[KaryE]

I'm going to speak as a reader here, and a mom of a young teen. I find erotica mislabeled in fantasy and sci-fi categories all the time and it cheeses me off. I'm fine with people reading/writing/selling erotica, but it shouldn't be popping up in innocent searches.

Example: Go to Amazon. Type in game of thrones w/o quotes and scroll down.

When I scroll through bestseller lists on both paid and free books in F & SF categories, it's not unusual to find one or two blatant erotica books per page, i.e. 1-2 out of 20. Usually, they're new releases, so that tells me that eventually they get reported or detected and moved to the proper categories.

This means I can't look at Amazon on my lunch at work because of covers, titles and descriptions that are NSFW. It means I have to pre-screen the listings if I want to sit down with my kid and pick out some books.

The argument that it's really Zon's fault when erotica writers purposefully miscategorize things "because adult dungeon" doesn't fly with me. It's not OK to break the rules just because you disagree with them, especially when the consequence of same is marketing sexually explicit material to minors.

My fear with Zon doing mass clean-ups is that it will be ever *easier* for erotica to mix in with non-erotica titles because it won't be obvious on casual perusal of cover/title/blurb.

I'd like to think there's a way to create a digital marketplace where those who want erotica can find/sell and buy it while not having it intrude where it's not wanted. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I hope it's found soon.

 

[dalya]

I'm going to speak as a reader here, and a mom of a young teen. I find erotica mislabeled in fantasy and sci-fi categories all the time and it cheeses me off. I'm fine with people reading/writing/selling erotica, but it shouldn't be popping up in innocent searches.

Example: Go to Amazon. Type in game of thrones w/o quotes and scroll down.
....

OOOOH! Naked Battle Elves!

(image removed because it's probably NSFW) http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Battle-Elves-Chronicle-ebook/dp/B009NO17Y2/ref=sr_1_50?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1380315700&sr=1-50&keywords=game+of+thrones

Okay, I do agree that there is an *issue* with searches on Amazon.

 

[Lia]

Naked ... battled elves, eh?

Great find, Mimi.   

 

[KaryE]

OOOOH! Naked Battle Elves!

LOL!!!

 

[Just Browsing]

I remember some years ago learning how to filter google search results. It was after I was doing some research for a publisher on different uniforms worn in schools in different countries around the world. I typed in "Asian+schoolgirl+uniform." Unfiltered, you can probably guess what my results were like. ZOMG. And I couldn't even find the real info buried in all the porn sites.

I write erotica. I publish erotica. I have no qualms looking at titles and covers of even hardcore porn. BUT--that doesn't mean I want those titles to appear all the time. I'd far rather have them come up (so to speak) when I'm looking for them. If I'm searching for a book on, oh, say, artisan bread, I don't want the title three listings down to be "I forked artisan bread hard in the (gr)ass with my sister." If you know what I mean.

 

[KaryE]

Re: searches on Google...

My kid leaned this the, um, hard way, recently. He had to do a collage of things brought by conquerors into Colombian (the era, not the country) culture. He was looking for images. Pumpkins. Steel axe heads. Syphilis.

 

[cinisajoy]

Amazon needs an adult filter.
Though my poor brain got totally confused on Halloween Vampires.   There were 2 costumes.  One was sexy something woman, the other was child vampire.   OMG WTF and why is beyond me but the child costume was actually sexier looking than the adult one.   Brain bleach please.
Yes, doing that search in Kindle books only brought up erotica too.

 

[mrv01d]

I'm going to speak as a reader here, and a mom of a young teen. I find erotica mislabeled in fantasy and sci-fi categories all the time and it cheeses me off. I'm fine with people reading/writing/selling erotica, but it shouldn't be popping up in innocent searches.

Example: Go to Amazon. Type in game of thrones w/o quotes and scroll down.

When I scroll through bestseller lists on both paid and free books in F & SF categories, it's not unusual to find one or two blatant erotica books per page, i.e. 1-2 out of 20. Usually, they're new releases, so that tells me that eventually they get reported or detected and moved to the proper categories.

This means I can't look at Amazon on my lunch at work because of covers, titles and descriptions that are NSFW. It means I have to pre-screen the listings if I want to sit down with my kid and pick out some books.

The argument that it's really Zon's fault when erotica writers purposefully miscategorize things "because adult dungeon" doesn't fly with me. It's not OK to break the rules just because you disagree with them, especially when the consequence of same is marketing sexually explicit material to minors.

