[cinisajoy]

Parents and grandparents buy children's books. In reality, it looks like it is marketed to kids, but really adults buy them. Teens can buy their own books or check them out of the library. Responsible authors and parents would use an adult filter. There is already one for television, like on Netflix. Man, it's hard to get that thing off when you get stuck in it.

There will always be people who will get around the filter. But, legally, it will say "we did something". So if Amazon had one, they could say the author went around it. I have a feeling it will fall to the author to gauge whether their book is 18 or over, but really, what a great way to make sure it gets into the right hands. You're not going to sell a book to an 8 year old. They don't buy them. Anybody that leaves their electronics open for their toddlers and kids to one click buy most likely tell the stories of the bill they got for apps, etc. Really, I think it's high time it's needed.

In the end, parents might thank the distributors for the opportunity to filter for their kids. There might be a positive at the end of all this. Don't know why the big minds at Kobo or WHSmith aren't trying this. However, I think Amazon is innovative enough they might be already be out this solution. Or they should. They might troll the board and find the ideas. *waves at Amazon Rep.*

Dish Network has parental controls. Nearly everyone does anymore. It cannot be that hard to put in a button.

 

[Willo]

I read Flowers in the Attic too when I was 12. I think it's like a rite of passage or something

It totally is.

For those who honestly believe that their kids (a) don't know about pron; (b) haven't seen it; (c) have been shocked by what they find on the internet; and/or (d) can truly be sheltered from "inappropriate material" when all those kids need to do is turn on the TV and watch Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, etc. (btw look this stuff up if you don't know it b/c in PLL we have an underage girl getting it on with her highschool teacher, etc. and its on PRIME TIME and aimed at TEENAGERS and PRETEENS, oh yeah, baby, its for the kids!) I say to them: you are living in a dream world and you need to wake up. You need to teach your kids good critical thinking skills so that when they encounter things like pron they can assimilate it properly (or whatever you think is proper) and go on to lead happy, productive lives.

Unless indies stick together, especially sticking up for those who write "fringe" material (and how fringe is it when these erotica writers/romance writers/horror writers are bringing in tons of cold hard cash?), we're all sunk. Because your "spicy" romance may be next on the chopping block or, if you're Kobo, it already is.

Yep.

Why not just use the Netflix way of things? Have a button just for kids. In the kid's section nothing but kid's stuff. As an adult, I don't want to be punished because (gasp) kids use the internet too. There are fewer kid's books than everything else.

A kid filter could work, too, and it might be more along the lines of what Amazon would want for their image.

And for the people who say "ERMEHGERD! KIDZ WILL FIND ADULZ STUFF!" Well, kids are going to learn about it sooner or later. If not from books, the internet, Game of Thrones, True Blood, ect. then they'll learn about it from their friends or, better yet, members of the opposite sex who know as much as they do or learned from watching revenge porn. Talk to your kids. Sex isn't dirty, disgusting, or gross. Teach kids about it. Studies show that children well educated about sex make better decisions regarding it.

However, the drawback is that - wait for it - people will have to talk to their kids about a subject that's uncomfortable. And I understand that, but my point is that I doubt all the kiddies amazon is trying to protect only see naughty stuff when they go to amazon for books. I see sex ads when I log into facebook. I doubt I'm the only one.

The first "acceptably pornographic" material I was ever exposed to came from mainstream literature. The library will not deny sex-filled romance books to a girl with a library card. I'd already been educated at home about sex/respecting my body/bad touch, etc. The talk (which happened well before puberty) made a difference in how everything after it affected me. Sex definitely isn't disgusting (none of us would be here without it), but this society prefers to fear it rather than frame it correctly. It's quietly accepted if it's 'hidden' in romance, thrillers, and etc. so long as it's not overt, or if it is, it's a mainstream "classic" (underage age mainstream media, included... ahem, "Tampa"/"Lolita"). Media violence is openly okay, though.

