[AnitaDobs]

How surprised I therefore was when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum, incompetents of the highest order. BT - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.

Oh my God that letter is hilarious. I mean, I was looking for highlights, but the whole thing is one big highlight. I do particularly like the above though.

Thank you for posting that. You made my week! I've not laughed that hard in a long time. I'm still laughing now!

 

[Guest]

Looks like some of these stores could do with hiring a certain Sith.

lol, Actually, this is the sort of thing our company does when we go on store checks for our displays. Employees don't always follow directives (I know, surprise!). That doesn't even look like a display, though. It looks like someone just pushed the shelf over into another shelf, probably during a clean-up. Since it is obvious the shelf is blocking the other shelf, it is clear the shelf is not normally there.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

"All ebook retailers look at indies the same. They don't need one author selling a million copies. They only need 100,000 selling ten each. And there will always be more authors."

Exactly. While each book is unique, they become substitutes depending on the needs of the user. In this case, the retailer sees a zillion authors offering substitutes for each title. The supply is so large he has no trouble meeting his needs. Most independent books are expendible and will not have an effect on his earnings.

It's this effect that got all our books up on Amazon. God Bless the free market.

 

[JRTomlin]

I will begin by saying I know nothing about the British legal system. I'm just musing here. There are two big differences between brick and mortar stores and on-line stores:
1- In a physical store a clerk sees the customer and can determine if they are underage. This is not possible on-line. Asking for age often doesn't get an honest answer.
2- In a physical store, the customer actually handles the book in question. They have a much better idea of what they are buying. Now, don't remind me there are "look inside" features and "previews" available on-line. You have all read many threads that a lot of people don't avail themselves of these features, don't do the extra clicks. Yet, I have never seen someone pull a book off a shelf in a store, carry it to check-out and purchase it, without at least opening it. I suppose an exception could be made for the person buying a specific book, but even then the natural tendency is to open it and thumb through a few pages.
With these two thoughts in mind, wouldn't an on-line book store need to take extra care that erotica not fall into the wrong hands?

Online stores require a credit card or Paypal account with a bank account or credit card attached to the account which generally means you are not a minor or, if you are a minor, implies parental approval, so I don't think so. (Certainly in my family the 6 and 10 yr olds are NOT given their own credit cards) The main concern I have is inappropriate covers and samples. There are covers out there I would honestly prefer my grandkids not see yet.

 

[georgette]

Latest letter from Draft 2 Digital, I just got it a few minutes ago:

We have new information concerning the recent removal of titles from distribution through Kobo. I’ve been working directly with Kobo staff to resolve the matter, and have already seen dozens of Draft2Digital titles returned to sale.

Of course, that’s just a small step toward fully reinstating all the books that meet Kobo’s content guidelines. However, we’re making progress now, and we have a clear path to resolving this unfortunate matter.

We expect all non-erotica titles to be live again by the end of this week, while erotica will undergo a more extensive review process. Ultimately, we expect all works that conform to Kobo’s content guidelines to return to sale.

If you’ve been waiting to publish new titles (or push changes) to Kobo, you may resume both at this time. These new changes may also experience an extended delay, but we’ll make sure they are preserved and pushed to the live site as soon as possible.

The material that sparked this incident consisted of erotica falling into several specific categories. Kobo provides clear guidelines concerning acceptable content in their Content Policy.

While we recognize that there’s a proven market for the more extreme material, our sales channels are increasingly unwilling to carry those titles in their stores. If you are intent on publishing such material through Draft2Digital, we ask that you clearly mark it as such using your categories, search keywords, and product description.

Furthermore, we encourage you to refrain from publishing it to sites that are known to reject such material. At this time, that includes three of our four available sales channels; Apple, Amazon, and Kobo have all begun an extensive campaign to remove and block these titles from their stores.

For all our users who carefully subscribe to the content guidelines of their selected sales channels, we once again offer our sincere apologies that your titles were caught up in this mess. We continue to do everything we can to see the matter resolved quickly. Thank you for your patience.

