Amazon (KDP) cracking down on erotica. Again.

Alice Xavier

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It's still a black box though, isn't it? We don't know how things get flagged, we don't know how thoroughly things get read, etc etc. You're just inferring mechanisms that you admit we don't understand.

The fact that Amazon contains

(a) books violating content guidelines
(b) plagiarised books
(c) autopublished spambooks copied from Wikipedia in violation of the CC license

suggests that the review process is not catching everything. And thus either they *don't* employ enough people to vet things, or their vetting processes aren't working. I simply don't believe everything is getting read and approved.

We also should probably draw a distinction between how things work with KDP and how things work if you go via a third-party...

I was more addressing the point of "Amazon can't afford/wouldn't bother with a full-time gatekeeper it's all or nothing" point, but yeah, it's still a black box. That said, I'm making inferences based on LOTS of data from lots of different authors (I'm part of some other erotica/romance communities). It's like studying a black hole - you can never see the black hole, but you can see all the stuff around it, and based on enough stuff around it, you can start to paint a picture of what it probably looks like. The review process is there, but it's definitely not perfect or even consistent (I could rant forever about the lack of consistency). I never said Amazon was actually reading each and every book - books are all reviewed based on cover, title, and description. I did say in an earlier post that it's not about content, but about presentation. If certain flags are raised, then Amazon might scrutinize actual content (I have a book that I was unable to get unfiltered due to interior content - so they DO sometimes look at the interior). And yeah, this is all KDP goings on. I have no idea how third-party to Amazon deals work.
 

Nononana

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I get that they are a company that can decide upon whatever content they want, but it is their complete lack of consistency that is frustrating.

One day something is on their site selling, business as usual, and the next day, that author will wake up and their book has been removed or filtered (which is no-mans land for sales).

Also the rules are not uniform and almost always target indie authors, who are in the worst position to defend themselves and are most dependent on Amazon since they have the greatest customer base. Also books in other genres with rape, incest, you name it, don't get the heat. So is the incentive to become creative about the genre you are writing in and put it under Romance (or a related genre) instead?

Finally, there is just a total lack of consistency, someone whose book was removed due to incest (between step-siblings, so not really) pulled up an erotica book that was still active on Amazon about a woman and a T-Rex (yes the dinosaur).

As an erotica author, you feel like you are on eggshells, wondering if you will be part of the next major sweep. And yes, you can go elsewhere, but they just don't sell as well as Amazon (for most, I know some have had success elsewhere) because people love their Kindles.

If they could just be clear, and also be fair, that would be great. But they have all the power, so :Shrug:
 

Alice Xavier

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Finally, there is just a total lack of consistency, someone whose book was removed due to incest (between step-siblings, so not really) pulled up an erotica book that was still active on Amazon about a woman and a T-Rex (yes the dinosaur).

These books are actually amazing and hilarious (and quite well-written, too). There was some news coverage on them quite recently, except it was more along the lines of 'lol epic, dino smut' and not 'HORRIBLE FILTH!!'. The author duo behind them already had lots of traction in monster erotica and decided to try dinosaurs for shits and giggles.

To note, Amazon does not consider monster erotica to be the same thing as bestiality (which they do not allow). As long as there's a fantastical/mythical component and the beast in question isn't an ordinary dog or ordinary livestock animal or really any ordinary animal, it's fine. And apparently, dinosaurs fall safely under that monster erotica classification.

I write monster erotica, and even during this purge, Amazon still doesn't care about monsters. One monster book of mine that got taken down went right back up as soon as I changed 'virgin' to 'maiden' in the title.

With the current outrage and why it's focused on incest and abuse and virgin/barely legal/underage stuff and not fantastical monster stuff is, in my opinion, that the former topics hit close to home in that they depict stuff that's perfectly plausible (and very disturbing) in real life. And because of that, it comes off as shocking and filthy.