 

[justagirl]

If I was Amazon, the first thing I would target would be those authors that did not put their erotic stuff in the erotic category. Then so those authors cannot scream about other mis-doers, I would look for the incest (real and pseudo), dubcon and other things that have been determined illegal or obscene. If amazon only wants clean erotica, give them clean erotica. I mean really does it have to be a relative? Make a clean version for Amazon and put the relationship at other locations.

Yes, it has to be a relative! Lol, that's the point. (And for various other kinks - BDSM, petplay, etc. etc., whatever their storyline centered around would be the point, too.)

You also have the situation where people aren't just writing quick one offs. It might be fairly easy to make a clean version of a 3k word story, but what about 36k? 100k? And with them not only censoring erotica, but also erotic romance and romance...

I tried to explain this to someone the other day, but I don't know if my words made sense - maybe someone else can chime in if it's similar for them. I read erotically charged material as well as writing it. I actively seek out tabooed stories (with various "kinks") - and usually it's not just for quick titillation value. I've read many, many stories that have spoken to what humanity's about. The human psyche. Emotional responses. Tenderness and tragedy. The kink gives the author an in - and obviously, people like it because kink outsells vanilla - to weave a story that's different. Because of the kink, but because of how people react to that kink. (I'm kind of half asleep here so I realize I'm getting rambly...)

I can see that. I know tons of people who gobble up the Wincest. I try to keep up with what the fans in the largest fandoms are putting out because it's being written by readers/fans as much as anything often for the sole purpose of satisfying readers who want what the mainstream isn't giving them enough of.

Yes! Yes to Wincest (though for me and for probably most shippers it's not about the incest there as those characters) but also yes to fandom. I turned to fandom because I couldn't find what I was looking for in the mainstream presses. I started reading original fiction again because self pubbers could give me (some of) that through Amazon. If they purge most of the "good stuff" - the borderline, the edgy, the things that make you see in shades of gray instead of black and white (ex - Wincest is cool for the kink, but delving into those character's motivations and why they want each other and work together is what gives the staying power, at least for me), the trendy... well what's the point of buying the original stuff? I can read AUs by equally talented authors that are basically original works with familiar names and faces.

I read dubcon and kidnapping and BDSM and teacher/student and incest/PI and shifter books and age differences and omega!verses BECAUSE of the power imbalance, of the shades of gray - and most of it isn't obscene or illegal in real life.

I think I may have gone way off topic. *headdesk* Literally. I'm tired.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

Dish Network has parental controls. Nearly everyone does anymore. It cannot be that hard to put in a button.

It is very easy to put in a button. But it is very difficult to ensure that a million books have accurate and reliable flags that power the button.

 

[Willo]

That's ridiculous. If that's true, then murder mysteries promote murders, and books about serial killers promote serial killing, books about drug abuse promote drug use, and books about terrorists promote terrorism. Studies have shown that people interested in reading about incest are not interested in having sex with members of their family.
-
Sounds like a great way to weed them out. Start banning writers who don't put their erotica in the erotica category.

The vast majority. They'd ask their friends, "Hey, I can't find 50 Shades on Amazon," and their friends would tell them they have to turn on the erotica switch, and they would.

#Yes and yes.

Dish Network has parental controls. Nearly everyone does anymore. It cannot be that hard to put in a button.

I mean, seriously, why haven't they done this yet? Their errant "adult filter" attempts are several years old, no? Aren't they willing to learn from the failure of that methodology, now? Didn't Selena Kitt stand up for erotica a few years back? Why is it so difficult to insert a button that will likely solve 99.9 percent of the problem?

 

[Sarma]

I keep seeing people say that 50 shades would be banned/not published today. I disagree based on what I've seen. Dominated by the kinky billionaire books, including self published works, are still plentiful but they all have a pretty tame cover/title/blurb.

Has anyone here had a full length novel with light BDSM themes and a clean cover/title/blurb banned?

It seems like people will often complain about Amazon not publishing/not categorizing in Romance one of their books and citing 50 shades as a comparison, but then it turns out that their book is titled something along the lines of "Tied Up and Used at Rich Dude's Bachelor Party" and the cover has full on nudity.

