# Bookstrand axing Indie publishers?



## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

I'm curious if anyone else has received this in their Inbox (mine was in the Spam folder). Every self-publisher I know who's put their books up there has had them forcibly removed over the last few days, and I'm wondering if any KBers are likewise affected:



> Just got the email...
> 
> Dear Indie Author,
> 
> ...


This after the recent AllRomance debacle.... *sigh* Anyone else have their stuff deleted?


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Not surprised. I've been hearing/reading complaints about indie titles (mostly erotica) for months now.


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## 41352 (Apr 4, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Not surprised. I've been hearing/reading complaints about indie titles (mostly erotica) for months now.


From whom?


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Yes,

Just received an e-mail similar to yours. I have had (I see they did, in fact, remove my entire account) several non-fiction Alt. Health and New Age titles there. I'm seriously annoyed by their shenanigans in the form of alarming emails over the past few days. The company was irresponsible in allowing rape-porn-erotica at their site. Personally, I didn't like seeing my own romantic, mildly erotic (think Victorian) titles next to those, either. But, they are the ones who allowed it and they are blaming people like me - at least, that's how it appears from my point of view.

Incidentally, I was in the top spot for non-fic a few times over there after selling over only one or two titles. I was up against mainstream, traditional publishers. So, that tells you how few sales they are making, at least, at Bookstrand. A big goose egg.

What a waste of time!

And, something else, I'm getting fed up with the sh*tty tone of some of these off-brand distributors. I'm referring to the nature of the AllRomance e-mail. I'm seriously annoyed right now - it's getting to where I need a sedative just to check my e-mail box.

SS


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> This after the recent AllRomance debacle.... *sigh*


OT: What is going on with AllRomance?


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Blogger and reader friends who read nearly exclusively romance and erotica.

Several stopped buying from AllRomance months ago because they got sick of the "I Slept With My StepDaddy" books. I wasn't surprised with the blow up this weekend about that, since it's been brewing for a while now. Most won't buy from Smashwords now. So they've gone back to Samhain, Ellora's Cave, Decadent, and the like directly. That way, they can steer clear of these books.

It's really sad because every time a friend or relative gets an ereader, I get an email/Facebook message asking why the books suck compare to what's in the bookstores. I have to explain the entire publishing world, and then I'm asked how to avoid the indie titles because they want books like what's in the bookstores.

Again, it's sad because there is no need for it. However, I can't blame my one relative (i.e.) who reads a book every other day to spend half a night sampling to find two days worth of books. She is used to walking into a store, reading the back cover and picking up the book. She wants that same experience for ebooks.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> OT: What is going on with AllRomance?


Let me see if I can find the link, but AllRomance has been letting porn (let's call it what it is), and the bad stuff at that, on their site for a while now and people have begun snapping. There was one particular blog rant I read yesterday listing how they never wanted to see another step-parent quasi incest title ever again...


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

My issue is the rape-is-beautiful stuff.  I saw some horrid-sounding blurbs to this effect at Bookstrand after the first e-mail in which they brought their little problem to my attention.

I'm sorry I ever experimented with writing erotica now because when I say erotica, my stories are getting lumped in with this kind of thing!

Maybe this is why AR is trying to separate into two categories.  Clearly, people do not have the same ideas about what erotica is or what is erotic writing.  

Most of my stories have some other merit and include a little more intense descriptions of romantic encounters, but this is not the main point of the story.  They are written for the enjoyment of women.  And, they deal with real problems women face, although this is woven into a paranormal romance.  A lot goes into them.  And, I deeply resent being lumped in with the rest.  I now wish I'd never written them.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> My issue is the rape-is-beautiful stuff. I saw some horrid-sounding blurbs.


Oh, I know. Awful, awful, awful.



> Most of my stories have some other merit and include a little more intense descriptions of romantic encounters, but this is not the main point of the story. They are written for the enjoyment of women. And, they deal with real problems women face, although this is woven into a paranormal romance. A lot goes into them. And, I deeply resent being lumped in with the rest. I now wish I'd never written them.


So you write well-written erotica?


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> OT: What is going on with AllRomance?


Over the weekend ARe announced it would be separating it's current Erotica category into Erotic Romance and Erotica. Hang on, let me find that email...

Aha, here we go:


> This communication is being sent out to all publishers since it involves a process change:
> 
> From the beginning, we conceived of All Romance as a niche bookstore that would sell a wide variety of romance novels. Our primary demographic is adult women who enjoy reading romance subgenres featuring stories between two consenting adults. We opened with an "Erotica" category and, until fairly recently, that category was dominated primarily by Erotic Romance, which was our intent. "Vampires/Werewolves" was intended to carry romances featuring Vampires and Werewolves. "Gay" was intended to carry romances featuring Gay men. Over the past few months we've begun to receive more and more pure Erotica titles. Admittedly, there is a segment of our readership that wants to read Erotica. There is another segment that prefers to read Erotic Romance. Still others enjoy both, or neither.
> 
> ...


At the same time they inactivated a LOT of books, mainly in the pseudo-incest and dubious consent categories, and there are signs pointing towards them going after BDSM content next. It's been an...interesting week so far.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Oh, I know. Awful, awful, awful.
> 
> So you write well-written erotica?


Well, I think it is. I'm very shy about marketing, though.

I have a B.A. in English Lit. with a strong emphasis on the classics. My stories have some "psychological horror" elements in them that I'd call Radcliffian - classic Gothic horror. Some are kind of Twilight-zonish in their representation of the surroundings. Most of the stories are romantic, involving a relationship between a woman and a vampire. One focuses on a woman reclaiming herself through a romantic sexual encounter with a strange man who is a vampire. I have only one short where I try to show off my erotica-writing skills, which involves a female vampire seducing a man who tries to rob her.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you (I'm a lurker here, so I know your interests) that there is such a thing as well-written erotica. John Cleland did it - and what he wrote is really a marvel from a literary perspective, how he said things sometimes without actually saying them. And, at other times, he was more explicit.

SS


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Sara Pierce said:


> Over the weekend ARe announced it would be separating it's current Erotica category into Erotic Romance and Erotica. Hang on, let me find that email...
> 
> Aha, here we go:
> At the same time they inactivated a LOT of books, mainly in the pseudo-incest and dubious consent categories, and there are signs pointing towards them going after BDSM content next. It's been an...interesting week so far.


Oh! I didn't know there was an email, too! I only knew that there was a lot of comments this weekend (far more than usual, and from people who don't usually say things like this)...but that makes sense in context now. Nice.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Sara Pierce said:


> At the same time they inactivated a LOT of books, mainly in the pseudo-incest and dubious consent categories, and there are signs pointing towards them going after BDSM content next. It's been an...interesting week so far.


The dubious consent group really irritates me because that's not the purpose of erotica.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> My issue is the rape-is-beautiful stuff. I saw some horrid-sounding blurbs to this effect at Bookstrand after the first e-mail in which they brought their little problem to my attention.


Rape-is-beautiful and dubious consent stuff has been going on in romance novels and erotic romance novels by a number of publishers forever--it's not an erotica issue. There are a number of Siren books, the publishing arm of Bookstrand, with forced seduction and dubious consent in them--it's in their writers' guidelines. And classic romance novels aren't called bodice-rippers for nothing. How many of those stories have a reluctant female being "seduced" rather, um, let's say aggressively by the male, and she ends up doe-eyed over him later. No only means no, apparently, if she doesn't have an orgasm and ride off into the sunset with him. Erotica is what it is, but romance is full of that kind of thing and always has been.


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## AKLoggie (Aug 13, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> The dubious consent group really irritates me because that's not the purpose of erotica.


Well, I sure am glad we have you to decide what the purpose of erotica is, and what people should be turned on by. All erotica is to arouse and titillate. That is it's purpose.

It's not like I'm in to daddy stories, or even anything but the mildest of dub con. But let's be honest, Paypal openly said they consider BDSM between consenting adults to be rape.

And let us be very clear, there are an almost endless number of 'romance' mainstream titles that are rape under the color of authority. All the Harlequin titles about blackmail. It's a land of sketch and gray areas.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

AKLoggie said:


> Well, I sure am glad we have you to decide what the purpose of erotica is, and what people should be turned on by.


Oh yawn. The censorship police are here. Let's all settle down now.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Mcoorlim said:


> The purpose of erotica being...?


http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/A2163070

If you are actually wondering, there is a far amount of information about the difference between erotica and porn. (And there is a far amount of stuff about what is porn and badly-written porn.).


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

Thank you all for the info on AllRomance.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> They banned actual incest from their virtual shelves a year ago. Why wouldn't they follow suit now and ban pseudo-incest titles?


I thought the incest (actual, not quasi) was because it is illegal in some places.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> Rape-is-beautiful and dubious consent stuff has been going on in romance novels and erotic romance novels by a number of publishers forever--it's not an erotica issue. There are a number of Siren books, the publishing arm of Bookstrand, with forced seduction and dubious consent in them--it's in their writers' guidelines. And classic romance novels aren't called bodice-rippers for nothing. How many of those stories have a reluctant female being "seduced" rather, um, let's say aggressively by the male, and she ends up doe-eyed over him later. No only means no, apparently, if she doesn't have an orgasm and ride off into the sunset with him. Erotica is what it is, but romance is full of that kind of thing and always has been.


The rape fantasy genre of the 70s and 80s (it's high point) is a reflection of the culture. Dubious consent still exists in romance, but it's definitely dying down since publishers are OK with putting out books where the woman is happy to have sex outside of marriage (and that the publishing house won't be burned to the ground for putting it out).


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Mcoorlim said:


> Idk Krista that seems ridiculously subjective. What are the qualifications for an arbitrator of literary merit, and what are the qualifications to set those qualifications? And is h2g2 said authority?


Oh for heaven's sake. I posted the first link to show that it was fairly discussed topic in literary circles. If you are interested, read a couple of articles. Or not and just fight with people on the internet.



> Wait, if consensual BDSM is rape, is Paypal implying that rape is consensual BDSM?


As for me? I don't care who publishes what. AllRomance wants to punt indies? Go ahead. AllRomance wants to only sell indies? Go ahead. Apple doesn't want erotica? Go ahead. Amazon won't sell books with the word green in it? Go ahead.

Paypal is known to randomly make stuff up as they go along. Look at their donate button rules


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## AKLoggie (Aug 13, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Oh yawn. The censorship police are here. Let's all settle down now.


