Indie Book Collective discussion

It seems there have been complaints about some fairly distasteful 'erotica' featuring incest, etc, being published on Kobo, etc and Kobo has gone to the extent of deleting all Indie author's work - or so I hear from authors with innocuous stuff - presumably to filter it, though that will take ages.
My two books have been swept up too. Now, one, 130,000 words long, has three explicit scenes in it as I recall, and the other, 86,000 words, has four...But I marked them as 'contains adult content' as I didn't want thirteen year olds reading them (not as if I didn't read far stronger stuff at thirteen, but still).
Surely, there is all the difference in the world between stuff that features abuse of minors or rape, and sensual love scenes?
The ironical thing is that traditionally published works which feature potential rapist or rapist 'heroes' are left on. How is that for hypocrisy?

Lucinda wrote: "It seems there have been complaints about some fairly distasteful 'erotica' featuring incest, etc, being published on Kobo, etc and Kobo has gone to the extent of deleting all Indie author's work -..."

Precisely! I've not used Kobo for my books but I do have a book up on KDP and I'm worried they'll d the same sort of blind and sweeping deletion of indie works. Mine is horror with some pretty gory scenes but nothing as bad as incest or the like. Tons of major novels feature such scenes and for logical reasons as much as bad. I mean have they forgotten Flowers in the Attic?

Lucinda wrote: "It seems there have been complaints about some fairly distasteful 'erotica' featuring incest, etc, being published on Kobo, etc and Kobo has gone to the extent of deleting all Indie author's work -..."

I've been discussing this with other members of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) today. The removal of books appears limited to the UK, although I published a book on Kobo yesterday morning and it is not yet posted.

The head of ALLi has been in touch with Kobo and the understanding is, massive bad press led to pulling everything while they sort out what books have what kind of content. We believe Amazon has always done this, but Kobo was keeping costs (too) low. Now they have to catch up.

Kobo execs swear they're working as hard to clear the list and get authors books back online.

Their main concern was pedophilia, but your point about trad-pub rapists is spot-on.

Peace, Seeley

I got an email from Kobo about this, but it appears that my books are still available.

They are short story collections, and there is only one story among them that is explicit (being a story about a necrophiliac), though certainly not erotica.

I have no idea if my books have been removed on the UK side, but as I said, they are still searchable and available for purchase.

Thanks for comments, everyone.Seeley, I'm glad you agree with my comment on how trad-pub stories featuring rapist 'heroes' presented romantically should be removed.

I am all for banning stuff from every site in the world that features abuse of children, rape, etc written as erotica- (sadly that won't happen) but this action seems to have been done in the worst possible way. Why wasn't there an explanation? I can't help thinking Indie Publishers have been treated with contempt because of a contemptible minority.

It does seem to be the UK side mainly - but an author friend in the US who certainly no more than I writes erotica - though there is a minor amount of 'adult content' and some degree of violence (battle scenes) has had her stuff deleted over in the US, and her books were chosen by a high school teacher to make ancient history lessons more interesting!

Lucinda wrote: "Thanks for comments, everyone.Seeley, I'm glad you agree with my comment on how trad-pub stories featuring rapist 'heroes' presented romantically should be removed.

I am all for banning stuff from..."

We're not victims. Kobo didn't do what they should have done from the beginning: a simple cursory check of the content. Barnes & Nobel, Amazon, Sony, Apple, etc don't have that problem because they checked the work first.

Give them time, they'll get through the pile and be back to normal.

I've never sold much via Kobo anyway, may 1,000 books a year, so I'm not missing much.

Peace, Seeley

Well, I envy you that contemptible 1,000 books a year, Seeley!

Lucinda wrote: "Well, I envy you that contemptible 1,000 books a year, Seeley!"

Actually, that was from a single Bookbub ad. Since that ran in Feb, I've probably sold 50 on Kobo.

They still haven't posted the book I put up Monday...

Peace, Seeley

I have been trying to get on Bookbub, also Ereadernewstoday, no luck. I got about fifty sales on amazon through BookGorilla, very disappointing.
Ah, hmm, about book not appearing...

Lucinda wrote: "I have been trying to get on Bookbub, also Ereadernewstoday, no luck. I got about fifty sales on amazon through BookGorilla, very disappointing.
Ah, hmm, about book not appearing..."