And if Amazon ever does come down on monster erotica, I can pretty easily re-purpose my stuff for either dark fantasy or even horror. And it'll be just fine because it's TECHNICALLY not for titillation anymore. There's a fantasy series I know about that's chock full of dragon erotica, and no one has ever really cared because it's fantasy.
 

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It's still a black box though, isn't it? We don't know how things get flagged, we don't know how thoroughly things get read, etc etc. You're just inferring mechanisms that you admit we don't understand.

Actually, this is the heart of my personal frustration right now. I don't have any problem at all with their creating and enforcing standards. It's their website -- I respect their right to sell what they want to sell. If we could only guess what they want to sell!

It seems to me that the problem is two-fold: lack of transparency and inconsistency. It's really frustrating to have a thoroughly benign story (in the erotic scheme of things) pulled because it somehow trips some keyword-search when there are thousands of titles up that are infinitely more objectionable. And even more frustrating to have no clear idea what it was that tripped the ban-hammer -- and never to get any clarification at all.
 

Nononana

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These books are actually amazing and hilarious (and quite well-written, too). There was some news coverage on them quite recently, except it was more along the lines of 'lol epic, dino smut' and not 'HORRIBLE FILTH!!'. The author duo behind them already had lots of traction in monster erotica and decided to try dinosaurs for shits and giggles.

Just to be clear, I wasn't bashing the T-Rex thing, I think readers should be able to choose what they want. Be it clowns, dinosaurs, unicorns, whatever!

I used that example off of the top of my head, because it was the last thing I saw (and how could I forget it, lol). She also brought up some trade published works that remained unscathed that technically should be removed due to things such as incest or rape, but are not. Of course, T-Rex sexy times imprinted on my brain.

I think the best solution is for them to have a parental control option that people can click if they have children that hides adult themed titles. Something to that effect at least.

Also if anyone cares to do so, there is a petition now going around: www.change.org/petitions/amazon-bar...ving-erotica-and-self-published-indie-authors
 

veinglory

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They are already pretty good at keeping the adult stuff hidden unless you search for it. But that does not solve the 'detecting and removing legally obscene materials' problem.
 

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It seems to me that the problem is two-fold: lack of transparency and inconsistency. It's really frustrating to have a thoroughly benign story (in the erotic scheme of things) pulled because it somehow trips some keyword-search when there are thousands of titles up that are infinitely more objectionable. And even more frustrating to have no clear idea what it was that tripped the ban-hammer -- and never to get any clarification at all.

I get that, completely: some people acting in good faith will get hit, and some acting in bad faith won't. The problem for Amazon is that if they let you peek into the black box, the bad-faith people then have all the information they need to game the system.

It's like Google: the Google algorithm(s) is a trade secret, and evolves over time. If they published it, SEO would be a solvable problem, and their whole business would collapse.

The optimum way to minimise false positives and false negatives is to remove all automation and have someone read every book from cover to cover. Anything short of that (and I believe it's wildly impractical) is going to create these kinds of problems.
 

Nononana

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They are already pretty good at keeping the adult stuff hidden unless you search for it. But that does not solve the 'detecting and removing legally obscene materials' problem.

Everyone is freaking out and I guess we'll have to wait for the dust to settle, but my feed has authors saying their books were pulled that didn't have underage participants or incest. Of course, they may be able to get them back up in the next few weeks. It's the uncertainty that any Erotica author could be next is what is making everyone run around like their hair is on fire (understandably so).

The problem with the adult filter as they have it is that it makes it nearly impossible to find the book unless you already know the title & author & search under "books." And I don't believe they show up as "you may also be interested in." So unless you are already well known, it kills sales. At least that was my experience.

I was referring to more of an "adult" section of Amazon, or a filter that is not on by default that lets you browse everything as an adult consumer. Right, now, I search "penis" in general search and a huge lovely dildo pops up, not protected in any way from a curious kid. But many books are filtered form the general search by default. Just feels ass-backwards. There has to be a better way! :e2violin:

Of course I agree, anything illegal should be gone. It just always feels like these things are stepping stones to a wholesale attack on Erotica when they start pulling innocent authors works.