Yeah, that's right, I'm the censorship police for pointing out the problem with, say, censoring content you don't like.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Mcoorlim said:


> So the porn/erotica division is a matter of cultural relativity?


Seriously? Are you actually reading what I wrote, or are just confusing everything on purpose? I have to run, so I'm just going to reply to this quickly. Try to keep up.

Shelley mentioned specifically the romance-rape fantasy issue. I pointed out, quickly and without writing a 18 paragraph post that everyone would skip anyway because the attention span on KB is under 40 words, that it came about as a reflection of the culture of the time. Readers were becoming more comfortable with sex outside of marriage, but culture wasn't there yet.

It's more complicate than that, but you can look up the history of the rape fantasy in modern romance and its origins.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Then you're stuck trying to find a publisher again. Oh noez!


For every site that won't take it, another crops up (or someone creates one). And if all else fails, there'll always be Smashwords


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Is ARe banning some erotica titles? Have authors had their titles removed?

I don't see a problem with the recategorization over there. That makes a lot of sense to me. But I'm interested in knowing about what is being banned.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> That was the assumption at the time. What else? But Amazon wasn't forthcoming about its reasons. They just banned incest and bestiality.
> 
> Now BN, ARE (and others, who haven't come forward yet) are banning PSEUDO-incest, bestiality and rape (even couched as BDSM). No telling how far it may go.


One quick thing - are they banning because *they* don't agree with it, or because their *readers* are complaining? Apple not wanting porn apps because they are a family-company (did they ever do the porn apps?) is different than a company losing money because their readers are unhappy.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Well, what is disturbing about this whole thing and what made me come out of lurk-mode today is the fact that Bookstrand, while complaining that they were given no notice by PayPal to remove the disturbing content or risk losing their account, had no qualms about simply removing ALL of the contents in my account including Alternative Health and New Age titles without notice.

I find that both hypocritical and really scary.  Who else is going to start nuking accounts?  And, on what basis?

It's unnerving.  I'm having trouble writing today because of this.

SS


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2012)

A bookstore has a right to sell, or chose not to sell, any sort of product.  If the store gets tons of complains about books, and the majority of those books come from self-published authors, then you get rid of the self-published authors.  You can say "Oh, well, they ALLOWED it so it is there fault!" all you want.  But it appears they realize it was their fault and made a decision to fix it.  Their choices were:

A. Set up a review process in which each self-published book is independently vetted by a staff member to ensure it doesn't cross the line or
B. Scrap allowing indies to upload 

Which do you do?  Obviously, indies as a whole were not generating enough income for the bookseller to justify the continued alienation of thier target demographic.  

The indie community, not just erotica authors but indies in general, needs to come to terms with certain realities.  Namely, police ourselves or get policed.  There is another thread here on KB about an indie who got another author removed from Amazon over PLR (Private label rights) books.  THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN MORE.  We need to police our own, or eventually the stores are going to do it and we'll all suffer.  There are cullings going on with PLENTY of the smaller eretailers because their core demographics are getting alienated by the rush of indie books of questionable legality, not just quality.  Not just erotica books.  It is happening everywhere.  These small sites can't compete with Amazon on price or inventory size, but make up for it by having loyal customer bases and catering to specific types of readers.  And they are not going to risk losing those customers just because indies can't behave themselves.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> BTW, dubious consent is *not* dying out at all. One of the top fantasies among women ages 18-34 is the rape fantasy. Still. Forty years after the 70's. It's one of the most popular erotica sellers in existence.


Erotica is pretty straightforward consent, most of the time. BDSM is not dubious consent, in my opinion.

Erotic romance and regular old romance seem to have a lot more no-no-no-no-_yes_ in them. Erotica's often just a big ole yes from the get-go.  And I agree that dubious consent isn't dying, in romance or erotica, but I really think its main playground is romance. Criticism leveled at erotica for it is pretty misplaced, IMO.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Ok, I really have to go. Don't say anything important until I get back.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I think people are missing something very important whether you like erotica or not and if you do and don't like porn where you draw the line between the two.

Bookstrand and All Romance, publishing companies with their own audiences and understanding of the market didn't make the choice of what they wanted on their sites or didn't. In fact, it's pretty clear from the last few weeks of both sites flailing around trying to create an acceptable TOS that they were perfectly happy with these books being on their sites.

It was Pay Pal, a financial processing company with no literary credentials whatsoever basing its decisions on the terms of service for ebay an auction site for physical items, that made that choice about what those publishers would be allowed to publish and what readers would be allowed to read.

(And Ms Kitt beat me to it while I was writing. FWIW absolute fangirl of your writing.)


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## zzzzzzz (Dec 6, 2011)

That's what was bothering me as well, Katie.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Yes, they've been asked to remove titles containing "barely legal" (their term) sex: sex between 18-19 yo girls and older men. Also "pseudo-incest" (sex between relatives that aren't biologically related. Adopted or step) as well as any non-consent, dubious consent, rape and bestiality titles.
> 
> If authors haven't removed them, the titles have been removed for them.
> 
> It doesn't have anything (immediately) to do with readers. It's Paypal. They came in and said they were in violation of their Terms of Service. I blogged the details here.


Thank you, Selena. I appreciate the information.


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2012)

> Dear Indie Author,
> 
> We have made a decision to no longer maintain most indie author accounts at BookStrand.com. Therefore, we are deactivating all titles associated with your account and no new uploads will be accepted. Your final distribution payment will be disbursed to you within 30 days and your account will be closed. During this time you will still be able to access your sales report from your account.
> 
> ...


Emphasis mine. That doesn't sound like OMG PAYPAL MADE US DO IT! That sounds like they were losing customers. If it was really a PayPal issue, there are other payment processing services. Paypal is one of the easier shopping carts to set up, but certainly not the only one.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> It was Pay Pal, a financial processing company with no literary credentials whatsoever basing its decisions on the terms of service for ebay an auction site for physical items, that made that choice about what those publishers would be allowed to publish and what readers would be allowed to read.


Absofreakinglutely.

If Paypal decided today that writing about paranormal topics was wicked and evil and against their TOS, NOBODY would say "Oh well, there are other places!" People's eyes would bleed. But since it's erotica, eh, who cares.

(I do.)


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## Claudia Summers (Feb 21, 2012)

Yeah, this is quite obviously a Paypal deal, not based on a few complaints from prudish readers who flipped out over the idea of pseudo-incest or are clueless about what BSDM is. I'm sure they get complaints about gay erotica as well. It's just Paypal flexing, BS have said as much.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Emphasis mine. That doesn't sound like OMG PAYPAL MADE US DO IT! That sounds like they were losing customers. If it was really a PayPal issue, there are other payment processing services. Paypal is one of the easier shopping carts to set up, but certainly not the only one.


Julie, the two emails that went to indie authors BEFORE that one clearly stated that it WAS Paypal making them change their TOS and remove tons of titles. This is just the across the board solution after they removed those and it clearly wasn't enough. You'll note their Paypal is STILL not operational.

The emails were very clear. But I do think they wanted to get rid of indies, and this was a way to do it while placing blame elsewhere. But Paypal started this the other day, and Bookstrand laid the blame at their feet.


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2012)

> Okay, the condescension? That I have a problem with. Kindly refrain from that in the future.


She's Canadian. We allow them to condescend to make up for their horrid health care system, the endless arctic weather, and their conflict over Quebec.


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

I'll be honest: despite being in the affected category in having some of my titles removed/censored/banned, I don't fault ARe or BS for doing so. It's their site, their rules, and I'll honor them. I began writing PI only because there was a booming market, and despite the glut of these books on virtual shelves I still make a tidy income off my relatively few titles. This to me is a business - nothing I write is illegal, and the subject matter while distasteful to many has a huge market. If you'd asked me a year ago what I thought of PI, I'd probably wrinkle my nose and make a barfing sign.

No, their rules and regulations don't bother me, it's their implementation thereof. They gave us authors no notice of the TOS changes, no clues they would be shutting us down. One minute they (BS in this case) have an Indie section, the next they axe us. Their TOS updates with NO notification, with many who were in compliance when they published suddenly blindsided when their accounts are cancelled. ARe similarly gave no warnings: they Deactivated our books, *then told us that the mere act of logging into our account meant we agreed to these changes.* No ticky box to reclick, no amendments to accept - any "contract" we signed with them was amended without our knowledge or consent, then the mere act of asking "Why?" or looking them up to see for ourselves somehow meant we agreed? 

That's what has me disappointed, and more than a little bit worried for the future.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

*I got the following panicked sounding email from Bookstrand at 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 16:*

_Dear Publisher,

We were informed by PayPal, without notice, and by our credit card processing company, that we are required to remove all titles at BookStrand.com with content containing incest, pseudo incest, rape, and bestiality, effective immediately.

We request that you immediately log into your account and unpublish all titles that contain the restricted content. If you have uploaded titles containing restricted content and do not unpublish these titles as we are requesting, we will deactivate your entire publisher account, which will remove all your titles from sale.

We urge you to log into your account and remove these titles as soon as possible to prevent your account from being deactivated today.

If your account is deactivated, it may or may not be reinstated in the future. After deactivation, requests for reinstatement will require us to go through your catalog, which may take several weeks or longer for us to process.

For your reference, please review our policies regarding titles that are restricted or suppressed: http://www.bookstrand.com/suppressed.

Meanwhile, we have disabled the Indie Titles page at www.bookstrand.com/indie until all affected titles have been removed.

Thank you for your prompt cooperation.

Here are instructions to unpublish your titles..._

*About 2 hours later, this one came:*

_Dear Publisher/Indie Author,

***This message is being sent to all publishers and indie authors who upload content to BookStrand.com***

Please note that the earlier communication from us regarding PayPal's restriction of content is valid. PayPal has deactivated our account and will reinstate payment processing at BookStrand once we have removed all content that PayPal considers obscene, which includes incest, pseudo-incest, bestiality and rape for sexual titillation.

If you are a publisher or indie author who has not uploaded titles with restricted content to BookStrand.com, you are not affected by our request. For the most part, titles published by indie authors are in violation of PayPal's and credit card processor policies._

*This one promised that accounts like mine would not be affected - not to worry! Right?

Then, Feb. 17 at 2:50 p.m., this one came:*

_Dear Publisher/Indie Author,

Firstly, thank you for your support in promptly removing titles that PayPal has identified as "obscene."

We are working diligently to unfreeze our PayPal account, mainly so that our customers can continue paying for their purchases using their preferred method of payment.