Bookbub is one of those sites that insist on a 4 star average, which is pretty unrealistic. A lot of John Steinbeck's work would be refused because of the review averages. Most of the writers that are considered to be cultural icons would also be refused - unless they game the system and get their buddies to boost their average.

That's what bugs me about some of the new 'gatekeepers'. The gaming still happens, it's just been outsourced to the writers...

Folks are so eager to get that boost from sites like BookBub or Pixel that they drop by the 'Review Swap' forums and pick up some five star reviews from writers who probably never looked any farther than the blurb.

Small wonder the readers don't trust the review system.

As far as Kobo, I skipped KDP select to try out pre-orders on Smashwords with my latest title. Apple loaded fine, B&N loaded the book about a week before the go live and Kobo still hasn't loaded it, two weeks after the story is live elsewhere.

Kobo used to be a decent secondary sales channel for me, but now they're in some kind of limbo.

Due to a strange glitch in my 'notifications' only just got that now, Karl. I so agree with your comments. It's very annoying.

*AG* Hello, just got your comment too, what is the matter with the updating thing?
Yes, I so agree about Bookbub. At the momnet I have a four star average, which didn't influence them in my favour, but that is out of only twenty-nine ratings.
One of the problems as you say, is that unless you boost it with doubtful reviews, the average can drop with just a couple of negative ratings. I think some readers who do reviews can be a lot harsher to self published people without a strong fan base than those traditionally published, with whom there's a sort of follow the crowd thing.

Karl wrote: "I'm not sure if I'm just being negative and cynical but I get the feeling that readers and reviewers are more critical and likely to pick out problems with self and indie published books than they ..."

That would be fascinating, Karl. I feel the same, if only it could be done.

Karl wrote: "I'm not sure if I'm just being negative and cynical but I get the feeling that readers and reviewers are more critical and likely to pick out problems with self and indie published books than they ..."

It does seem that Indie authors are treated unfairly, though I don't find it that surprising, sadly. Big name authors have a company backing them -- a large company -- where we might have a small press, and all too often, ourselves. It's like trying to fight a giant twenty times taller than you, versus two giants of equal or close might fighting. Not that we don't deserve to be treated fairly, but I can "understand" why we don't seem to be, from that viewpoint.

I do wonder, though, if the agreement an Indie "signs" when registering for Kobo, etc. doesn't state that books with certain content are not allowed, and will be removed. I write "clean" fiction, so I may have skipped over it, but I'm curious. Still, that in no way excuses traditional books with the same content remaining, when Indie books are taken down.

Sorry, that's unfortunate to hear, Lucinda, especially since you stated there was Adult content.

Hi, Alexandra. Thanks for those comments. I have since found out that it was due to really strong porn being put up there - child abuse fiction and so on, so that all the stuff was taken down and so all the Indie stuff is up again. For sure I do have some erotic content in mine, but for sure I do not have rape presented as erotic or rapists depicted as romantic, and there are any number of traditionally published writers of historical romance particularly whose books are never counted as porn though they do present rape and rapists as erotic.
Hair stands up from head,steam bursts from ears...

Lucinda wrote: "Hi, Alexandra. Thanks for those comments. I have since found out that it was due to really strong porn being put up there - child abuse fiction and so on, so that all the stuff was taken down and s..."

Glad they got it fixed! Like I said, I can see things like rape and abuse being in the list of "things not allowed", but I'm glad they stopped targeting the authors who don't have that in their stories. It's sad the traditionally published books that contain it still linger, but we can hope that maybe since they started taking down Indie works that are unacceptable they'll do it for the others. Probably not, but we can hope. Sigh...

Hmm. Mine (two older ones) are still not back up. Maybe I should opt-out (I publish via Smashwords), then back in and see if that does the trick.

Very true, Alexandra. I get good and mad about it! One of these days,I'll though I have low blood pressure, I'll have a heart attack over my keyboard if I'm not careful!
Theddeus: That might be an idea. It's all very slapdash, I think.

Lucinda wrote: "Very true, Alexandra. I get good and mad about it! One of these days,I'll though I have low blood pressure, I'll have a heart attack over my keyboard if I'm not careful!
Theddeus: That might be an ..."