People are also claiming Kobo is going to remove all self-pub, but I have yet to see that other than word of mouth.

Also, I believe the issue might be more a UK thing than a US thing? Not sure, but because of some new anti-porn laws or something.
 

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DancingMaenid

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I wish Amazon was clearer with its guidelines to begin with. Banning "pornography" and "offensive" material is not helpful in the least, and it leaves the door open to taking just about anything down. I don't really differentiate much between "erotica" and "porn," and will call my own stuff "porn" or "smut." But is it Amazon's definition of porn? Maybe, maybe not. And it would be better if they were simply upfront about what type of content they don't want.

As it is, it can be difficult to get a sense of what is Amazon-appropriate without looking at what books are available on Amazon. But right now, just about everything is available on Amazon--until Amazon takes it down. And just because Amazon takes something down doesn't mean there was actually a problem with the book.

I buy digital content on Amazon more often than not because it's convenient. Smashwords is an awkward, bungled site and the only reason I ever bother getting content there is because of freebie coupons. I wouldn't expect readers to be all that eager to make credit card transactions on my own website.

This is my concern, too. I also use Amazon out of convenience. I don't like to give out my credit card information too much, and I don't really feel that comfortable using PayPal. To be honest, while I would be willing to buy stuff from a publisher's website that I'm familiar with, I'd be hesitant to do it over a personal website or a website that I wasn't that confident about.
 

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Everyone is freaking out and I guess we'll have to wait for the dust to settle, but my feed has authors saying their books were pulled that didn't have underage participants or incest. .

No. But they were caught in the blow back of Amazon's screwed up method for trying to detect illegal material. Thus just not having a full blown adult filter is not the problem. These are books they need to find and remove, not just filter.
 

Nononana

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No. But they were caught in the blow back of Amazon's screwed up method for trying to detect illegal material. Thus just not having a full blown adult filter is not the problem. These are books they need to find and remove, not just filter.

Agreed. I know I am conflating the issues, but it's because the issues always seem to get tangled when something like this happens. Mainly because as you mentioned, Amazon does not have a good way to deal with managing their content.
 

DancingMaenid

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the material that Amazon is banning is actually illegal. It's stuff that may be illegal in some jurisdictions, but probably isn't in most parts of the US, unless a DA felt like charging someone with obscenity. The legal status of writing about underage characters can be iffy sometimes, but I've never heard of fictional incest involving adult characters causing a legal issue. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Amazon has a right to decide that they don't want to sell that sort of content, or that they would rather cover their asses in the event that there is some sort of legal problem down the road. But they're not under any obligation, as far as I'm aware, to remove the stories. It's a business decision.

But I think it's also clear that legality is not everyone's sole concern. Even the linked article makes a point that the "daddy" stories mostly involve "barely legal" characters who are 18 or 19. They still object to the stories being sold. While "barely legal" porn usually creeps me out, it's long been a legal way of making porn about "teens." It's legal in visual form as long as the actors are over 18, so it's certainly legal in written form.
 

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the material that Amazon is banning is actually illegal. It's stuff that may be illegal in some jurisdictions, but probably isn't in most parts of the US, unless a DA felt like charging someone with obscenity. The legal status of writing about underage characters can be iffy sometimes, but I've never heard of fictional incest involving adult characters causing a legal issue. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Amazon has a right to decide that they don't want to sell that sort of content, or that they would rather cover their asses in the event that there is some sort of legal problem down the road. But they're not under any obligation, as far as I'm aware, to remove the stories. It's a business decision.

