain a Tylenol problem by shutting down that subset.

WHSmith shut down everything. I cant fault that unless I have evidence that they had the immediate ability to identify and shut down a smaller subset that wuld have contained the books.

We can fault it because they did not, as J&J had done, have protocols in place to properly identify erotic content. I know you for some reason think we should be able to come up with a solution without knowing what the root cause of the problem was, but without admitting the root cause of the problem, you can't formulate a solution. [/quote]

So, what would you have done?

If I was their PR person, I would have recommended simply deactivating digital content but leaving the store online. The letter I would have written would have went something like this:

Last week we were made aware of a number of inappropriate titles that appeared on our website despite our existing screening processes. Because this issue appears to have been limited to digital products, we have decided to remove all digital titles from our site while conduct an internal investigation to determine the cause of this issue.

We are working alongside our digital partners to determine the cause of this problem and formulate a solution that will best meet the needs of our customers. Our goal is to develop a new system that will better screen questionable content without preventing our customers from finding the type of digital media they are searching for.

We apologize to those customers who may have been offended by the titles in question, as well as to those customers who may be inconvenienced while we work on a new screening process for digital media.

Compare this to the angst-filled lamentations of what is currently sitting on their site.

Internally, heads would be rolling because I would want to know WHY we didn't already have filters in place for adult content. Kobo would be getting an earful privately (assuming there is something in the distribution agreement that makes them responsible for filtering). But you NEVER embarrass your business partners in public. That is just fifth-grade finger-pointing.

 

[JumpingShip]

Great letter. I've never had much luck with Kobo and only had a book there under a pen name as a freebie so Amazon would price-match it. It was not erotica, but slightly steamy fiction which on screen, would be okay for prime time television. It was a victim of Kobo's indie flush as it was listed via D2D.

Coincidentally, Amazon price-matched it yesterday. Today, I posted on Twitter:  Too Hot for #Kobo, but FREE on Amazon! "My Book Title: Description, link"

At first, I felt guilty that I call it too hot for Kobo, but since Kobo's reasoning is that it could be erotica, I wasn't lying. 

 

[Guest]

Off Topic but mentioned in thread
There is a J&J researcher who begs to differ, and with his argument that one victim's Tylenol came from the hospital pharmacy, his case looks pretty airtight.
Considering what may have actually occurred with the J&J situation, their response begs to be looked at in a whole different light. And certainly no longer being one to hold up as the ultimate business model.

If you are referring to the...eh hem...illustrious Scott Bartz...well... The guy has an axe to grind with J & J (he's got a few civil cases against them). He's a disgruntled employee with a Createspace account. His employment with J & J was as a salesman, not a researcher. And his employment with them was something like a decade AFTER the incident took place.

Since he's self-published, I guess this sort of makes both our statements on-topic.

 

[Desmond X. Torres]

Our experience with Kobo was a royal pain. There was a glitch in setting up the banking info that we weren't able to resolve with them despite trying several different bank accounts. It really was a simple issue, but we interpreted it at the time as 'if this is so tough for them to deal with, what other problems are we going to encounter?'. And so after a couple of days and a lot of hours working on the project we just walked away from it and the potential sales. We live in Canada, and my understanding is Kobo's pretty popular up here. Rats.

Three weeks ago, through threads on Kboards, we found AllRomance ebooks and their sister site OmniLit. Took us about four hours to set up an account and upload three books. Those titles have been languishing on Amazon since we put them up. Listed at $1.49 each. They pay quarterly.

For the first time since KD and I have started this journey of indie publishing, we sold 100 copies in a week across all three titles, and we're now averaging 12 copies a day.

It's a simple website to use as a reader and as a indie publisher.
And they don't seem to have a problem with explicit material.
Might be worth a look for those unhappy with Kobo as we wound up being.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

No, they are throwing a public temper tantrum and closing their entire online store over a handful of products. This would be if J&J shut down all of their factories and distribution centers instead of focusing specifically on the problem products.

Tantrums? That tells us nothing. We can observe their actions. They stopped selling. That is consistent with accepting responsibility. How many is a handful? Do we know? Id ask them what they are trying to target. Any reason to think it is a handful? Are there possibly far more than a handful that can cause the same problem next week? Anyone know?

We can fault it because they did not, as J&J had done, have protocols in place to properly identify erotic content. I know you for some reason think we should be able to come up with a solution without knowing what the root cause of the problem was, but without admitting the root cause of the problem, you can't formulate a solution.