Things happen, unfortunately. It is very frustrating, though.

I've published books through Smashwords onto Kobo, and it's good except that it takes longer - sometimes up to two weeks - for books to appear. If Kobo isn't a major market for you, and you don't mind the lag time, I would say go ahead, but it can be a pain.

Hi, Alexanedra.
Very true! I always want to make certain things unhappen when they are unfair, which is often a pain.
Slightly off topic, I've had my second 'Aleks Sager's Daemon' up for free through Smashwords for a week now, no problems with the erotic beginning, which is anyway all adult human consensual, lol. I had it up for amazon select, but I couldn't get it down from all retail stores, so I was told it was ineligible. I put it up again on Smashwords, with a different blurb. My other, 'That Scoundrel Emile Dubois' is still on aamzon select, but as you can have stuff for free via Smashwords when you want, I am far from sure of the benefits of amazon select. I suppose it is about twenty times as big an outlet...
Thaddeus: good luck.

I opted out the other day, and back in today. Hopefully that'll get them back up.

There's absolutely no frisky time in either of the books that went missing, which makes their removal particularly irksome.

Let's hope that does it, Thaddeus. Lol about 'frisky stuff'. I think all Indie authors were included in one fell sweep instead of the stuff with child abuse and monsters raping women being weeded out, I suppose because they wanted to be seen to be taking strong action, or something. But why only Indie authors, is my grudge...

That's ridiculous, Thaddeus, especially if there was no content to begin with. But I can see what Lucinda is saying about it being all authors, instead of select ones. I think they may need a better system of selection when it comes to books they are getting rid of.

Lucinda: Have you ever tried KDP select before? I didn't have any luck with it, but that is me. I actually used Smashwords to make the book free on other sites, plus Amazon, and received a lot more downloads. Maybe I was just using select wrong? Or maybe I just write in niche genres.

Alexandra

At first, I was delighted with the results I got with my giveaways - 'That Scoundrel Emile Dubois' (which is a sort of gothic spoof) - was number one on free ebooks on one of my giveaway days - but as time has passed, it is less successful - I think on the last one it was number seven at its highest.
That is exposure, but it hasn't really boosted sales that I can see. I want people to enjoy my stuff much more than I want to make money out of it, but I do want to make some sales.
I honestly am a bit disillusioned with Amazon select.
(is suddenly hit by a thunderbolt sent by the ever alert Amazon select team).
What is your niche genre, sounds interesting?

Lucinda wrote: "Alexandra

At first, I was delighted with the results I got with my giveaways - 'That Scoundrel Emile Dubois' (which is a sort of gothic spoof) - was number one on free ebooks on one of my giveawa..."

That sounds about how I did with select. I had some good ratings, but not enough overall for me to keep using it (and I tried the Kindle Countdown thing: nothing). I, too, ultimately want readers to enjoy my stories, but I also would like to make a career out of writing. That being said, I have managed to make some books permanently free on Amazon, and that has really helped so far as sales, for me. Plus, I've gained some wonderful readers.

Well, I don't personally consider them niche genres, but I guess they could be. I think all genres have quite a few readers, just some more than others.

I write YA as Alexandra Lanc, and my biggest story under this name is a Christmas series. Holiday books, I think, are pretty much always niche, because most readers only pick them up once a year, and there aren't that many, especially in Young Adult. And the series is Fantasy, too -- Contemporary Fantasy, I suppose -- so it's not simply a Christmas story, either. Readers have really enjoyed it, and I love writing it.

My other YA titles are less niche. One series is also Contemporary Fantasy (what you might call Portal Fantasy, like Narnia; there's another name, too, but I can't remember it). My other is the strangest blend of Sci-fi and Fantasy. And then I have a Contemporary novella that also includes Poetry.

But I write Adult fiction under Crimson Sterling, and I have a bit more niche there. Some of my stories are Post-Apocalyptic, and that is far from niche, but my Convergent Kingdoms Universe, made up of 2 (currently) related book series is a wide blend of Fantasy genres. The whole series combines Urban Fantasy, Steampunk, Fairy Tales, and Magical Realism into one big ball. Also, I don't write sexual content, even though I write about vampires, which seems to raise some eyebrows.