 

[LeonardDHilleyII]

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.

This also happened to me as well.

 

[Lummox JR]

I still dont know what unprofessional means.

un·pro·fes·sion·al [uhn-pruh-fesh-uh-nl]
adjective
1. not professional; not pertaining to or characteristic of a profession.
2. at variance with or contrary to professional standards or ethics; not befitting members of a profession, as language, behavior, or conduct.
3. not belonging to a profession; nonprofessional.
4. not done with professional competence, as a play staged or an opera performed by amateurs; amateurish.
5. Sports. nonprofessional ( def 2 ) .

Specifically we're talking definitions 2 and/or 4. When a company damages a business relationship that it doesn't have to, that's unprofessional. Even taking the stance that WH Smith's extreme reaction was warranted (which aside from possible legal issues they never even mentioned, doesn't hold up very well), they could have simply said they were getting books they didn't want in an automated feed from their suppliers, and they were working with them to ensure the feed was clean in the future. What they said instead meets no reasonable standard of decorum.

The censorship of these books seems like it's a really personal issue for you, and I respect that, but it's silly pretending words don't mean things just for the sake of making excuses for the company--particularly when the behavior you're excusing (going out of their way to point their finger at their supplier by name) wasn't even necessary to deal with the problem. They dealt with the problem to your satisfaction, which we've pretty well established, but they obviously didn't comport themselves well in the process.

 

[Kathy Clark Author]

They removed more than just erotica.

A young adult book with zero sex or bad words.
A new adult with no erotica
A suspense with no erotica

They removed them all.

 

[Daizie]

I like that strategically placed 'caution - wet floor'. Puts a kind of weird thoughts in my head as to why that floor is wet right in front of those books ...

I know! Me too. I thought the same thing. haha.

 

[Guest]

Specifically we're talking definitions 2 and/or 4. When a company damages a business relationship that it doesn't have to, that's unprofessional.

I would also assume that it could violate contractual obligations (non-disclosure agreements and Good Faith clauses specifically). Generally, bad-mouthing your business partners in public to save face tarnishes Kobo's brand.

Having been involved in product recalls, rule one is NOT to name names. When a recall happens, everyone from the CEO down to the line workers are instructed to avoid any type of statement that could be construed as placing blame or otherwise making statements that can do damage to your own company's brand or the brand of your business partners involved in the recall. Avoid inflammatory language. Maintain a neutral tone. Yell, scream, and throw tracking sheets at each other in the privacy of the office, but to the public you present a uniform front. If we threw our business partners under the bus like this, we'd be in violation of our contractual obligations to those business partners.

 

[Lummox JR]

I would also assume that it could violate contractual obligations (non-disclosure agreements and Good Faith clauses specifically). Generally, bad-mouthing your business partners in public to save face tarnishes Kobo's brand.

Having been involved in product recalls, rule one is NOT to name names. When a recall happens, everyone from the CEO down to the line workers are instructed to avoid any type of statement that could be construed as placing blame or otherwise making statements that can do damage to your own company's brand or the brand of your business partners involved in the recall. Avoid inflammatory language. Maintain a neutral tone. Yell, scream, and throw tracking sheets at each other in the privacy of the office, but to the public you present a uniform front. If we threw our business partners under the bus like this, we'd be in violation of our contractual obligations to those business partners.

Exactly my point. There's room for disagreement on how far WH Smith should have taken their actions as far as dealing with the squicky titles, but none at all where it comes to what they said about Kobo. That said, I had no trouble trashing Kobo for their sloppy handling of this either; but I'm not their business partner.

 

[swolf]

I like that strategically placed 'caution - wet floor'. Puts a kind of weird thoughts in my head as to why that floor is wet right in front of those books ...

I like the way you think.

 

[swolf]

The material that sparked this incident consisted of erotica falling into several specific categories. Kobo provides clear guidelines concerning acceptable content in their Content Policy.