Please note that regardless of PayPal's disruption by suspending our vendor account, all sales will be paid out to publishers and indie authors as they become due and payable. The next scheduled distribution is April 30th, 2012. You do have the option of changing your payment method from PayPal to to Direct Deposit to a U.S. bank account in your BookStrand.com account settings.

We may or may not consider finding an alternative to PayPal in the future. This is not only a PayPal issue. We were told by PayPal they have to comply with Visa/MasterCard regulations so that they do not get fined. We will also comply to all minimal requirements to continue to process online credit card payments through Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.

***

Secondly, "keyword search" played a major role in PayPal's identifying content on our site as "obscene." Searches for incest or rape or bestiality produced results containing titles considered to be in violation. Without notice, our account was suspended and our PayPal processing gateway disabled, requiring our immediate attention. We were told to remove content containing these themes.

If your book is NOT about incest or rape for sexual titillation, or does not contain sex scenes with a naturally occurring animal that will not shift into a sentient being, we recommend that you go through your titles (including blurbs and excerpts) and remove the words rape, incest, or bestiality and substitute with a more "appropriate" word. Otherwise, it will show up in a keyword search, which may get your book banned.

Your book will be considered for reinstatement if you feel that a title you published has been blocked erroneously, i.e., rape was not for sexual titillation, or your book was mistaken for "bestiality" when it actually is a sentient shape-shifter (i.e., sex involving dragon-shifters, wolf-shifters, etc.).

If you want reinstatement of any of your titles, please submit a ticket at the Contact Us link http://www.bookstrand.com/contact-us. Please include your publisher name, the exact title of your book, and the phrase "For reinstatement" in the body of your message. Do not respond to this email with your requests because it will not go to the right staff member for handling.

Please note that it may take a week or more for reinstatement because we have to process each title one by one.

***

Thirdly, please review our rules for uploaded content at www.bookstrand.com/suppressed. These rules will be updated in the upcoming days to clarify any vagueness or to remove confusion. PayPal and credit card processing rules influenced some of these criteria as they pertain to the words incest, rape, and bestiality. However, our criteria on the Suppressed page are not based entirely on what is considered as legal or illegal regarding consenting adults. Our criteria are based on what BookStrand is willing or not willing to sell on our site.

Now that the majority of titles containing these three words have been removed from BookStrand, we will reactivate the Indie Titles page shortly, which was the page that had the most PayPal "violations." _

*Then, today came the one posted by the O.P.

What kind of way is this to do business?*


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2012)

Sara Pierce said:


> No, their rules and regulations don't bother me, it's their implementation thereof. They gave us authors no notice of the TOS changes, no clues they would be shutting us down. One minute they (BS in this case) have an Indie section, the next they axe us. Their TOS updates with NO notification, with many who were in compliance when they published suddenly blindsided when their accounts are cancelled. ARe similarly gave no warnings: they Deactivated our books, *then told us that the mere act of logging into our account meant we agreed to these changes.* No ticky box to reclick, no amendments to accept - any "contract" we signed with them was amended without our knowledge or consent, then the mere act of asking "Why?" or looking them up to see for ourselves somehow meant we agreed?


THAT is another issue entirely, and a legitimate gripe. But keep in mind that your Amazon TOS has the same "we can change the rules at any time" clause. This is an ongoing problem with internet-based businesses in general. Almost every company has a clause like that in their user agreements. And you as an individual have very little control over that. It is one of the vital reasons authors need to embrace as many outlets as possible so that when one clamps down you have somewhere else to go.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Seriously? Are you actually reading what I wrote, or are just confusing everything on purpose? I have to run, so I'm just going to reply to this quickly. Try to keep up.
> 
> Shelley mentioned specifically the romance-rape fantasy issue


Sorry, Krista, I got to my 40 words and lost focus....  (Do contractions count as one word or two?) Krista, I know you're competing for the Queen of Mean, (see Not Quite Kindle), but... 

Folks, let's keep it civil. I've already locked one thread today.

Betsy 
KB Moderator


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Sara Pierce said:


> I'll be honest: despite being in the affected category in having some of my titles removed/censored/banned, I don't fault ARe or BS for doing so. It's their site, their rules, and I'll honor them. I began writing PI only because there was a booming market, and despite the glut of these books on virtual shelves I still make a tidy income off my relatively few titles. This to me is a business - nothing I write is illegal, and the subject matter while distasteful to many has a huge market. If you'd asked me a year ago what I thought of PI, I'd probably wrinkle my nose and make a barging sign.
> 
> No, their rules and regulations don't bother me, it's their implementation thereof. They gave us authors no notice of the TOS changes, no clues they would be shutting us down. One minute they (BS in this case) have an Indie section, the next they axe us. Their TOS updates with NO notification, with many who were in compliance when they published suddenly blindsided when their accounts are cancelled. ARe similarly gave no warnings: they Deactivated our books, *then told us that the mere act of logging into our account meant we agreed to these changes.* No ticky box to reclick, no amendments to accept - any "contract" we signed with them was amended without our knowledge or consent, then the mere act of asking "Why?" or looking them up to see for ourselves somehow meant we agreed?
> 
> That's what has me disappointed, and more than a little bit worried for the future.


Erotica writers are like the red-headed step-children of writing. Or the ones kept in the basement so the neighbors never know they're there. 

It would be one thing for them to decide this on their own. They absolutely have the right to choose what to publish. But they're being bullied by PayPal into removing legal erotica that they were allowing before. That's vastly different.

The problem here is that the places don't really want the erotica anymore anyway, so they're giving in. But when Paypal goes back to Bookstrand and says all those Siren titles with BDSM (which they claim is rape) will have to go because that's against our TOS, then they won't be so okay with it.

It's really a shame, because I still contend that if Paypal said paranormal is wicked and against our values and TOS, there'd be such an uproar about unfair business practices and censorship, because so many love paranormal stuff. But because so many people hate erotica, or at least don't see any value in it, few care. It's the same thing, really. They're telling bookstore which legal topics are acceptable, which does affect what's easily available for people to buy, and what it's more profitable for people to write.

And if they can so easily tell major ebook retailers that they have to remove titles on topics that are perfectly legal (fake incest, rape fantasies and sex involving 18 and 19-year-old girls is all legal), then what's to stop them from demanding other legal things be removed?


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## Ras Ashcroft (Feb 8, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Emphasis mine. That doesn't sound like OMG PAYPAL MADE US DO IT! That sounds like they were losing customers. If it was really a PayPal issue, there are other payment processing services. Paypal is one of the easier shopping carts to set up, but certainly not the only one.


Alright, as someone who runs a business for the day job in the money processing sector, I can't even begin to stress how wrong this is.

Whether or not Paypal are the major culprits in this particular case, it is incorrect to say 'you can just up sticks and use another payment processing service', given Paypal's massive (and unfortunate in my opinion) level of dominance and worldwide usage in online payments. Unfortunately, larger retailers would currently have to have a hell of a better reason to drop Paypal.

Regarding the email, they are under no obligation to inform their customers that they were under duress from Paypal.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

The other thing about paypal is there are two reasons not to buy from Amazon/B&N, either you have a third party reader that won't accept their files or you don't have a credit card or don't want the charge on it so you want to use paypal. I'm guessing PP direct payments are a very big deal to the indies.

FWIW the reason I brought up ebay is they're paypal's parent company and I haven't been able to find any indication of any sort of terms of service for paypal other than obscenity, but ebay does have a very specific definition of obscenity and it was almost word for word what BS sent out when they first got cut off.



> Obscene materials, while not easy to define, aren't allowed on eBay. For some guidance, we prohibit items depicting or describing bestiality, necrophilia, rape, scat, and incest (real or fictionalized).


Certainly there were issues with a ton of pseudo-incest stories, all of them apparently selling like hotcakes, but I really hadn't seen much in the way of necrophilia, scat, or beastiality on any of the epublishing sites. So why are those suddenly of concern to BS? Because they're part of ebay/pay pal's specific TOS.

And the deal with paypal is generally that someone just cuts off your account, freeze your money, and possibly start refunding customers without your permission. Google "paypal" and "regretsy" if you want the most vivid example. So when BS got hit by paypal, they probably weren't just cut off from new payments, but probably had a month or more worth of payments at risk.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> A bookstore has a right to sell, or chose not to sell, any sort of product. If the store gets tons of complains about books, and the majority of those books come from self-published authors, then you get rid of the self-published authors. You can say "Oh, well, they ALLOWED it so it is there fault!" all you want. But it appears they realize it was their fault and made a decision to fix it. Their choices were:
> 
> A. Set up a review process in which each self-published book is independently vetted by a staff member to ensure it doesn't cross the line or
> B. Scrap allowing indies to upload
> ...


There IS in fact another choice.

Make a TOS forbidding what people are complaining about, notify indie authors and then enforce your TOS if people violate it.

Let me remind you that there are one heck of a lot of indies out there who do NOT do porn/ erotica/ rape/ BDSM. It would have been very possible to tell indie authors these are our new terms, if you don't comply your account will be closed.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Ras Ashcroft said:


> Alright, as someone who runs a business for the day job in the money processing sector, I can't even begin to stress how wrong this is.
> 
> Whether or not Paypal are the major culprits in this particular case, it is incorrect to say 'you can just up sticks and use another payment processing service', given Paypal's massive (and unfortunate in my opinion) level of dominance and worldwide usage in online payments. Unfortunately, larger retailers would currently have to have a hell of a better reason to drop Paypal.
> 
> Regarding the email, they are under no obligation to inform their customers that they were under duress from Paypal.


These e-mails were not sent to customers. They were sent to publishers, sometimes called "partners" at some distributors sites, meaning we have a relationship of sorts. This is a very shabby way to treat anybody - and this is how business is done, at least, in the U.S. in the past several years - no regard for other people... no regard for those of us who try to do the right thing, especially.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I think a store can decide what genres and titles it wants to carry. But it seems really heavy handed when PayPal or Visa comes along and decides for you what your store may sell. I'm sure I'll have little problem using Visa or PayPal to buy adult videos or adult toys or using a CC for an escort service or using it at a "gentleman's" club to pay for champagne and lap dances etc. 

To single out ebooks does seem to apply the brush unequally. My escort service still takes Visa and Paypal. What's good for the goose...

PayPal is owned by Ebay and Ebay has their very own "Adult" section. I'm sure one can use PayPal or Visa there.

Am I allowed to buy a book by DeSade, he surely wrote some twisted stuff. What makes a payment processor the judge of writing? 