Of course we can fault them. And I have no reason to think you can come up with a solution. I cant. But this is good stuff to consider. This isnt easy stuff. But I suspect when this is finished we will have lots of posters telling us exactly what they should have done in the middle of October 2013. Well, this is the middle of October 2013, and nobody seems to know what they should do.

If I was their PR person, I would have recommended simply deactivating digital content but leaving the store online. The letter I would have written would have went something like this:

Deactivate all digital content? For a mere handful? Everything digital? Draco rides again. Baby and bath water? Whack, whack? That is a very reasonable recommendation. Its actually similar to what they did. And it would take down all the non-offending books with it. If I was the CEO, Id then ask the IT people about the feasibility of doing that and how it would affect fixing the whole mess. Im looking at it from the perspective of the guy in charge, not an advisor.

Compare this to the angst-filled lamentations of what is currently sitting on their site.

I dont much care about the angst and blather without actions. I look at actions. If all Johnson & Johnson did was blather, they would certainly not be the gold standard. They acted. Thats what matters.

Internally, heads would be rolling because I would want to know WHY we didn't already have filters in place for adult content. Kobo would be getting an earful privately (assuming there is something in the distribution agreement that makes them responsible for filtering). But you NEVER embarrass your business partners in public. That is just fifth-grade finger-pointing.

Rolling heads dont fix immediate problems. Neither do post mortems. And why should they shelter Kobo? The digital feed from Kobo is public knowledge.

There is a J&J researcher who begs to differ, and with his argument that one victim's Tylenol came from the hospital pharmacy, his case looks pretty airtight.

The guy on the grassy knoll had a headache?

 

[CraigInOregon]

They removed everyone. And they've closed some accounts according to some reports on this thread or another one.

ETA: Let me be more specific, they (Kobo) removed all self-pubbed content. And there was one report on another thread that at least one author's account was closed.

Umm... not true.

My three books have remained up the whole time over there, and I'm self-pubbed. (I don't write erotica though... could that be why?)

 

[CoraBuhlert]

Of course it is comparable. Both deal with a set of offerings they want to get off the market. They can't identify the exact instances, but they can identify a larger set in which they reside.

Johnson & Johnson didn't know the exact bottles or batches to target, so they took a larger set off the market immediately.

WHSmith didn't know the exact books to target, so they took a larger set off the market immediately.

The cases are similar since they both involve removing products while not having specific knowledge off exactly which instances are the problem.

They do differ in the danger posed. Both posed a danger to the company. Tylenol also posed a universally recognized danger to the public. Opinions differ on the danger to the public from the Daddy books.

It's not comparable, because the poisoned Tylenol was a public health hazard, so it had to be pulled ASAP. Ditto for other cases of contaminated food stuffs and medical products, faulty electrical equipment, vehicles with faulty brakes, etc... If people are dying or getting seriously ill, then drastic measures are appropriate.

Fringe erotica, no matter how icky one may find it personally, does not pose a hazard to anyone's health. People do not die or become seriously ill after looking at creepy fringe erotica. And unlike the poisoned Tylenol pills, e-books that are definitely not erotica are easily identifiable without an in-depth lab analysis.

If anything this is comparable to the Weltbild scandal of two years ago (German bookstore chain owned by the Catholic church was found to be selling erotica and books on occultism in their stores and via their online site - scandal ensued). Weltbild responded by making the erotica and presumably the occultism less visible on their website (it's still there, but you have to search for it) and eventually the Catholic church got out of the bookselling business altogether and sold off Weltbild. Unlike W.H. Smith, however, they did not shut down their website or shutter their stores.

 

[CraigInOregon]

I don't even write anything close to erotica, or anything that could be confused for it ...

I'm less concerned with their decision to delist erotica. They have that right, as does Amazon, although gads I wish they'd come up with a clear policy already ...

But it is what it is, and if they were going to delist erotica there's a right way and a wrong way. The right way is to go after those titles selectively...

Lummox, please forgive me for any perceived "picking on you" here; however I'd like to make a point about some expressed attitudes on this, and you have three sentences that can help me illustrate the point. It's not personal.

In another thread on this topic, I brought up the point that erotica gets treated like the red-headed stepchild and people generally don't worry how it's treated because they don't write it. This is rationalized in general by people because the content of some erotica subgenres is objectionable to a lot of people.

I called it the WSICWIDAM Factor. (Translation: Why should I care when it doesn't affect me?)

Well, to lend some perspective to current discussions, how about we take a few comments and, instead of erotica, insert the sort of genre I *do* write and see how it sounds?

For example (and apologies to Lummox):

I don't even write anything close to horror, or anything that could be confused for it ...