I'm honestly curious if something as tame/romantic as 50 shades has been targeted. I wake up every morning and start to panic because I'm almost done with a 100k+ book that *might* be a little more steamy than 50 shades. I've decided to delay the release because I'm pretty sure that they'll throw it in erotica because I have 70 or so erotica titles. That would really tick me off because the book is a romance novel. If it's going to get brown bagged anyway, I should have just written it as erotica, because I could have made it much, much hotter and far less angsty and emotional.

 

[cinisajoy]

I have to admit that I have not read 50 Shades.  I sampled it and went typical fake BDSM.  No thanks.  I also prefer my erotica a bit cheaper.

 

[Sarma]

I tried to explain this to someone the other day, but I don't know if my words made sense - maybe someone else can chime in if it's similar for them. I read erotically charged material as well as writing it. I actively seek out tabooed stories (with various "kinks") - and usually it's not just for quick titillation value. I've read many, many stories that have spoken to what humanity's about. The human psyche. Emotional responses. Tenderness and tragedy. The kink gives the author an in - and obviously, people like it because kink outsells vanilla - to weave a story that's different. Because of the kink, but because of how people react to that kink. (I'm kind of half asleep here so I realize I'm getting rambly...)

Exactly. This is why the censorship scares me, even though I understand that Amazon is a private company and has the right to publish what they want. They are also the way for self published authors to reach the largest audience. I don't want limits on my artistic expression and explorations of the darker side of human behavior because someone might find it titillating.

I have to admit that I have not read 50 Shades. I sampled it and went typical fake BDSM. No thanks. I also prefer my erotica a bit cheaper.

I read it free, the library in my conservative small town carried it, and there was a waiting list! I agree, typical fake BDSM erotic romance, which is very popular, probably even more popular than real BDSM erotica.

I feel like I've missed a crucial post where an erotic romance like 50 shades/Crossfire series/etc. has been outright banned with a clean title/cover/blurb.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

I don't want limits on my artistic expression and explorations of the darker side of human behavior because someone might find it titillating.

There are no limits. Who is limiting your artistic expression and exploration?

 

[justagirl]

There are no limits. Who is limiting your artistic expression and exploration?

I'll always be a writer and theoretically I can write whatever the heck I want to.... but many of us also have to earn a full or partial living by it. By not being able to sell what we produce, Amazon and other companies are limiting our artistic expressions and explorations.

There are several projects I'd like to work on but have put on the back burner because they won't sell very well - and frankly, we have bills. I need to sell. To have to put something on back burner that will sell, but we just -can't- sell - that's kind of a slap in the face.

 

[daringnovelist]

That's ridiculous. If that's true, then murder mysteries promote murders, and books about serial killers promote serial killing, books about drug abuse promote drug use, and books about terrorists promote terrorism. Studies have shown that people interested in reading about incest are not interested in having sex with members of their family.

(Note: this response was to my post about why retailers are going after Pseudo-Incest and other "barely legal" genres. I mentioned -- as a part of a larger explanation -- that it's because of the justification for banning all child p*rn, even when it's just a fictional child depicted: even though no actual child was exploited, such stories -- when they are for the purpose of titillation -- are illegal because they "promote" child abuse.)

I'm not justifying this, I'm explaining it. I want to make that clear. Arguing with me won't help you. (And note, I am not a lawyer.)

My point here is not to take a stand on whether child p*rn should be banned at all. There are a lot of debates on that, but that's irrelevant to the issue here. It's a fact that certain things ARE illegal.

I was only pointing out that, given the purpose and justification of the law itself, then it applies to many (not all) pseudo-incest stories and the like.

And this is important, because the thing people are overlooking here is that this all goes back to the phrasing of law and liability.

There is no law that says you can't promote murder or taking drugs. (There are laws about hate crimes that might overlap into that, though.)

But even if there were; murder mysteries, and crime fiction and stories about victims of incest do not promote those things. So that's irrelevant to the point of why PI is being targeted.

So there are two different issues; one is whether there should be a ban on any kind of incest story (or bestiality story or rape story) and the other is how it applies to stories which have the same content and appeal to the same audience in the same way, but have some words changed to push it over the line into legality.