Anyway, I'm not trying to advertise or spam. It's actually kind of weird to list all of my genres, and see how many I write!

In the end, I think it's more my writing that is niche, versus the genres, though those might help, too. According to iwritelike (whatever the extension is), and plenty of my fans, I write somewhere between Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Dan Brown. I can say I agree.

Alexandra - my goodness, you sound as if you do write diverse stuff and are well versed in genres! I am probably naive - whether my stuff combines Magical Realism and Steampunk, I have no idea. You also sound as if you are an expert on publishing under different names. I must investigate those links.

How does one do it? I am currently writing what is frankly a piece of tack - I won't use a cruder word on here - and would like to publish it for fun under another name - but wouldn't want it associated with my normal pen name, but will have to find out how to do it, get reviews, etc etc under another name. It's full of cliches of every sort...

Lucinda wrote: "Alexandra - my goodness, you sound as if you do write diverse stuff and are well versed in genres! I am probably naive - whether my stuff combines Magical Realism and Steampunk, I have no idea. You..."

Aw, thank you! I try my best. I guess I simply have so many interests, it's easy for me to write about all of them. But don't worry, you're not naive, there are just so many branches of Speculative fiction, it's easy to get lost. And thank you for checking out the links. :)

I wouldn't say I'm an expert yet. I just adopted my new pen name (Crimson Sterling) at the beginning of the year. I'm still getting everything situated with it. For me it's a little different, because I openly link my pen names; each is listed on its sister site. But as far as setting up pages, etc. it's fairly easy. If you want to be anonymous, all you have to do is not mention the connection, I would think. You can still publish through the same Amazon account by simply adding your pen name in the author space, instead of your original author name (not so for Smashwords, not sure about Nook or Kobo yet), and you can use the same Author Central account, too, and add the new pen name to it to keep up your page. The new website and social media accounts are the hardest to juggle, but once they are set up, they aren't too hard to manage.

I hope that helped! It takes a little bit of research, but it's definitely doable!

Lucinda wrote: "Alexandra - my goodness, you sound as if you do write diverse stuff and are well versed in genres! I am probably naive - whether my stuff combines Magical Realism and Steampunk, I have no idea. You..."

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to publish it if you think it's bad? If you don't want to claim it because the genre is incompatible I can see that (I write kids books. If I wrote a piece of porn, I wouldn't want my name on it). But if you don't want it connected to your name because it's bad, maybe it's not meant for publishing.

Alexandra, Thanks for advice, that'll come in handy. So no double pen names for Smashwords, eh?
In answer to my motivation in publishing the So Bad It's Good Thing - I've written this nonsense on purpose. I love a laugh and it's a sort of cynical experiment - because I think as often as not stuff I regard as bad - swaggering macho heroes who never make a fool of themselves with glittering grey eyes, etc - is popular. Mine doesn't reinforce patriarchal values, so I don't feel it's a moral compromise . I take your point, though. Most authors of terrible stuff somehow BELIEVE in it, ie Charles Garvice of late Victorian romantic trash fame. Some people say the author has to, to write it successfully. That's part of the experiment. I'm deliberately using cliched situations, etc.
In the historical romance spoof I've just finished writing, I did aim to start out with a spoof and then round out the cardboard characters, but this isn't sophisticated.

Got it, Lucinda. An interesting experiment!

Thanks, Rebecca, I have to have a laugh in this crazy world! Just seen and loved your photograph of that rocky outpost.

Lucinda wrote: "Alexandra, Thanks for advice, that'll come in handy. So no double pen names for Smashwords, eh?
In answer to my motivation in publishing the So Bad It's Good Thing - I've written this nonsense on ..."

I love experiments. That is fantastic. I am especially interested to see what the result may be. :)

To answer your question regarding Smashwords: no. You can apply for publisher status on there, and use two pen names that way, but from what I've read, that seems like a pain. I think it's far easier to create a separate account, under a new email, and do it that way. I recommend having separate emails for each pen name, anyway, to keep things more organized.

I don't know about Kobo or Nook, as far as multiple names, but if you're using Smashwords for aggregation, then it doesn't matter too much.