But I think it's also clear that legality is not everyone's sole concern. Even the linked article makes a point that the "daddy" stories mostly involve "barely legal" characters who are 18 or 19. They still object to the stories being sold. While "barely legal" porn usually creeps me out, it's long been a legal way of making porn about "teens." It's legal in visual form as long as the actors are over 18, so it's certainly legal in written form.

I think that the whole point is that Amazon, Kobo, WHSmith, etc. were indeed being accused of selling illegal, obscene (as well as plagiarized) titles. I'm pretty sure they still are selling such -- not knowingly, of course. But in order to expunge themselves from the taint of being seen as child porn peddlers, the booksellers have cast a very, very wide net, catching a lot of titles that are absolutely not obscene. My publisher's children's picture book got pulled from Kobo. Why? No idea. They haven't said. Their email (which was forwarded to me) said that they were removing only material "by a select few authors... violating Kobo's content guidlelines."

"A select few authors." Wow. Don't I feel special.
 

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I think that the whole point is that Amazon, Kobo, WHSmith, etc. were indeed being accused of selling illegal, obscene (as well as plagiarized) titles. I'm pretty sure they still are selling such -- not knowingly, of course. But in order to expunge themselves from the taint of being seen as child porn peddlers, the booksellers have cast a very, very wide net, catching a lot of titles that are absolutely not obscene. My publisher's children's picture book got pulled from Kobo. Why? No idea. They haven't said. Their email (which was forwarded to me) said that they were removing only material "by a select few authors... violating Kobo's content guidlelines."

"A select few authors." Wow. Don't I feel special.

Kobo's confirmed that, as with WHS, they're suspending sale of all self-pub titles from their UK store:

The company said it is removing the offensive titles from the Kobo global platform, conducting a thorough review to ensure that authors and publishers are complying with its policies, and “quarantining and reviewing" some additional titles to be certain they are suitable.

During the process it has removed all self-published titles from the UK store, saying it expected the titles that comply with its rules to be put back up "within a week". The company said it is also reviewing its policies and procedures to implement safeguards that will ensure the situation “does not happen in the future".
 

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K.D. West

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Kobo's confirmed that, as with WHS, they're suspending sale of all self-pub titles from their UK store:

Kobo doesn't seem to maintain separate stores for different countries as say Amazon, B&N and Apple do. So "their UK store" means "everywhere." I'm in the US and I can't find any of my publisher's books on Kobo. And the only ones of mine that are available are the four that we distributed initially through Smashwords.
 

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But I think it's also clear that legality is not everyone's sole concern. Even the linked article makes a point that the "daddy" stories mostly involve "barely legal" characters who are 18 or 19. They still object to the stories being sold. While "barely legal" porn usually creeps me out, it's long been a legal way of making porn about "teens." It's legal in visual form as long as the actors are over 18, so it's certainly legal in written form.

There are plenty of things that creep me out, and that is definitely one of them. The phrase 'barely legal' even strikes me as *wink wink, not really, except for legal reasons* and extremely graphic violence makes me even more squeamish.

However, it is still fiction and I'm very much of the 'don't like it, don't read it' rather than getting upset about it or trying to stop anyone else from it.

What makes the most business sense is to leave everything up until someone complains but now it seems they're way over-reacting. A better thing might be that instead of removing possibly offensive books, they could switch off the option of 'you might also like' for certain tags or keywords that fall under erotica, such as those with 'daddy' in the title.

On top of that, I'm not sure what the point is in 'outing' these books to begin with, apart that some people like to be outraged about things to the extent that they seek it out*. I would think that if the real concern is perverts 'getting ideas', then at least sites like Amazon can track their purchase habits and so on for any later prosecution if that is the case, then having them go to somewhere they can get the exact same thing only more anonymously.
It's one thing to quietly report something as 'obscene material' and hope whoever is responsible pulls it, but calling attention to something 'offensive' is often counter-productive.

*memories of Reagan-era PMRC where people would count the number of swear words in a novel at time when there was no option but to do it manually.
 