If your argument is against the law/ban itself, then go after the ban on all out incest. If the argument is that it's okay to ban incest, then before you can defend pseudo-incest, you have to look at the ban and its justifications before you can successfully do that.

Camille

 

[CrystalVeeyant]

That's definitely the main thrust of the latest crackdown - the titles and how the books look, not what's inside them.

Sadly that is not the only thrust of the crackdown. I currently have three titles: one I'm trying to get into print, another that's been selling for three months and one I've sold for over a year, and they are all BLOCKED due to interior content. One of them was selling rather well until Carlos F slammed it to the mat.

I fear the only way I will be able to get them published again will be to heavily censor them and take out the things that made them so popular. Amazon's hypocrisy disgusts me, and it should disturb anyone who writes erotica, for tomorrow they could decide that your subgenre in beneath the pale,

 

[Deena Ward]

Has anyone here had a full length novel with light BDSM themes and a clean cover/title/blurb banned?

It seems like people will often complain about Amazon not publishing/not categorizing in Romance one of their books and citing 50 shades as a comparison, but then it turns out that their book is titled something along the lines of "Tied Up and Used at Rich Dude's Bachelor Party" and the cover has full on nudity.

I'm honestly curious if something as tame/romantic as 50 shades has been targeted. I wake up every morning and start to panic because I'm almost done with a 100k+ book that *might* be a little more steamy than 50 shades. I've decided to delay the release because I'm pretty sure that they'll throw it in erotica because I have 70 or so erotica titles.

My series, which consists of a novella and three full-length novels, has remained untouched at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. The first book has just been accepted at Apple iTunes Store. My books are far more explicit than FSOG (the first book of FSOG, anyway, which is all I've read) and the BDSM elements go well beyond "light," particularly in the second book. My blurbs give full and fair warning of explicit content including S&M and consensual D&S. You can judge the cleanliness of my covers and titles for yourself, since they are in my sig here.

I don't think you need to worry about your book if it is as you describe it, at least not at Amazon, at least not right now. Obviously I can't speak for the future. As for worries about Amazon putting it in the erotica category even though you want it in romance, I put my individual titles in erotica, though technically they are erotic romances. I put my collection in the erotic romance and romance collections/anthologies categories, and Amazon hasn't moved them.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, though. I'm unsure about how explicit I'm going to go with my next series.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

I'll always be a writer and theoretically I can write whatever the heck I want to.... but many of us also have to earn a full or partial living by it. By not being able to sell what we produce, Amazon and other companies are limiting our artistic expressions and explorations.

There are several projects I'd like to work on but have put on the back burner because they won't sell very well - and frankly, we have bills. I need to sell. To have to put something on back burner that will sell, but we just -can't- sell - that's kind of a slap in the face.

Disagree. Amazon in no way limits an authors exploration or expression. What it is doing is refraining from having a commercial relationship with the author. Those are two very different things and the distinction is vital. This would be totally different if Amazon was actually stopping an author from exploring or expressing. It is not doing that.

Nobody is slapping an author because they dont choose to do business with the author. In an earlier post I asked if Amazon owes independent authors anything. The question was characterized as odd, but this is the reason I asked it.

Heres another question. Does Amazon owe an author anything it does not owe the widget maker? Does society owe the independent author anything it does not owe the widget maker? Do consumers owe the independent author anything? If I prefer become a full time author rather than a grain trader, does anyone have any obligation to facilitate my transition by doing business with me?

 

[CrystalVeeyant]

Disagree. Amazon in no way limits an authors exploration or expression. What it is doing is refraining from having a commercial relationship with the author.

Disingenuous much? When the number one seller of books refuses to carry an independent author who invests hundreds of hours into her work and thus makes it impossible for her to get a return on the investment of all of that effort, do you really think that author will continue to continue to explore and express? No, and thuis only the dilettantes who can afford to throw hours away on books that will never earn enough to make them worth the effort.