My fear with Zon doing mass clean-ups is that it will be ever *easier* for erotica to mix in with non-erotica titles because it won't be obvious on casual perusal of cover/title/blurb.

I'd like to think there's a way to create a digital marketplace where those who want erotica can find/sell and buy it while not having it intrude where it's not wanted. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I hope it's found soon.

I don't disagree with you. I don't think those kinds of covers are ideal BUT fantasy as a genre is full of inappropriate sexual content. So rape, incest, erotic content is still all there, just under a less graphic cover.

As for the Battle Elves example, those covers aren't any worse than what you see in Maxim or the SI swimsuit issue. I was expecting something really raunchy.

And Amazon doesn't dictate categories. It's not against any rules to move things around. Authors are free to categorize as they feel their books fit, but Amazon will, on occasion, move books around. Usually that's a problem b/c they get it wrong.

M

 

[mrv01d]

The problem with specific guidelines is that people would then say 'Hey! How come Big New Book X from Big Name Publisher Y doesn't meet these guidelines, but it's not flagged as adult?'

We're already saying that!

 

[mrv01d]

Best thought on the subject I've heard so far. Someone with a following and a big number of ears could do a good job at championing this.

This is kind of already happening. Has been happening. There are erotica writers with contacts at higher levels in Amazon and there have been conversations, but nothing much has come of it.

We also worked in concert when Paypal started censoring stuff two years ago. Back then I seem to recall most of KB pretty much universally thought we all deserved to be banned as filthy smut peddlers.

M

 

[mrv01d]

This is making me nervous.

I don't write erotica, but my adult contemporary romance novels do have some steamy bits ...

Who's going to dictate where the line is drawn?

Yep and Amazon sometimes recategorizes romances as erotica and you can't get it fixed. So much fun! Not.

 

[brie.mcgill]

My book was initially recategorized as erotica. I sent them a little email explaining that it was a romance (albeit steamy), but definitely not erotica. I moved it back into sci-fi and romance myself. They sent me a polite reply and my book hasn't been moved since (but I still check it every so often). That was four months ago.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I'm not surprised that they're cracking down -- I think it's a matter of a few newbies making stupid moves and Amazon bringing the stick down on everyone. And by stupid moves, what comes to mind is the hardcore sex scenes that are excerpted in the product descriptions. I run into those all the time.

Personally, I agree that Amazon should corral the porn in a separate area, with separate logarithms, so the porn books don't show up on the also-boughts of kids books.

Unfortunately, since that does happen -- and most parents do not want to explain to their kids what 'daddy' is doing that young cheerleader stepdaughter on the too-explicit cover or in the hugely inappropriate XXX-rated description -- they've been complaining to Amazon. And Amazon takes those complaints seriously. So they're cracking down on everyone, the way they usually do.

The other issue I've heard is with the look-inside feature. I know authors who are appalled that the sex acts in their erotica are fully readable in the look inside. But there's nothing you can do, to reduce the percentage of visible text. When it comes to that, maybe Amazon can limit the percentage of text in erotica look-insides.

It just dawned on me -- maybe that's what they're doing, with the crack down? In addition to the cover and description being toned down, maybe they're not approving the book until the look-inside section is sex-free?

 

[RaeC]

I know I've been throwing the word around too, but is this really an issue of miscategorizing?  If an erotic title is categorized as erotica by the author, yet has keywords that place it within the search results for other items...doesn't that speak to a bigger issue?

 

[mrv01d]

My book was initially recategorized as erotica. I sent them a little email explaining that it was a romance (albeit steamy), but definitely not erotica. I moved it back into sci-fi and romance myself. They sent me a polite reply and my book hasn't been moved since (but I still check it every so often). That was four months ago.

You got lucky! But keep an eye on it, they might move it back.

M

 

[Taking my troll a$$ outta here]

I'll happily sign something, but I'm hardly a heavyweight at all.

Has anyone had trouble with romances that contain sex, but are clearly not erotica?

My latest release was inexplicably delayed in review status. Amazon ignored my email and ended up publishing it. Another romance writer friend mentioned she had trouble also with a cover that showed partial nudity. Not sure if it's related, but it is the first time I've ever had an issue. (Shrug)

 

[Geoffrey]

I don't disagree with you. I don't think those kinds of covers are ideal BUT fantasy as a genre is full of inappropriate sexual content. So rape, incest, erotic content is still all there, just under a less graphic cover.