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Sheesh, the petition needs an editor. And it's all gummed up with stuff about 'freedom of speech' (d'oh!) and 'telling people what they're allowed to read' (as we sign a petition telling people what they're allowed to sell in their shops.)

Indeed.

Beyond that, freedom of speech is a non-issue, since that only involves government incursions in public spaces -- not a private company's web site.
 

veinglory

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the material that Amazon is banning is actually illegal.

It is topics where there is a precedent for lawsuit being bought, and won, under the obscenity laws. Thus selling it presents a risk retailers might reasonably choose not to take.
 

mamiller512

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Quoted from Tongo:

Sheesh, the petition needs an editor. And it's all gummed up with stuff about 'freedom of speech' (d'oh!) and 'telling people what they're allowed to read' (as we sign a petition telling people what they're allowed to sell in their shops.)
__________________


That may be true. Possibly its' not the best example of a petition you would want to participate in. However, it is at least an attempt to band together as a group and be heard by Amazon. Whatever your preferred method is, either signing a petition or choosing some other form of communication, IMO, it is important for Amazon to hear from us as well.

:Soapbox:
 
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Sheryl Nantus

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Quoted from Tongo:

Sheesh, the petition needs an editor. And it's all gummed up with stuff about 'freedom of speech' (d'oh!) and 'telling people what they're allowed to read' (as we sign a petition telling people what they're allowed to sell in their shops.)
__________________


That may be true. Possibly its' not the best example of a petition you would want to participate in. However, it is at least an attempt to band together as a group and be heard by Amazon. Whatever your preferred method is, either signing a petition or choosing some other form of communication, IMO, it is important for Amazon to hear from us as well.

:Soapbox:

Except I've never heard of a change.org petition being used for anything other than collecting names for future spamming...

;)
 

DancingMaenid

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On top of that, I'm not sure what the point is in 'outing' these books to begin with, apart that some people like to be outraged about things to the extent that they seek it out*. I would think that if the real concern is perverts 'getting ideas', then at least sites like Amazon can track their purchase habits and so on for any later prosecution if that is the case, then having them go to somewhere they can get the exact same thing only more anonymously.
It's one thing to quietly report something as 'obscene material' and hope whoever is responsible pulls it, but calling attention to something 'offensive' is often counter-productive.

Yeah, I agree.

Also, I think some of the people who "outed" the books were sort of missing the larger point--Amazon is a huge retailer that sells products that they don't always vet well. Some of the porn violates their rules, but there are also poor-quality products that could actually harm or inconvenience buyers. I found a version of my cat's favorite toy on Amazon, but when I looked at the reviews, I saw several claiming that the buyers had received poor-quality versions that had sharp parts or broke easily, making them dangerous. And I purchased a cell phone battery off Amazon, and it suddenly died after about a month of use. Was that a quality issue, or a random, unavoidable flaw? Hard to tell, but it made me hesitant to buy batteries off Amazon again.

Amazon isn't going out of its way to sell barely-legal, pseudo-incest rape porn because it benefits them. The only issue worth exposing is the same issue that affects many of Amazon's products--poor oversight and quality control. (At least creepy porn isn't too likely to hurt my cat.)

It is topics where there is a precedent for lawsuit being bought, and won, under the obscenity laws. Thus selling it presents a risk retailers might reasonably choose not to take.

I agree, and I don't blame Amazon for deciding it isn't worth it to take that risk, or even for deciding that stuff like bestiality erotica doesn't fit the image they want to project. I just think that people often don't acknowledge how unclear and subjective the law can be when it comes to written works. We're not talking about Amazon taking down something that's unequivocally illegal, like photographic child porn. We're mostly talking about works that are ostensibly legal in the US--unless someone decides that maybe they aren't legal and wants to take the case to court. Obscenity laws are vague both in their definitions and their enforcement, and even Amazon's own guidelines are somewhat arbitrary.