Somehow having payment processors as the gatekeepers and enforcers of public morality and dictating reading tastes goes overboard. It's an odious sort of censorship which prevents the merchant from selling a product in a heavy handed way.

It seems very strange to single out erotic books? Is a book burning next?


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## Ras Ashcroft (Feb 8, 2012)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> These e-mails were not sent to customers. They were sent to publishers, sometimes called "partners" at some distributors sites, meaning we have a relationship of sorts. This is a very shabby way to treat anybody - and this is how business is done, at least, in the U.S. in the past several years - no regard for other people... no regard for those of us who try to do the right thing, especially.


That's pretty much what I meant, i.e. the publishers, not the readers themselves.

Yeah I agree, it's a shabby way to do business. It would be very annoying if it was under the influence of Paypal, which would be highly unsurprising given Paypal's record in meddling with the affairs of its client businesses.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sorry, Krista, I got to my 40 words and lost focus....  (Do contractions count as one word or two?) Krista, I know you're competing for the Queen of Mean, (see Not Quite Kindle), but...


Ok ok I'm done causing trouble.  Actually folks, in all honestly, I don't actually care what people sell. I just like arguing and I knew this one would get folks in a fuss. _<<News flash. --Betsy_

I will say this, however: companies are allowed to sell (or not sell) what they want. If this really is a paypal thing, one assumes paypal isn't taking money from porn sites as well (ha!). However, let's say that is true. Then, there are other sites that use other means of payment other than Paypal (including direct credit card without using paypal).

I do also argue with Jr Tomlin's last post, re: the better way to handle it would be to send out messages stating the new TOS. That way, new offenders can pull them.

I can't see the posts further up the page because on the bus and my phone won't show that many. Can someone else just take over for me?


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Ok ok I'm done causing trouble.  Actually folks, in all honestly, I don't actually care what people sell. I just like arguing and I knew this one would get folks in a fuss.
> 
> I will say this, however: companies are allowed to sell (or not sell) what they want. If this really is a paypal thing, one assumes paypal isn't taking money from porn sites as well (ha!). However, let's say that is true. Then, there are other sites that use other means of payment other than Paypal (including direct credit card without using paypal).
> 
> ...


I posted the entire series of e-mails from Bookstrand. You'll find them at the bottom of page 2 of this thread (when you get off the bus, of course). To clarify, they did send an e-mail with a link to the TOS, stating that they would be updated. But, even those of us who were in compliance and whose titles were primarily non-erotica had our entire publisher account removed - all of it. After the thanks for our cooperation, etc. crapola. Frankly, I'm deeply annoyed... and concerned by this.

And, I disagree with the person who said there would be a fuss if "paranormal" were suddenly singled out. I write on occult topics and live in an area notorious for evangelism and the KKK, so this is something that I do worry about on a personal level and given the way things are going in this country the past 10 years, I wouldn't be surprised if this did happen and we would be just as helpless to do anything about it as we are in this situation.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> It seems very strange to single out erotic books? Is a book burning next?


No, I wouldn't take it that far. But a topic that more people want to read about could very well be. Then maybe it'll make a difference.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Bookstrand did send out new TOS and they asked for changes to be made to what was listed on the site, but it's been kind of a moving target. The indie section went off the front page then back down, now it's gone entirely. My suspicion is they kept trying to placate the Pay Pal monster and kept getting told it's not enough until finally the next thing was to just stop handling indie authors entirely. An even bigger question is whether even axing the entire indie category is enough to placate paypal.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> And, I disagree with the person who said there would be a fuss if "paranormal" were suddenly singled out.


You don't believe writers would flip their lids? With all the paranormal romance and vampires and witches and werewolves and even elves and orcs and fantasy stuff that could conceivably fall into that category, depending on the story? Oh my god, seriously? The writing community would go into convulsions.



> This is something that I do worry about on a personal level and given the way things are going in this country the past 10 years, I wouldn't be surprised if this did happen and we would be just as helpless to do anything about it as we are in this situation.


I don't know how helpless we'd be, but that wasn't my point. I actually think the backlash from writers and readers would be so huge as to be embarrassing for whatever organization started it all. There are always going to be those who won't let their kids watch Harry Potter because it's evil. But I think someone trying to get Harry Potter removed from ebookstores is still going to get metaphorically slaughtered in the street.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> You don't believe writers would flip their lids? With all the paranormal romance and elves and orcs and fantasy stuff that could conceivably fall into that category? Oh my god, seriously? The writing community would go into convulsions.


BOOM! All paranormal from Amazon goes missing.

I can hear the screams of teenager girls from here...

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> You don't believe writers would flip their lids? With all the paranormal romance and vampires and witches and werewolves and even elves and orcs and fantasy stuff that could conceivably fall into that category, depending on the story? Oh my god, seriously? The writing community would go into convulsions.
> 
> I don't know how helpless we'd be, but that wasn't my point. I actually think the backlash from writers and readers would be so huge as to be embarrassing for whatever organization started it all. There are always going to be those who won't let their kids watch Harry Potter because it's evil. But I think someone trying to get Harry Potter removed from ebookstores is still going to get metaphorically slaughtered in the street.


Yes, I think writers would flip over it. Some of us, like me, are flipping over what's happening with the erotica shakeup at just one distributor, which is at the center of this thread. But, I'm looking at things from the part of the forest I'm standing in to use a metaphor. And, I see a lot of crazy people in control of things right now and they always seem to get their way in the end. The real power is concentrated in the hands of only a few people. If they decide to do anything, there's no one who really has the power to stop them. I don't think, when it comes down to it, that it's about money or how many sales they make. It's about someone exercising their power over someone else.

And, like I said, I live in an area (not Albequerque, by the way - that's just my profile) that is literally ruled by certain immoral (in my view) people who decide what is morally right and wrong for everyone else. Over the past few years we've had an increasing number of fundies here and they hate everybody who isn't them. And, if you're not one of them, you'd better pretend.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

A very slippery slope when a large corporation that is a dominant payment processor sets itself up as the judge of what books a store may carry and that readers may purchase based upon their moral outlook. I can well understand the Supreme Court deciding a book should not be available--but not a payment processor like PayPal. Where does it stop and who are they to censor writing?

Next thing you know Vladamir Nabakov's Lolita is banned along with De Sade and while we're at it PayPal doesn't really like DH Lawerance or Henry Miller and that Fahrenheit 451 is too violent. 

But I can buy porn and escorts and champagne and vibrators--but I can't read. Crazy. Soldiers have died defending our freedoms and PayPal can limit those freedoms?


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## Lola Swain (Sep 12, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> *What kind of way is this to do business?*


Yep, you received the same communications the rest of us did. You were right, they are lumping all of us smut peddlers together. I am personally thankful for the company I keep with my fellow erotica authors and couldn't think of better people to be mucking around in the mire with


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Don't forget the middle-aged soccer-moms who are also reading it on their Kindles.
> 
> That and pseudo-incest porn.


Can soccer moms screams as loud as a gaggle of teenage girls? Shouldn't they all have a iced latte on straw in their mouths while texting on their blackberries


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> But I can buy porn and escorts and champagne and vibrators--but I can't read. Crazy. Soldiers have died defending our freedoms and PayPal can limit those freedoms?


I honestly can't see up the thread right now, so is it 100% certain that this is SOLELY because of PayPal? I ask only because does PayPal allow you to purchase regular, old school porn videos off the web?


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Well, if it were any other genre the mainstream press would be all over it, not just on a censorship side, but also in the wake of the Regretsy scandal, the PayPal abusing their power angle.

The ironic thing is that what's made erotica so popular on ebooks is exactly the same thing that's making it hard to defend: anonymity.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I honestly can't see up the thread right now, so is it 100% certain that this is SOLELY because of PayPal? I ask only because does PayPal allow you to purchase regular, old school porn videos off the web?


According to BS (good name for them!)'s first one or two e-mails, they claimed it was both PP and their CC processor.

Today, the schizos are saying that they've decided to return to some nebulous earlier "business model" that doesn't involve independent publishing.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

For authors of other genres it's really easy to ignore the deletion of erotica authors from various bookseller sites. However, this new brand of censorship is coming for the rest of us.

Think about it.

It is no coincidence that Bookstrand deletes the indies with the specious claims of 'paypal violations' and then retains their Siren imprint with the same content. (And initially the suspended accounts were the erotica ones.)

The. Same. Content.

Then we have the compounding factor of Paypal and their sense of morality (which, to be fair, is dictated by credit card companies). If Paypal really does think BDSM is synonymous with rape, then I guess Bookstrand et al will be removing Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books next, right? No? Hmmmm.

This has potential to spread on several fronts; publishers vs. indies and Paypal against all authors, because if they are going to target one author, they have to target every author otherwise their claims of 'moral clause' don't hold up.

Further, if book distributors are not consistent in their application of rules, that may open the door for a lawsuit. Why should Bookstrand’s imprint be able to keep a Pseudo Incest title when the rest of us cannot? Sounds like a serious conflict of interest to me especially when they lay the blame publicly on Paypal's morality clauses.

They way I see it at least one imprint found their chance to even the playing field and get rid of those pesky indies and it's a model other imprints/publishers might follow to try and gain market share. Meanwhile, Paypal is trying to control their costs by staying out of credit companies’ more expensive ‘high risk’ category, hence the arrival of the moral police. 

I hope people can set aside their distaste for erotica and feel the chill of the coming storm.

Don't get too distracted by the T&A.

Michelle


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Can soccer moms screams as loud as a gaggle of teenage girls? Shouldn't they all have a iced latte on straw in their mouths while texting on their blackberries


Troublemaker. 

And were you agreeing or arguing with me? *scratches head*

Edit: And this thing DOES worry me because much LGBT lit is classed as erotica even when it has little or no sex in it. I have seen too many things like Amazon stripping LGBT ratings and Apple refusing to carry a "Gay Guide to NY City" on such grounds to ignore this topic.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I honestly can't see up the thread right now, so is it 100% certain that this is SOLELY because of PayPal? I ask only because does PayPal allow you to purchase regular, old school porn videos off the web?


Yeah Krista I read the emails posted upthread and seems like PayPal put a gun to their head. And don't worry I just checked and you can still buy all the porn videos you want with PayPal. You can watch, do it, but you just can't read about it. HaHa. Only in America. I'll call a couple escorts and clubs later and see if I can buy some lap dances and champagne too. A little too early right now.