As for the Battle Elves example, those covers aren't any worse than what you see in Maxim or the SI swimsuit issue. I was expecting something really raunchy.

And Amazon doesn't dictate categories. It's not against any rules to move things around. Authors are free to categorize as they feel their books fit, but Amazon will, on occasion, move books around. Usually that's a problem b/c they get it wrong.

M

I am by no means a prude nor do I disapprove of sexual content in books. And, at the same time, I know the difference between sexual content, erotica and pron poorly disguised as erotica. I should know, I've read quite a bit of all three categories. Much of what's sold as 'erotica' or simply labeled as part of the Fantasy genre is really just pron and I dislike seeing it scattered through when searching for a book. Fantasy is not full of inappropriate sexual content - I've been reading fantasy for 40 years not and I've been reading inappropriate content for about 35 years so I feel comfortable saying that. Now, there is erotica, erotic romances and pron with fantasy elements - but those are not Fantasy.

An author may well be 'free' to put a book into whatever genre they want .... and Splitting a hair and saying pron is Fantasy or Science Fiction or a Mystery or Romance in order to increase sales probably actually turns more people away than it brings in. When I'm looking for erotic content, I'll go find it. When I'm looking for a good fantasy or other story and find inappropriate sexual stories interspersed in my sales results, I'll mark them 'not interested' if possible so I never see that title again; I don't care if it's a writer on par with Anais Nin, you will not be purchased simply for being intrusive.

Just my 2-cents....

 

[Jack C. Nemo]

I'm sorry to go off like that, but it's something that has been on my chest ever since I began seriously looking at publishing. But to get back on topic: yes, instead of us whining every Monday morning about a new change on Amazon that negatively affects us, maybe it's time we seriously consider ways we can permanently alleviate our problems.

One thought I've always had is to throw our strength behind a storefront that welcomes Erotic works. There's nothing to stop us from still having our works on Amazon, but if we focussed more of our attention and time on a company that actually respects us, maybe the decrease in income might finally get Amazon's attention.

Unfortunately, that might not change things as much as we'd like. Paypal was telling the truth about who forced their attempted purge last year. While Mastercard's guidelines didn't place any restrictions on legal content, and they respected their customer's rights, Mastercard made damn sure the new vendor guidelines that came out the following month corrected that oversight.

Even getting gouged by the porn payment providers isn't a solution, because Mastercard leaned on them again towards the end of the year. EFF helped with the non-commercial site that was threatened, but hasn't shown any enthusiasm for the root of the problem.

 

[zandermarks]

This goes with my personal "sky is falling" paranoia that, now that Amazon is firmly entrenched in the book publishing market with more Big Five playing their game, they no longer need the indies and are pushing them out of sight in favor of the higher-priced merchandise.

I for one am not convinced that it's paranoia. My gut feel is that Amazon is moving towards its own labels+Big 5 and away from viewing indies as a market they need to fight for. The dampening of Select's value proposition is a symptom of that as well, I think. Unless we see changes to the contrary, my current sense is that Amazon views indies as a market they can start to take for granted.

It may not just be a matter of price, either. Although we see some of the best indie writers on this board, I think it's fair to say that there's also a lot of junk out there, and Amazon wouldn't mind being less attractive to the authors that aren't connecting with readers. Obviously, this penalizes those of us who have not yet established our audiences, regardless of the quality of what we do.

 

[mrv01d]

Unfortunately, that might not change things as much as we'd like. Paypal was telling the truth about who forced their attempted purge last year. While Mastercard's guidelines didn't place any restrictions on legal content, and they respected their customer's rights, Mastercard made d*mn sure the new vendor guidelines that came out the following month corrected that oversight.

Even getting gouged by the porn payment providers isn't a solution, because Mastercard leaned on them again towards the end of the year. EFF helped with the non-commercial site that was threatened, but hasn't shown any enthusiasm for the root of the problem.

Yeah it's not like writers with more money and clout than me haven't tried to do things to fight back on these issues. It's very difficult and there's no 'plug and play' solution. To establish a viable option for readers, we would need heavy investment and lots of lawyers to navigate all the limits placed on erotic content. Way above the pay grade of even the millionaire writers in the erotica genre.

M