Rayne Hall's Blog: Rayne Hall, Fantasy and Horror Author - Posts Tagged "kobo-geddon"
The Kobo Fiasco - Update
(You may want to read my previous post on the subject first, to understand what it's about.It's two blog posts back.)
The main disaster zone is definitely the UK. I've tested every indie author I know, and nobody's books are still available on Kobo.
Here's the shocking twist: When I search these authors (non-erotic ones), Kobo shows me other books instead.. pornographic ones! Considering Kobo's justification that they were cleaning up the catalogue, this is a sad joke.
With other countries, I get conflicting reports. Some people in the US tell me they can see indie authors in Kobo's catalogue, though not everyone. Others report that they can see indie books in the catalogue, but the buy links have been disabled.
Some bizarre though rare variations occur, too. One person from the US told me they could see all my books on Kobo - but they were attributed to "author unknown". Go figure.
Kobo still hasn't installed an 18+ filter, which would surely have been the first step in solving their problem.
Em Taylor did an interesting experiment: She searched "School of" on Kobo - something a child might likely search - ... and 80% of titles displayed were erotica! That was *after* Kobo deleted all indie books. Do we need any further evidence that pulling indie books was idiotic?
(If you don't believe this, check the screenshot Em posted in the comments section of the first Kobo Fiasco blog post.)
In the meantime, some people claim that Kobogeddon never happened, that we're imagining things. That's because they still see their books on their Kobo Dashboards, because they access the US site, or because they're convinced that "Kobo would never do such a thing."
Yeah. Right.
The main disaster zone is definitely the UK. I've tested every indie author I know, and nobody's books are still available on Kobo.
Here's the shocking twist: When I search these authors (non-erotic ones), Kobo shows me other books instead.. pornographic ones! Considering Kobo's justification that they were cleaning up the catalogue, this is a sad joke.
With other countries, I get conflicting reports. Some people in the US tell me they can see indie authors in Kobo's catalogue, though not everyone. Others report that they can see indie books in the catalogue, but the buy links have been disabled.
Some bizarre though rare variations occur, too. One person from the US told me they could see all my books on Kobo - but they were attributed to "author unknown". Go figure.
Kobo still hasn't installed an 18+ filter, which would surely have been the first step in solving their problem.
Em Taylor did an interesting experiment: She searched "School of" on Kobo - something a child might likely search - ... and 80% of titles displayed were erotica! That was *after* Kobo deleted all indie books. Do we need any further evidence that pulling indie books was idiotic?
(If you don't believe this, check the screenshot Em posted in the comments section of the first Kobo Fiasco blog post.)
In the meantime, some people claim that Kobogeddon never happened, that we're imagining things. That's because they still see their books on their Kobo Dashboards, because they access the US site, or because they're convinced that "Kobo would never do such a thing."
Yeah. Right.
I Find This Disturbing
If anyone still thinks that Kobo pulled books because of their erotic content, consider that Kobo is promoting books like this:
[caution before you read the blurb. It may be disturbing]
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eboo...
At the same time, Kobo pulled picture books for 4-year-olds, poetry collections, textbooks, sweet regency romances....
In the UK, Kobo pulled books by just one criterion: If written by an indie author, it was pulled. (In the US, a mix of bizarre criteria was applied)
The really gross aspect is that people searching for deleted indie-authored children's books get shown books like that one.
[caution before you read the blurb. It may be disturbing]
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eboo...
At the same time, Kobo pulled picture books for 4-year-olds, poetry collections, textbooks, sweet regency romances....
In the UK, Kobo pulled books by just one criterion: If written by an indie author, it was pulled. (In the US, a mix of bizarre criteria was applied)
The really gross aspect is that people searching for deleted indie-authored children's books get shown books like that one.
Rayne Hall, Fantasy and Horror Author
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