I better buy a copy of Lolita and Justine before PayPal bans them.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

To be really clear, paypal actually suspended BS' account. They didn't just threaten to. If you go to the BS and toss a book in your cart and go to checkout, there's no paypal option. If it follows what they've done in the past to charity drive sites, it probably also means they're holding BS' money hostage.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Troublemaker.
> 
> And were you agreeing or arguing with me? *scratches head*
> 
> Edit: And this thing DOES worry me because much LGBT li is classed as erotica even when it has little or no sex in it. I have seen too many things like Amazon stripping LGBT ratings and Apple refusing to carry a "Gay Guide to NY City" on such grounds to ignore this topic.


And, to add to your Edit point, this is kind of move by BS and whoever else is behind it chills creativity and free speech. I was planning to do some nice MM stories - stories that had a point apart from being written in sensual language, but I don't see any point in it if all it's going to do is put my publisher accounts in jeopardy and waste my time when I have to remove the content because some nut has a problem with it.

And, like I said in a previous post, this is an increasing problem. If you're living in NYC or Salem, Mass or maybe Portland or San Francisco, maybe you're not seeing it. But, there is a dark movement afoot in this country that wants women back in the kitchen, homosexuals silenced, immigrants sent home and worse, etc. I find it extremely worrisome and I worry more on days like these!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

genevieveaclark said:


> Exactly. And also because censorship is wrong even when it doesn't directly affect me.


That too because in the end, censorship affects us all with a chilling effect on what we choose to write about and, yes, limiting the books I can buy and read.

And I SURE as heck don't want Paypal making that decision any more than I want Apple or Amazon making it.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

genevieveaclark said:


> Exactly. And also because censorship is wrong even when it doesn't directly affect me.


Agree. This is an ugly and dangerous precedent.


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## Claudia Summers (Feb 21, 2012)

It's amusing that Siren Publishing has made no efforts to remove their own Pseudo-Incest and Pseudo-Bestiality, yet they're so quick to call out indie publishers as being disgusting for publishing the same.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

Krista D. Ball said:


> It's really sad because every time a friend or relative gets an ereader, I get an email/Facebook message asking why the books suck compare to what's in the bookstores. I have to explain the entire publishing world, and then I'm asked how to avoid the indie titles because they want books like what's in the bookstores.
> 
> Again, it's sad because there is no need for it. However, I can't blame my one relative (i.e.) who reads a book every other day to spend half a night sampling to find two days worth of books. She is used to walking into a store, reading the back cover and picking up the book. She wants that same experience for ebooks.


What do you mean there is no need for it? If the gates remain open a lot of trash will be published. No one wants to spend the money to police it.

If there are enough complaints Amazon could put in a filter that allows readers to make all KDP books invisible unless searched for by specific title or author. I am sure there are many readers right now who would love that kind of option.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Edit: And this thing DOES worry me because much LGBT lit is classed as erotica even when it has little or no sex in it.


This bugs me to no end. In fact, this bugs me more than "banned book in schools" censorship, more than Stephanie Meyers, and (I hazard to say) more than the entire werewolf romance subgenre. That's how much this bugs me.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> Yeah Krista I read the emails posted upthread and seems like PayPal put a gun to their head. And don't worry I just checked and you can still buy all the porn videos you want with PayPal. You can watch, do it, but you just can't read about it. HaHa. Only in America. I'll call a couple escorts and clubs later and see if I can buy some lap dances and champagne too. A little too early right now.
> 
> I better buy a copy of Lolita and Justine before PayPal bans them.


Thanks Jack (can only see page 4 now  get me off this thing!)

Ok, so, yeah, all right, I can't even argue for the sake of arguing now.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Interesting post if you're interested in what Bookstrand thought of indies. (It also confirms that paypal initiated this.)


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> And were you agreeing or arguing with me? *scratches head*


In the early pages, I wasn't actually paying attention. I was just trying to disagree with anyone. Betsy saw through me and called me out (bad Krista bad).

But, seriously, I didn't see/notice early where it was clearly PayPal causing it AND Jack took one for the team to confirm that he could still watch porn vids with his paypal account (thanks buddy!).

So bah. Now I have to join in and agree. Sigh. This thread is dull now.  Time to move along.


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> Interesting post if you're interested in what Bookstrand thought of indies. (It also confirms that paypal initiated this.)


*sigh* I've had the misfortune of reading some of Siren's books (many of which are sold exclusively for a time through Bookstrand).

That whole letter is the pot calling the kettle black. 



Krista D. Ball said:


> So bah. Now I have to join in and agree. Sigh. This thread is dull now.  Time to move along.


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## Claudia Summers (Feb 21, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> Interesting post if you're interested in what Bookstrand thought of indies. (It also confirms that paypal initiated this.)


Sex with mom? Disgusting! Sex with dad's girlfriend? Just as disgusting! 
Sex with a wolf? Disgusting! Sex with a wolf who happens to turn into a human, or close to human? YUM!

Also, wow, they're dynamos of PR.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Claudia Summers said:


> Sex with mom? Disgusting! Sex with dad's girlfriend? Just as disgusting!
> Sex with a wolf? Disgusting! Sex with a wolf who happens to turn into a human, or close to human? YUM!
> 
> Also, wow, they're dynamos of PR.


_Excuse me while I put on my tin-foil hat..._

I watched this event unfold over the weekend. And it all leads me to believe that something else is at play here..

For quite some time many authors (and ARE & Bookstrand) were quite happy with the status quo. It was profitable, and Bookstrand even created a seperate page for Indies and their books.

Suddenly, Indie authors started recieving notices that because of creditor and paypal complaints their titles would need to be modified or removed. Mostly every Author I knew, started to comply immediately.

Next, we were informed compliance wasn't good enough. Then books that didn't even remotely violate the TOS were removed by both publishers. We also started to hear that other e-book distributors were receiving 'The Call', including our own Selena Kitt.

NOw mysteriously, the front page of Bookstrand has a ton of new relases by Harlequin & Harper Collins featured prominently. Also look at Bookstrands homepage: http://www.bookstrand.com/

The very topics Bookstrand ranted against, are all over that front page. The diffrence is... it's not indie.

This wasn't an issue of "dirty indies" not knowing enought about publlishing standards. Many of the indies removed are old-hat at this.. in fact some of them have offered advice as valued members of Kindle Boards..

This was a squeeze play, designed to get rid of indies. We were dominating the charts on those venues.. and doing far better thand Siren, Harper-Collins, and Harlequin..

Plus Indie author's were making more $$ than the established e-rom and erotica writers. So Bookstand and ARE haven't gotten rid of dubious content.. They just got rid of the indie competiton.

If that doesn't scare you .. it should.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Sara Pierce said:


> *sigh* I've had the misfortune of reading some of Siren's books (many of which are sold exclusively for a time through Bookstrand).
> 
> That whole letter is the pot calling the kettle black.


It just looks to me like they're cutting their own throats.

As someone mentioned their Siren titles look pretty bad and I read their guidelines for those books and I don't have any fiction disgusting enough to meet their requirements.

What I don't get is why they pulled my non-fiction content, which was apparently outselling their established publishers' books? I wasn't actually making much, but why throw out the baby with the bath water? Maybe because they lost their payment processor.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Maybe because they lost their payment processor.


Might be. Have you emailed them asking if they could add that back at least? Did your personal paypal account get suspended?


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Might be. Have you emailed them asking if they could add that back at least? Did your personal paypal account get suspended?


Honestly, while I'm upset about this, I wasn't making enough money over there to even warrant complaining about losing them. Plus, I don't trust them. The first time I got an e-mail from Howie, he came across like a jerk.

No. I didn't lose my account - they lost theirs! So, they can't send payments via PayPal..., although they are promising to pay us. And, I wouldn't trust these people with my bank account info. for an electronic funds transfer.

I don't see how they're going to pay us, unless they're planning on sending out final checks!


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Might be. Have you emailed them asking if they could add that back at least? Did your personal paypal account get suspended?


Indie publishers are no longer welcome there. A few pervs ruined it for everybody! Pervs writing the...same kind of thing...on Siren's bestseller list right now.

Only those are Siren books. So that's okay.

(But I'm betting Paypal won't think so. Schadenfreude in 3, 2....)


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Vicky Foxx said:


> _Excuse me while I put on my tin-foil hat..._
> 
> I watched this event unfold over the weekend. And it all leads me to believe that something else is at play here..
> 
> ...


I got my tin foil hat on, too. And, I think I'm following you here, but why would they want to get rid of accounts that are selling books?


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Their #2 bestseller from their house brand features identical twins.

Or are those identical STEP-twins?


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Honestly, while I'm upset about this, I wasn't making enough money over there to even warrant complaining about losing them. Plus, I don't trust them. The first time I got an e-mail from Howie, he came across like a jerk.
> 
> No. I didn't lose my account - they lost theirs! So, they can't send payments via PayPal..., although they are promising to pay us. And, I wouldn't trust these people with my bank account info. for an electronic funds transfer.
> 
> I don't see how they're going to pay us, unless they're planning on sending out final checks!


Fair enough.

I am curious about final payment, as well, especially if it is only a few dollars. Paypal is good for that. A cheque? Far less so.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> Their #2 bestseller from their house brand features identical twins.
> 
> Or are those identical STEP-twins?


Looks like identical twins to me. "They were identical twins of gorgeousness..." Of course, they aren't having sex with each other, just rubbing themselves all over the same mate at the same time in the excerpt.


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## Claudia Summers (Feb 21, 2012)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> I got my tin foil hat on, too. And, I think I'm following you here, but why would they want to get rid of accounts that are selling books?


Indies were outselling Siren, which they make more money with if they axe indies. I'm guessing. This being the case if they have to pay to police indie publishing as well.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Claudia Summers said:


> Indies were outselling Siren, which they make more money with if they axe indies. I'm guessing. This being the case if they have to pay to police indie publishing as well.


I see. Thanks for taking this to the logical end for me. I guess I don't understand why they wouldn't want sales from both sources. But, maybe they really are trying to do something else, like you say - and like they said. They're returning to some "former business model" that just doesn't involve us. And, maybe PayPal dropping the axe on them for their "rape that isn't violent rape" (I actually saw that on a blurb over there!) and unwholesome acts with animals titles was just the catalyst they needed.

I think this is a very good hypothesis. And, it makes sense of that absurd series of emails I got from them.


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## Lola Swain (Sep 12, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> Their #2 bestseller from their house brand features identical twins.
> 
> Or are those identical STEP-twins?


