Except I've never heard of a change.org petition being used for anything other than collecting names for future spamming...
Geez, I thought I had finally washed that "Sucker" tattoo off my forehead. Damn it!
Except I've never heard of a change.org petition being used for anything other than collecting names for future spamming...
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.
Except I've never heard of a change.org petition being used for anything other than collecting names for future spamming...
Too true.
There are some way not erotica titles being swept up in the purge like my friend Laura Kay's books. They are WAY not erotica, sell really well, and are backed by big publishers so it's not only indie that are being targeted. I'm just hoping that now that the initial purge is done they'll start responding to the complaints and re-publishing some of the stuff they yanked.
--On a side note-- I agree that there was stuff on there that was terrible from both a moral and ethical standpoint. Yeah yeah freedom of speech la la la but I fail to see how books about raping your drunk daughter then raping the family dog are anything but rape porn in its truest sense of the word.
Face it, if you had a daughter and you found a family member with 'daughter/niece/etc' rape books wouldn't you be a bit worried about leaving her alone with them? Or your family dog?
ETA: Oh, and rape books revolt me — whether the non-consensual sex is statutory or forced. But consensual sex between adult, non-related humans...?
"Patience is a Virgin" got pulled, when the whole point of the book is she's in her twenties.
Kobo pulled it where Amazon hasn't, nkk? That so strange. It states clearly enough that the woman is 25. Jeez...
What we need to remember here is that it's unlikely a human has looked at it and decided to pull it. It has very probably been pulled on a keyword match.
I bet most of these false positives will be cleared up within a couple of weeks.
I've been lurking in here for a while after an initial burst of activity, but a recent email from KDP has ticked me off to the point of unleashing some rage.
A certain book of mine (Tragedy of the Virgin Bride) has fallen foul of this latest purge. Funnily enough it's probably one of the tamest titles I've written and has been quietly selling for the last 12 months or so.
Kobo's issue is a complete lack of vetting has bitten them in the arse. Those who've been seriously gaming the system aren't dodging filters, they're deliberately mistagging books to get them in front of as many people as possible. That's why people were stumbling across daddy-daughter incest in the kid's section. It's frankly a bizarre marketing strategy, and I'd be surprised if it really had much impact on sales, but I get the feeling some of the people employing it are basically trolls - they think it's funny that people are finding their book when they're browsing something else entirely.
New filters?
Publisher working on issues. I will clarify as soon as I know more.
The book is back up. LI had to slightly reformat and change the description, to avoid Amazon's automatic flags. We'll see if that works.
In addition to what that post mentions, Amazon is blocking and removing titles that are about virgins. Just a heads up.