I hope that helps. Best of luck. If you have more questions, feel free to ask, and I'll help if I can. :)

Alexandra wrote: "Lucinda wrote: "Alexandra, Thanks for advice, that'll come in handy. So no double pen names for Smashwords, eh?
In answer to my motivation in publishing the So Bad It's Good Thing - I've written t..."

Thanks Alexandra, and for more great advice. I'll keep you informed, for sure.

Lucinda wrote: "Alexandra wrote: "Lucinda wrote: "Alexandra, Thanks for advice, that'll come in handy. So no double pen names for Smashwords, eh?
In answer to my motivation in publishing the So Bad It's Good Thin..."

You're most welcome, and good luck! :)

This is why Kobo are so tight in publishing erotic fiction. It's because of 'authors' such as these: http://ukpaedos-exposed.com/2013/09/0...

I so agree with getting rid of such disgusting stuff.
What I thought was unfair, was that ALL self published authors were at one time deleted, erotic or not, and I found instances of traditionally published writers of romantic novels who had scenes which romanticized rape, wife beating, etc still up there. I can see they probably took the line 'Oh, it's been traditionally published, it'll confirm to guidelines' etc etc. I've never been able to bring myself to read 'Lolita' but I wonder about books like that...Obviously, the paedo stuff is even worse than the ones that go along with abuse of women, but still the double standard annoyed me somewhat...

Hi, all, thanks for the invite Pinkavnger! Interesting discussion started here. Eroticgate, as it's been nicknamed, has caused a lot of problems all over the net.

I've looked into it myself, as a staunch believer in no cencorship. It seems there's a couple of things happening behind the scenes.

One, bad press, that will always be a cause. Bad press hurts sales, and no one wants that.

Two, sex sells, by like, a lot. Many online companies will use just about any excuse to ensure that no one makes more money than the company. It's kinda creepy.

Three, it would take FOREVER for anyone to read the content of every single online published book. It's pretty much impossible. So, it's done the quick and dirty way - random keywords. This is a hit and miss approach, that misses more so than hits. There actually aren't nearly as much glorified rape, incest, abuse, etc, as we have all been led to believe. It just looks that way when doing a random keyword search.

Four, it's dependent on the country where the company is based. UK has strict indency laws, the US doesn't, and the list goes on.

So, in my personal opinion, none of this would be a big deal if A) people just stopped talking about it thus eliminating bad press and B) corporations wouldn't hoard money so much. What can an indie autor do? Not much, I'm afraid. Try to use generic titles that won't trigger a random keyword search, and if you feel te company made a mistake, file a complaint. I feel the latter is most important. Just becuse a company made an automatic decision, it doesn't mean you have to take it lying down. Fight for your book, it's your right.

Fascinating comments, Lily. Very interesting points you raise.
Ironically for one who started this thread, I do believe in limited censorship - paedo stuff, novels that romanticize rape, etc - but the point you make is very valid, the company took a quick way of dealing with the matter which was unfair, but since when did profit making companies be scrupulous about moral issues?
In the end, I believe most of the books that weren't paedo stuff, bestiality, etc went back up. I have to say I don't know what happened with the dino porn, for instance.
Here in the UK, the laws were relaxed during that trial over pornography when DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was published. My own objection to most (non paedo, non rape) porn is that it tends to demean women, but it's a complex issue, for sure. I didn't know there were no censorship laws in the US, that's interesting.

Yeah, I've seen the so-called books go back online just by changing the title. On one hand, this severely limits a consumer search and in turn sale numbers. On the other hand, and this I favor quite a bit, it simply means the author has to socialized more, get the word out there, in order for their specific audience to find the book instead of relying on the built-in search on the website. The latter makes a lot more sense, allowing the average internet user to pick and choose instead of having ALL this stuff in your face all the time.

Oh, the US has tons of censorship laws. Just look at the warning labels and warning messages for music, movies, and tv. Warning: contains adult contain! Well I bloody well hope so otherwise this will be a waste of time and money... The warnings thing has gotten rediculous. I don't need a warning to be an adult.

The US just doesn't have indency laws like the UK does. Slight difference, but same issue. At the same time, the US has strong freedom of speech laws, which allows any online American-based company to sell just about anything as long as it's legal to sell it. Child pornography for example, in the form of the written word, fiction, freedom of speech, as gross as it is, is legal.