Exactly, but if you ask Siren-Bookstrand:



> Kindly get your facts straight. Siren-BookStrand Publishing NEVER has and NEVER will publish books with the disgusting themes of incest, pseudo incest, rape for sexual titillation, or bestiality with naturally occurring animals. *ALL of these incest, pseudo-incest, rape, and bestiality titles were uploaded to the e-book store, BookStrand.com, mainly by self-pubbed authors who don't know where to draw the line when it comes to obscenity. *


 (my emphasis) Source: http://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/tuesday-news-new-nook-pricing-kindle-rumors-reader-data-and-paypal-clarification

Judging from my quarterly reports, Bookstrand's readers gobbled up (no pun) the very titles that they now claim are disgusting and say were only indie-produced. And I am sure that as Siren authors publish and continue to publish the exact same content, those authors reap the benefit of those sales as well. Wonder how Bookstrand's readers who read the aforementioned "obscenities" would feel about the fact that the people who they give their money to find their reading preferences _disgusting_? Absolutely in agreement that a site can choose whatever content they want to allow at any time, however to lay the blame for the disgusting themes, and themes where they happily took a 50% royalty for, at self-pubbed author's feet, in Bookstrand's case, it is a lie.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

I just got this email from AllRomance:

_I apologize for omitting this in yesterday's notice:

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/termsOfAgreement.html_

I don't know what to believe. I don't have any content in violation, but I'm thinking of pulling all of my erotica stuff, anyway, because I don't want to be accused of something. That'll leave a mainstream romance novel and a handful of non-fic titles.

Are they getting ready to do something crazy, too


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Well, AllRomance/OmniLit has already started deactivating some of my titles

The first one to go was a non-fic New Age title with no sexual content... What do you make of that


I have not received any information about them deactivating my titles.  I have no idea why they would do this.  It is a non-fic title about witchcraft/paranormal.  Why on earth would they do that?

Anyone else having AR/OmniLit titles deactivated seemingly randomly?


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

It's obviously a cynical move to cosy up to the big boys becasue you can still get all manner of erotica at Bookstrand, which is a shame because I can see where an erotica free ebook store would have a market. A very small market, but a market none the less. 

The question is, is it a good business move? Will all the folk who pushed indie erotica up the charts be satisfied paying double for, essentially, the same thing? Or will they wander off and look for a new website that sells the stuff they are looking for? There is no tyranny of distance on the internet. The competition is just a mouse click away (if Smashwords had a better interface for the browsing reader, they would benefit greatly from such political manoeuvrings).

Whatever happened to the online bookstore the big 6 were planning? Expensivebooks.com or something? Or have they abandoned that in favour of taking over some of the lesser players in the ebook retailing game?


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## Claudia Summers (Feb 21, 2012)

It seems likely. They're placing all erotica into one category, regardless of content. Werewolf erotica will only go into erotica and not vampires/werewolves for example. Also they have called into question the "literary value" (LOL) of erotica in their first email. I think it will depend entirely on how Paypal reviews their site after their initial book burning. 

That said, they've handled this far better than Bookstrand so far.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Well, I am very upset!

How can we trust these companies?

They give guidelines and then they start deleting accounts and content that is obviously in compliance. 

Has anyone else checked their Book Management section at AR to see how many of their books are being deactivated?

I'm totally weirded out.  Like I said, if you think they wouldn't go after Paranormal genres, you are mistaken.  We're living in a theocracy here!


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> To be really clear, paypal actually suspended BS' account. They didn't just threaten to. If you go to the BS and toss a book in your cart and go to checkout, there's no paypal option. If it follows what they've done in the past to charity drive sites, it probably also means they're holding BS' money hostage.


Then why is are all those Siren incest books still being sold? I'm sure Paypal is in the mix somewhere but BS actions have not been consistent.

M


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Well, I am very upset!
> 
> How can we trust these companies.
> 
> ...


I don't write erotica, but I just checked my ARe account and both my books are still active.


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## Lola Swain (Sep 12, 2011)

mrv01d said:


> Then why is are all those Siren incest books still being sold? I'm sure Paypal is in the mix somewhere but BS actions have not been consistent.
> 
> M


I agree...Paypal is in the mix, but I can't see Paypal saying: _Okay Bookstrand, all you have to do is remove all self-pubbed titles, regardless of content and you can leave your Siren titles up regardless of their content and we will unblock your account_. Yeah, no.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> They give guidelines and then they start deleting accounts and content that is obviously in compliance.


Unfortunately, they can do that. Last year B&N "adjusted" their rankings to kick all of the erotic writers out of the top few hundred books. They can do that sort of thing too. There are no guarantees-- "independent" publishers are still very dependent on the sites that sell our work, and they can screw us over if they want to.

I'm just in the process of getting onto ARe for the first time. I hope they're going to continue to sell indie works.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> I don't write erotica, but I just checked my ARe account and both my books are still active.


Thank you! I can't figure this out?

I'm worried. I just want to go delete all of my romantic titles before I am further targeted... but I don't want to panic, either.

I have no idea why they would deactivate this particular title - it's in the Religious/Spirituality section, for chrissakes!

It's one of my best sellers, too. I wrote it to help people - particularly pagan types - who are dealing with big problems and lack the support system most other people probably have. There's no explanation they could give me that wouldn't upset me! Unless it was a mistake.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Unless it was a mistake.


Which it might be. "Don't panic" is always good advice. Is there a support department there you can email?


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> Unfortunately, they can do that. Last year B&N "adjusted" their rankings to kick all of the erotic writers out of the top few hundred books. They can do that sort of thing too. There are no guarantees-- "independent" publishers are still very dependent on the sites that sell our work, and they can screw us over if they want to.
> 
> I'm just in the process of getting onto ARe for the first time. I hope they're going to continue to sell indie works.


So, far it's been a big waste of time and a headache.

And, I hear you about they can do whatever they want, but why would they do this PayPal can't be behind it. There's nothing in that book that would upset anyone except criminals and their supporters. The only other people who wouldn't like it are people who think everything is Satanic, but then why not remove my other spell books and divination tutorials? I don't get it. I'm upset. I play by the rules... and this is what happens.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Thank you! I can't figure this out?
> 
> I'm worried. I just want to go delete all of my romantic titles before I am further targeted... but I don't want to panic, either.
> 
> ...


It's possible it is just a mistake. If they have people going through deleting erotica titles, they might have gotten delete happy. I'd send an email inquiring.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> It's possible it is just a mistake. If they have people going through deleting erotica titles, they might have gotten delete happy. I'd send an email inquiring.


I'm too angry to send an e-mail. I've had it with them and those jack*sses over at BS.

I'm really pissed off.


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## Lola Swain (Sep 12, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> I play by the rules... and this is what happens.


We all pretty much play by the rules--publisher accounts and the books published were accepted and sold. They didn't block these titles out of the gate and we figured out how to game the system and snuck them past someone. They just happened to change the rules. I would email Lori at ARe as suggested, she doesn't usually beat around the bush and will be open with the information. Or it could be a glitch. I'm sure the site is getting a lot of traffic. Have you tried logging out and logging back in to your account?


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Lola Swain said:


> We all pretty much play by the rules--publisher accounts and the books published were accepted and sold. They didn't block these titles out of the gate and we figured out how to game the system and snuck them past someone. They just happened to change the rules. I would email Lori at ARe as suggested, she doesn't usually beat around the bush and will be open with the information. Or it could be a glitch. I'm sure the site is getting a lot of traffic. Have you tried logging out and logging back in to your account?


I just checked out their new guidelines.

There is no way my New Age book is in violation of anything - except it is a non-fic witchcraft (non-Christian) title. Actually they've blocked 2 titles and neither are in violation. The erotica I wrote is very mild, vanilla and a little Victorian in its use of language. The New Age title is pretty standard - anecdotes followed by spells to use in certain situations. And, as I am a multiple violent crime survivor, it is pretty autobiographical - I have a lot of myself in it, so I'm going to be upset if they have a problem with the content..., although, I can't imagine what that problem would be.

Something is wrong with these people. Has the whole world gone insane?


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

I'm sorry you're having issues Scarlett, I've no idea why on earth your books would be deactivated at ARe. A few folks I know did email Lori about why their stories were banned and she seemed, hmm, less than customer servicey   at that moment so I assume she's dealing with a high volume of emails. Hopefully in a few days things will die down, cooler heads will prevail and we can start figuring out where to go from there. 

That said however I have no idea why non-erotica titles would be targeted, the proposed changes were only supposed to be part of one category.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

If they were so concerned about erotica titles they could have implemented an adult content filter that was on by default. And we only have their word on it that their paypal service was suspended for erotica sales. Smashwords uses Paypal and they don't seem to have been affected. Neither was ARe for that matter.

From the amount of erotica still available on BS (an acronym that I think is highly appropriate in the circumstances), they simply want to get rid of indie titles and dubbious erotica was the trigger they used. Most probably it will come back and bite them on the funadamental as their market share dwindles.

It's all a bit silly, really, and is a result of the trad v indie stupidity that is currently plaguing publishing. The corporates are trying to fight the influx of independant authors the only way they know how - choking off their distribution. They don't seem to understand that such an approach won't work on the internet because there are no barriers to participation. If there is a need in the market, someone will fill it. If Bookstrand starts selling erotica at twice the accepted price (which is the net outcome of kicking off indies from the point of view of readers), then they'll just go to ARe. If ARe stops, they'll go to Smash. And so on, and so forth.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> This is a business. Take a deep breath, compose yourself, and write a short, polite email inquiring as to the removal of your book. Be professional. Even when they're not.
> 
> And let us know what happens!


Thank you.... Sincerely. I did what you said and I wrote this e-mail. I'm waiting for a response.

Dear Lori,

I see you've deactivated a couple of my books. I don't really know why either of them would have been deactivated, but the one that concerns me is the non-fic title, "***." This is a new age title written for crime survivors by a crime survivor. There is nothing sexual, titillating, violent or disparaging of any race or creed. Surely this is a mistake. It is a book that gives crime survivors permission to be angry with the people who wronged them and to channel their anger in a non-destructive way.

If this was a mistake, I understand.

If not, then I don't because I wrote that book to help people who don't have any other kind of help.

If this was a mistake, I hope you will correct it.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

SS


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Sara Pierce said:


> I'm sorry you're having issues Scarlett, I've no idea why on earth your books would be deactivated at ARe. A few folks I know did email Lori about why their stories were banned and she seemed, hmm, less than customer servicey   at that moment so I assume she's dealing with a high volume of emails. Hopefully in a few days things will die down, cooler heads will prevail and we can start figuring out where to go from there.
> 
> That said however I have no idea why non-erotica titles would be targeted, the proposed changes were only supposed to be part of one category.