I'm less concerned with their decision to delist horror. They have that right, as does Amazon, although gads I wish they'd come up with a clear policy already ...

But it is what it is, and if they were going to delist horror there's a right way and a wrong way. The right way is to go after those titles selectively...

See, I write horror. A lot of folks here do.

And horror is no stranger to censorship.

In fact, lately, there's a lot of sound and fury being ginned up over the subcategory of torture horror. And "escaped, unstoppable killer" slasher horror. The arguments against those subgenres center around the over-the-top violence and, similar to arguments against erotica, not many people want to claim to play in that garden.

People label torture horror and slasher horror as "the worst of the worst" and tend to marginalize it.

So it's not an exaggeration to insert horror into statements where people have been rationalizing the censorship of erotica. Because when censorship is tolerated, that's how it'll play out: eventually, they'll come after a genre you DO write.

Food for thought, in terms of being dismissive of content we don't personally write.

Because horror is probably next...

And if people want to say, "Oh, that'd never happen because of Stephen King?" Please... E.L. James didn't get affected by the erotica crackdown. Superstars almost never do...

 

[71089]

Umm... not true.

My three books have remained up the whole time over there, and I'm self-pubbed. (I don't write erotica though... could that be why?)

I DO write erotica and mine are still up, too. I publish directly through Kobo writinglife.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

It's not comparable, because the poisoned Tylenol was a public health hazard, so it had to be pulled ASAP. Ditto for other cases of contaminated food stuffs and medical products, faulty electrical equipment, vehicles with faulty brakes, etc... If people are dying or getting seriously ill, then drastic measures are appropriate.

Fringe erotica, no matter how icky one may find it personally, does not pose a hazard to anyone's health. People do not die or become seriously ill after looking at creepy fringe erotica. And unlike the poisoned Tylenol pills, e-books that are definitely not erotica are easily identifiable without an in-depth lab analysis.

If anything this is comparable to the Weltbild scandal of two years ago (German bookstore chain owned by the Catholic church was found to be selling erotica and books on occultism in their stores and via their online site - scandal ensued). Weltbild responded by making the erotica and presumably the occultism less visible on their website (it's still there, but you have to search for it) and eventually the Catholic church got out of the bookselling business altogether and sold off Weltbild. Unlike W.H. Smith, however, they did not shut down their website or shutter their stores.

Books are indeed not food or medicine. But in terms of the management problem, they are very similar. There are an unknown number of bad products in the midst of a much larger set that is on the market. Think of them as widgets for analysis.

And in both cases the future of the company was at risk. I one case there is general agreement the product is dangerous. In the other there is disagreement, a bit like the danger some see in those political books in Germany. Books are always messy, not like the clean dead or alive we get with poison.

I don't know anything about Weltbilt. I'll accept your judgement on it.

 

[CoraBuhlert]

But WHS holds a special place in the mind of middle-Britain: it's a family retailer with a high street presence. When it gets it wrong, it pays a bigger price. That explains what some might see as a massive over-reaction.

I've spent quite a bit of time in the UK in the past 18 years. I'm very familiar with W.H. Smith and I have never viewed them as a "family institution", though they tend to have a good selection of children's books and YA, even today. I guess it comes down to having been taken to W.H. Smith as a child to buy schoolbooks and stationery, an experience I never had. For me, they were merely a place to pick up a magazine or a book and maybe a snack before a train/plane journey.

And let's not forget that W.H. Smith has been selling erotica in its brick and mortar stores for as long as I have been visiting their stores. They used to carry Black Lace books and a similar line of trad pub erotica in the 1990s. They carry skin mags (no idea how explicit, if it's only the really mild ones like Maxim, the racier ones like Playboy or Penthouse or the really racy stuff). They carry tabloids with scantily clad ladies and racy headlines. Last year I was in a W.H. Smith store that had a big display table full of trad-pub erotica to cash in on the 50 Shades of Grey boom, including Gabriel's Inferno, an erotic romance between a college student and her professor that would probably get dinged these days, if self-published.

So in short, they are hypocrites or the people who view W.H. Smith as a family retailer have been visiting very different Smith stores. And besides, if W.H. Smith were so concerned about their reputation as a family friendly store, maybe they should have installed an adult filter on their website in the first place?

 

[Gone To Croatan]

See, I write horror. A lot of folks here do.

And horror is no stranger to censorship.

Remember, this kerfuffle is coming from a country which considered 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' to be too dangerously depraved for anyone in the country to watch until it was finally passed by the film censors in the late 90s or early 2000s.