I'm curious why you are such a huge champion of Amazon's censorship. Are you a shareholder? More to the point, do you even write erotica? By that I mean books where the erotic content is the main focus. What is your dog in this fight?

 

[Andrew Ashling]

#Yes and yes.

I mean, seriously, why haven't they done this yet? Their errant "adult filter" attempts are several years old, no? Aren't they willing to learn from the failure of that methodology, now? Didn't Selena Kitt stand up for erotica a few years back? Why is it so difficult to insert a button that will likely solve 99.9 percent of the problem?

Because it's easier to blame the manufacturer of "dangerous" garden tools than admitting you're the one who puts them in the hands of seven year olds.

 

[swolf]

(Note: this response was to my post about why retailers are going after Pseudo-Incest and other "barely legal" genres. I mentioned -- as a part of a larger explanation -- that it's because of the justification for banning all child p*rn, even when it's just a fictional child depicted: even though no actual child was exploited, such stories -- when they are for the purpose of titillation -- are illegal because they "promote" child abuse.)

I'm not justifying this, I'm explaining it. I want to make that clear. Arguing with me won't help you. (And note, I am not a lawyer.)

My point here is not to take a stand on whether child p*rn should be banned at all. There are a lot of debates on that, but that's irrelevant to the issue here. It's a fact that certain things ARE illegal.

I was only pointing out that, given the purpose and justification of the law itself, then it applies to many (not all) pseudo-incest stories and the like.

And this is important, because the thing people are overlooking here is that this all goes back to the phrasing of law and liability.

There is no law that says you can't promote murder or taking drugs. (There are laws about hate crimes that might overlap into that, though.)

But even if there were; murder mysteries, and crime fiction and stories about victims of incest do not promote those things. So that's irrelevant to the point of why PI is being targeted.

So there are two different issues; one is whether there should be a ban on any kind of incest story (or bestiality story or rape story) and the other is how it applies to stories which have the same content and appeal to the same audience in the same way, but have some words changed to push it over the line into legality.

If your argument is against the law/ban itself, then go after the ban on all out incest. If the argument is that it's okay to ban incest, then before you can defend pseudo-incest, you have to look at the ban and its justifications before you can successfully do that.

Camille

You're still confusing the act, with writing fiction about the act. Yes, incest is illegal in some places, but writing fiction about incest is not. Just like murder is illegal and writing fiction about murder is not.

And there is no 'promoting' going on. Books about serial killers with graphic violence do not 'promote' killing. And books about incest - whether it's step or actual - with graphic sex do not promote incest.

 

[swolf]

Sadly that is not the only thrust of the crackdown. I currently have three titles: one I'm trying to get into print, another that's been selling for three months and one I've sold for over a year, and they are all BLOCKED due to interior content. One of them was selling rather well until Carlos F slammed it to the mat.

I fear the only way I will be able to get them published again will be to heavily censor them and take out the things that made them so popular. Amazon's hypocrisy disgusts me, and it should disturb anyone who writes erotica, for tomorrow they could decide that your subgenre in beneath the pale,

Yes, I've had one blocked recently also. One that's been out for two years.

My only guess as to why it was blocked was because one of the characters mentions he fantasized about one of the other characters before she turned 18.

 

[mrv01d]

Here's an article that just came out, a literary analysis of Selena Kitt's Baumgartner series. The books have been repeatedly blocked by Amazon and I know she's had to fight hard to keep the books up.

Very interesting read in light of all the book banning and sanitizing going on: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/19/a_self_published_erotic_novelist_pioneers_a_new_kind_of_porn/

 

[swolf]

Here's an article that just came out, a literary analysis of Selena Kitt's Baumgartner series. The books have been repeatedly blocked by Amazon and I know she's had to fight hard to keep the books up.

Very interesting read in light of all the book banning and sanitizing going on: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/19/a_self_published_erotic_novelist_pioneers_a_new_kind_of_porn/

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

Yes, Amazon recently made her change the title from 'Babysitting the Baumgartners' to 'Sitting the Baumgartners'.

It's a madhouse. A MAAAADHOUSE!