Thank you. I've got to stop crying... I am crying hysterically right now. I'm very sensitive about this one particular book... because, it does have a lot of myself in it.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

The hypocrisy (and out and out lies) by Siren in their email to Jane (Dear Author) are killing me. How can someone try to pull something like that with a straight face, I will never know.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Thank you. I've got to stop crying... I am crying hysterically right now. I'm very sensitive about this one particular book... because, it does have a lot of myself in it.


Hang in there. Your book will go on, just not at ARe. It's not the end.

M


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Monique said:


> The hypocrisy (and out and out lies) by Siren in their email to Jane (Dear Author) are killing me. How can someone try to pull something like that with a straight face, I will never know.


All we need is a little birdie to email that info to Paypal...


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## AndreSanThomas (Jan 31, 2012)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Thank you. I've got to stop crying... I am crying hysterically right now. I'm very sensitive about this one particular book... because, it does have a lot of myself in it.


Scarlett- please, take a breath. It's a book, not a child. If you can't put it up on All Romance, you can put it somewhere else. This is not the end of the world. This book is not you. The words are written, they're not gone. You've got them surely. You can put them anywhere else you want another day.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

mrv01d said:


> Hang in there. Your book will go on, just not at ARe. It's not the end.
> 
> M


Thank you. But, it's impossible to know where this could end! This is my only source of income.

What if Amazon or Smashwords decides to do the same thing and just starts taking down accounts on the basis of some unproven, unarbitrated accusation. They could do that...

This is a current trend, in fact.


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## Anjasa (Feb 4, 2012)

Selena_Kitt said:


> We are talking about the banning of books that are about sex between legal-age consenting adults.
> 
> That is very disturbing.


Honestly, I think disallowing anything in fictional erotica is just ridiculous. Banning legal-in-real-life erotica is just absurd.

And I am all for the romance being split up into Romance, Erotic-Romance, Erotica and Porn, if that's what it takes to make people happy and get customers connected with the books they want to read. I think that would actually help me a lot in finding books that appeal to me, personally.

I'm so sorry, Scarlet. Hopefully there will be enough outcry for them to reverse this.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Hang in there Scarlet mistakes are made on the internet everyday. Don't cry hysterically. Wait for their email. This is beginning to seem like something that was a CC/PayPal issue that has morphed into ban the indies ebooks movement. Money is somewhere in the mix then. Who would stand to gain? Maybe publishers are making little side deals?

Will stores gain? Can't see how unless it's a sneaky side deal.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Thank you. But, it's impossible to know where this could end! This is my only source of income.
> 
> What if Amazon or Smashwords decides to do the same thing and just starts taking down accounts on the basis of some unproven, unarbitrated accusation. They could do that...
> 
> This is a current trend, in fact.


Here's the thing about making money online, which is what e-publishing is, the business cycle is fast and vicious. It changes faster than people can adapt. Everything is in flux. All the time. One day, you're chugging along, the next hour, it's over.

So my advice you you is:

1. 'this too shall pass'

2. Don't get lulled into dependency on any one company, they are friable and do not endure.

3.There are other opportunities out there for your work even if it comes down to you selling the book on a website.

M


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Did your book have any red-flag tags? that's my guess.


Good thought! I checked... here are the tags...

anxiety (x), black magic (x), bullies (x), bullying (x), bullying at work (x), conjuring (x), court case (x), demonology (x), domestic abuse (x), harassment (x), healing (x), hexing (x), hoodoo (x), justice (x), keep away (x), law (x), luciferian (x), luciferianism (x), metaphysical (x), new age (x), occult (x), paranormal (x), police brutalilty (x), protection (x), protection spell (x), psychic (x), psychic ability (x), psychic vampires (x), psychic vampirism (x), psychic warfare (x), psychology (x), ptsd (x), revenge (x), revenge spell (x), revenge spells (x), safe travel (x), safety (x), santeria (x), self help (x), spell (x), spell book (x), spells (x), stalking (x), supernatural (x), thief (x), traditional witchcraft (x), trauma (x), travel (x), voodoo (x), voodoo spells (x), wicca (x), witchcraft (x)

I don't see anything suspicious. Maybe someone else does.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Monique said:


> The hypocrisy (and out and out lies) by Siren in their email to Jane (Dear Author) are killing me. How can someone try to pull something like that with a straight face, I will never know.


I finally got to read that letter. Oh wow. That was hilarious considering the source.


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Revenge. Stalking. Possibly domestic abuse. or just abuse.
> 
> I think someone just got overzealous.
> 
> Heck, the tags make me want to check this out! lol


Thanks!

It's one of my best sellers. But, I don't want to give too many details about it on a forum because I'm taking my own advice about how not to acquire stalkers.

The thing is a lot of my fic titles start with similar themes because, as everyone knows, even fiction is somewhat autobiographical. I think we have a big freedom of speech problem when we can't write about our own life experiences in a constructive way.

And, this is what lies at the foundation of my concerns.


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## AndreSanThomas (Jan 31, 2012)

Scarlet Scrivener said:


> Thank you. But, it's impossible to know where this could end! This is my only source of income.
> 
> What if Amazon or Smashwords decides to do the same thing and just starts taking down accounts on the basis of some unproven, unarbitrated accusation. They could do that...
> 
> This is a current trend, in fact.


If this is your only source of income then you're going to be in a constant state of stress. Broaden your horizons and don't put all your eggs in one basket unless you've got enough safety net to fall back on for any sort of problem.

Yes, Amazon, Smashwords, etc. could stop taking indie books. But there is clearly a market for that material so in the spirit of American ingenuity, something else would come to take it's place.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> This bugs me to no end. In fact, this bugs me more than "banned book in schools" censorship, more than Stephanie Meyers, and (I hazard to say) more than the entire werewolf romance subgenre. That's how much this bugs me.


Absolutely!

It is infuriating. And it does not please me when I look for something with a LGBT theme that I necessarily have to wade through all the erotica to find it. That doesn't mean that the erotica should be removed, just that these companies need to understand: Not. All. Gay. Lit. Is. Erotica.

Although it's hard to be bugged by anything more than the werewolf romance subgenre.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Absolutely!
> 
> It is infuriating. And it does not please me when I look for something with a LGBT theme that I necessarily have to wade through all the erotica to find it. That doesn't mean that the erotica should be removed, just that these companies need to understand: Not. All. Gay. Lit. Is. Erotica.
> 
> Although it's hard to be bugged by anything more than the werewolf romance subgenre.


I'm convinced this had nothing to do with censorship, and everything to do with cold hard cash. The "supposedly horrid" indie authors were outselling traditionally published authors. This is based on what I know from indies who were publishing there and making a decent amount of $$$.

*There's been an excellent spin-job by placing the blame on the "worst of the worst". While simultaneously ignoring the indie "best of the best" who were easily outpacing Harlequin, Harper-Collins, and Siren authors. These folks had good covers, well-written stories, and good sales. They are the indie erotica authors, BS & the others won't talk about.*

I'll say it again because it bears repeating:

For awhile Indie authors were dominating Bookstrand.. and yes the majority of those titles were "stepcest" and nubile "barely legal" stories.

*I believe the bigger publishers put a bug in PayPal's ear... and then swooped in with a Coup de grâce! *

The result:

Indies got squeezed out and the big guys got their market share back. Heavens forbid that it look like it's more profitable to indie publish than deal with them. This is especially true in Romance and Erotica (and yes porn).

Can you imagine what would happen if the top selling (and prolific) erotica/e-rom/ and romance authors went Rogue and dumped their publishers?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

At some point we were going to start seeing a pushback from the big hogs at the trough. I suspect that is exactly what this is. I don't write erotica but there is good money to be made in it. Those self-same big hogs don't like sharing.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"I believe the bigger publishers put a bug in PayPal's ear... and then swooped in with a Coup de grâce! "_

Interesting. But why should EBay care what the publishers want? Ebay will lose money. EBay will volunteer to lose money so the big publishers can make more? EBay makes more than any of the book publishers, and rivals their parent conglomerates.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

The only rational reason for removing products for sale by a retailer is because by doing so the retailer hopes to make more profit. In a brick and mortar store this is easy. Product A takes up a valuable, limited retail slot. Retailer thinks Product B will sell better than Product A, so Product A is banished. In the world of virtual goods product slots are infinite. So it's a bit harder to understand why a retailer would remove products it took the trouble to list and sell previously. 

If, for the sake of argument, you are willing to accept that the desire for increased profit is behind the recent happenings, can anyone conjecture as to why this might result in increased profits? I have no idea so I'm all ears.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

Asher MacDonald said:


> If, for the sake of argument, you are willing to accept that the desire for increased profit is behind the recent happenings, can anyone conjecture as to why this might result in increased profits?


Conjecture, sure...

Option 1: The fixed and marginal costs of switching to another payment vendor or implimenting necessary vetting were expected to be higher than the revenue generated by eliminating the whole category of delisted books.

Option 2: The controversial objectionable books being listed at all were considered to be driving away a larger group of customers than they drew in.

And then there are the fundamental objections to the premise:

Option 1: It's a false premise because companies do things all the time that aren't just to increase profit. Sometimes they find certain profitable opportunities morally objectionable, or outside of their primary focus or core competency.

Option 2: Companies are too complex to be judged just on the fundamental profit motive. (ie. they aren't necessarily rational.  )

I can't begin to guess if any of that conjecture applies, but they are concievable.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Asher MacDonald said:


> The only rational reason for removing products for sale by a retailer is because by doing so the retailer hopes to make more profit. In a brick and mortar store this is easy. Product A takes up a valuable, limited retail slot. Retailer thinks Product B will sell better than Product A, so Product A is banished. In the world of virtual goods product slots are infinite. So it's a bit harder to understand why a retailer would remove products it took the trouble to list and sell previously.
> 
> If, for the sake of argument, you are willing to accept that the desire for increased profit is behind the recent happenings, can anyone conjecture as to why this might result in increased profits? I have no idea so I'm all ears.


Easily if they decided indie sales were cannibalizing sales of their own products.


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## Jenmills (Feb 22, 2012)

Hi everyone, I'm a long-time lurker of kindle boards. 

I'm currently writing erotica and I planned on distributing it through AR. It involves light, consensual BDSM. Am I right in thinking that this content is now unacceptable under AR's new TOS? I read through this whole thread and it wasn't clear to me. I am a complete newbie when it comes to indie publishing (indeed, to any type of publishing) and don't really understand how this all works yet.