No they don't. If they did, their reviewers would have known what to exclude and they wouldn't be in this situation. Like Amazon, their guidelines are purposefully vague, so they retain the maximum discretion when deciding what to accept or reject.

The way D2D is wording this is an attempt to blame the authors, when all the authors did was submit a book that was accepted by both D2D and Kobo.

 

[71089]

I like the way you think.

hehehe, goes with the profession

 

[68564]

The fun part is going to be when they are done with this.. and books make it through that they missed..... how they handle them. Customers are going to be  like "You closed your store to check all these, so why is this book here?" heh.

 

[CrystalVeeyant]

"Serbinis insists that Kobo supports freedom of expression"
If I punch you in the face will you believe me if I insist I'm not trying to hurt you?

"Amazon and Barnes & Noble have removed several abuse-themed e-books from their stores, but neither have taken their sites offline or are conducting proactive reviews of their catalogues."
This is a lie. Once a few of my books were under review, the notorious Carlos F. started looking at other titles and peering between between covers. They are censoring based on the appearance of content and the only way to escape being blocked is by self-censoring material that is even close to the puritanical line.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

un·pro·fes·sion·al [uhn-pruh-fesh-uh-nl]
adjective
1. not professional; not pertaining to or characteristic of a profession.
2. at variance with or contrary to professional standards or ethics; not befitting members of a profession, as language, behavior, or conduct.
3. not belonging to a profession; nonprofessional.
4. not done with professional competence, as a play staged or an opera performed by amateurs; amateurish.
5. Sports. nonprofessional ( def 2 ) .

Specifically we're talking definitions 2 and/or 4. When a company damages a business relationship that it doesn't have to, that's unprofessional. Even taking the stance that WH Smith's extreme reaction was warranted (which aside from possible legal issues they never even mentioned, doesn't hold up very well), they could have simply said they were getting books they didn't want in an automated feed from their suppliers, and they were working with them to ensure the feed was clean in the future. What they said instead meets no reasonable standard of decorum.

I still dont know what the word means. The definition defines the word using the same root. I also look to usage in trying to find what a word means. The usage of the root has become so loose, I dont know what people mean when they use it. It often appears to be self-praise and mutual admiration..

The censorship of these books seems like it's a really personal issue for you, and I respect that, but it's silly pretending words don't mean things just for the sake of making excuses for the company--particularly when the behavior you're excusing (going out of their way to point their finger at their supplier by name) wasn't even necessary to deal with the problem. They dealt with the problem to your satisfaction, which we've pretty well established, but they obviously didn't comport themselves well in the process.

I dont discuss individual KB posters personal issues or their work here. I apply that to myself, too. I am happy to engage on other issues.

Exactly my point. There's room for disagreement on how far WH Smith should have taken their actions as far as dealing with the squicky titles, but none at all where it comes to what they said about Kobo. That said, I had no trouble trashing Kobo for their sloppy handling of this either; but I'm not their business partner.

Disagree regarding what they said about Kobo. Im taking the room.

 

[Joshua Dalzelle]

"The end of self-publishing?"

A bit of a sensational headline...

 

[AnitaDobs]

This is my favorite part:

'It has had staff working around the clock since Saturday to remove offensive material that violates the terms and conditions of Kobo's content policy.'

Perhaps their staff should have been working instead in the 72 hour review process. That might have made matters better.

 

[SunHi Mistwalker]

"An author or a small publishing press that both use the self-publishing service to upload their content may start out by having a series of content that does not violate the policy and is of a certain genre or certain flavour, and then what happens later is they start introducing content that is completely different and either in the form of new titles or by going back and changing the titles that they originally submitted," said Serbinis.

So...we unwashed self-published are submitting sweet romance and then coming back and changing it to taboo porn. Haha I don't think so. I seriously doubt that authors went back and changed titles in an effort to deceive Kobo. Kobo accepted these titles and content as they were. And if he's saying something different, he's not telling the truth.