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## Guest (Feb 22, 2012)

shelleyo1 said:


> It's really a shame, because I still contend that if Paypal said paranormal is wicked and against our values and TOS, there'd be such an uproar about unfair business practices and censorship,


Except it is not legal to sell erotica to minors, and to date the industry has come up with no feasible way to prevent minors from buying from these sites.

Companies that accept credit cards for payment have generally been able to "get away" with it by saying that a person has to be 18 or older to have a credit card. But millions of minors have PayPal accounts, often without their parents even knowing. The issue, in my opinion, is less about Paypal's personal values and more about the legal ramifications of 14 year old Susie buys a title called "Daddy's Sexy Baby Girl".

I'm not saying it is right or wrong. I know there is plenty of "free porn" on the internet. Common sense isn't even the point. Thiis issue is further up the food chain than PayPal. It is naive to think otherwise.

And besides, as others have said, it appears this is really not about PayPal at all, but rather using PayPal as the excuse to do it. From what others have said in this thread, these sites wanted to get rid of the indies anyway. This is a way for them to do so while turning the community's venom at PayPal instead.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> At some point we were going to start seeing a pushback from the big hogs at the trough. I suspect that is exactly what this is. I don't write erotica but there is good money to be made in it. Those self-same big hogs don't like sharing.


Usually if you follow the money you find the answer. Who had the most to gain?


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## Lola Swain (Sep 12, 2011)

The issue with Bookstrand, as suggested, is that they were responsible for their authors under their imprint Siren.  Also, as suggested, I believe Paypal had nothing to do with it.  It only takes a few Siren authors who can glean the money we were making, especially when indies announce their sales, to say to Bookstrand: why are we publishing with you again?  What Bookstrand did by throwing indies under the bus and insinuating that Paypal was the culprit is alert other ebook retailers that Paypal may freeze accounts because they sell erotica.  Mass retailer panic ensues.


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

Jenmills said:


> Hi everyone, I'm a long-time lurker of kindle boards.
> 
> I'm currently writing erotica and I planned on distributing it through AR. It involves light, consensual BDSM. Am I right in thinking that this content is now unacceptable under AR's new TOS? I read through this whole thread and it wasn't clear to me. I am a complete newbie when it comes to indie publishing (indeed, to any type of publishing) and don't really understand how this all works yet.


Most of the anti-BDSM sentiments (mainly hearsay at this point, I'm eager to see an official stance) are coming from Paypal, not ARe. BDSM stories are still top sellers there, but it seems to be another subgenre destined for scrutiny. The problem is, BDSM done right involves two consenting adults engaging in what an outsider may consider torture/rape/etc, but is perfectly normal/natural within that relationship. Most who don't understand that form of fiction decry it, but it's a kink many live 24/7 in their daily lives...


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Well,

AR was quick to respond, which made me feel a whole lot better.  They said it was a mistake and immediately reactivated the non-fic title.  I haven't seen any others deactivated today.  And, my erotica fic is very mild - maybe too mild for people.  I don't know.  I have had little success with it and I won't be writing any more of it because I think it is too risky.

As to BS, I only signed up there in December.  I was uncomfortable about it.  I had the feeling that Howie really didn't want any more indie accounts.  I had such a bad feeling about the place that I couldn't give them my bank account info. (before they lost their PayPal account, you could choose PayPal or EFT, just like Amazon does) and even called my bank and talked to the tech people about the security and safety of doing so.  It was just a strong feeling I had something wasn't right.  And, I'm ticked off because I think they were not completely honest in the ridiculous series of e-mails they sent.

Yes.  This is just one company.  But, I've had similar experiences with moron companies for the past few years.  Companies that lie and steal from you... so, I'm cautious.  

As to the guy who said not to let this be your only source on income, I'm glad to hear that there is a booming economy and lots of jobs whereever you live, but that is not the case where I live.  It was once a good place to make a living, but it hasn't been since 2008.  Jobs with real life employers are not safe, either.  In my experience, they over work you, cheat you on your pay and fire you when you out-perform the boys.  So, I've done various things on my own - or tried to.  But, it is hard to do business with dishonest people whether online or elsewhere.

I hope AllRomance are good people.  My feeling is that somebody there wasn't minding things as well as they might have.  But, getting a fast and human response from Lori made me feel a lot better about them.  I hope they're not going to do an about-face and pull the plug on us like BS did.  

I would be cautious about using any small distributor who has creepy books at their site featuring unwholesome acts with children, animals and the unwilling, though.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I'm glad to hear your book was restored. I think they were doing a lot of global keyword searches and it probably just caught something by mistake.


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

I'm glad your book was reinstated Scarlet! I think ARe and BS were blindsided by Indies - ARe was being proactive and trying to stem the tide but I guess it got to be too much for them. I'm actually impressed by how Lori has been taking the time to reply to every email, it can't be easy to be the go-to customer service rep after a huge move like this. ARe still has my respect as a business and I hope they can figure this all out...


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## Scarlet Scrivener (Aug 30, 2011)

Sara Pierce said:


> I'm glad your book was reinstated Scarlet! I think ARe and BS were blindsided by Indies - ARe was being proactive and trying to stem the tide but I guess it got to be too much for them. I'm actually impressed by how Lori has been taking the time to reply to every email, it can't be easy to be the go-to customer service rep after a huge move like this. ARe still has my respect as a business and I hope they can figure this all out...


Thank you, Katie and Sara.

Yes, I'm impressed with Lori, too. I was from the beginning. They reinstated the book and sent the e-mail within about 3 or 4 hours. I call that very prompt.

My hope is that if they separate the two types of erotica out like they are talking about, it will be probably be beneficial for my fictional stories. And, by cleaning things up, I think it might bring more mainstream buyers to the site and encourage more non-fiction sales, as well. That would be nice. I can't seem to find a lot of smaller distributors for non-fiction titles like Alt. Health and New Age.

You know, I kind of feel like I don't know what is safe to write, anymore. I was doing some freelance work for some alternative health sites, but I got scared when I found out that a lot of them were being sued, had been sued and were about to be sued by various federal agencies. They are coming down on people who sell vitamins and minerals in a big way. Even ear candles! The FDA is trying to call them a medical device.

I, also, recently pulled a bunch of potentially offensive material on the subject of copyright from one of my books because at one of the distributors (not Amazon), you can lose your account for even talking about PLR and MRR. Consequently, most writers seem to know nothing about it... and so there can't be an intelligent discussion about it - like on a forum - without people getting angry. And, this is what happens when information is withheld from people.

Okay. I'm on a tangent. But, you see the point about "Where does this end?" I see some possible outcomes that don't look very good.

I'm going to try to stop posting now. Its' addictive and it's keeping me from working.

But, it was nice chatting with everyone and I appreciate your help.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Except it is not legal to sell erotica to minors, and to date the industry has come up with no feasible way to prevent minors from buying from these sites.
> 
> Companies that accept credit cards for payment have generally been able to "get away" with it by saying that a person has to be 18 or older to have a credit card. But millions of minors have PayPal accounts, often without their parents even knowing. The issue, in my opinion, is less about Paypal's personal values and more about the legal ramifications of 14 year old Susie buys a title called "Daddy's Sexy Baby Girl".


That's a good point, but then it would be all erotica and not just a few specific niches. The legal ramifications of a 14-year-old old Susie (or Tom or Bob) getting a hold of a story that doesn't contain pseudo-incest, rape fantasies or fantasy creatures but features 5 neighbor guys having a consensual gangbang with an 18-year-old man is the same as if the minor found any other explicit content. Since all hardcore stuff isn't being removed, just a few types of it, I have a hard time believing that minors are the issue.



> And besides, as others have said, it appears this is really not about PayPal at all, but rather using PayPal as the excuse to do it. From what others have said in this thread, these sites wanted to get rid of the indies anyway. This is a way for them to do so while turning the community's venom at PayPal instead.


Paypal is at the core, but Bookstrand used the situation to purge all indies rather than just give Paypal what it wanted. There are a number of Siren titles that are in violation of Paypal's new agenda still on the site. But they still don't have Paypal buy options back yet, either. It's interesting to watch.


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## JamieDeBree (Oct 1, 2010)

Jenmills said:


> Hi everyone, I'm a long-time lurker of kindle boards.
> 
> I'm currently writing erotica and I planned on distributing it through AR. It involves light, consensual BDSM. Am I right in thinking that this content is now unacceptable under AR's new TOS? I read through this whole thread and it wasn't clear to me. I am a complete newbie when it comes to indie publishing (indeed, to any type of publishing) and don't really understand how this all works yet.


The new TOS specifically states that "non-consensual bondage" and non-consensual s/m are prohibited. I take this to mean that as long as the relationships are clearly consensual, it's fine. The stories I have there with consensual light bondage have not been removed yet, anyway. I plan on emailing Lori for clarification after things settle down a bit, but it seems to me if they were prohibiting the whole niche, they would have stated that outright.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

I doubt this had anything to do with erotica. I had three books on BS - children's middle grade fiction - and I received the same email yesterday morning that a lot of other people in this thread received. I think they wanted independent author books off their site.


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

I know this thread is about Bookstrand and it's abrupt banishment of all things Indie, but Dear Author blog has an interview/Q&A today with AllRomanceeBooks that tells a bit about ARe's stance and future plans:

http://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/all-romance-ebooks-clarification


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## JuliaHarwell (Feb 19, 2012)

Sara Pierce said:


> I know this thread is about Bookstrand and it's abrupt banishment of all things Indie, but Dear Author blog has an interview/Q&A today with AllRomanceeBooks that tells a bit about ARe's stance and future plans:
> 
> http://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/all-romance-ebooks-clarification


Hmmm... in terms of ARe categories, what's the difference between a werewolf romance (in the Vampires/Werewolves category) and an erotic romance which features werewolves (in the Erotic Romance category)? Like a werewolf story that is definitely focused on the romance, but also has steamy sex scenes... Is it how explicit the language is? (i.e., you need to use more flowery, euphemistic language to be able to categorize a story as 'Vampire/Werewolf' on ARe?)


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

The difference is it needs to have a romantic/emotional/character driven plot rather than just be a random encounter. As long as it has romance it qualifies as erotic romance, not just erotica. But it's the plot, not the language. The actual doing the nasty can be explicit. Honestly, I think 75% of the issues here are covers and titles. 

In other ARe developments, the erotica category on the left will no longer open for customers unless you are logged in, but books still appear on searches. So keywords are even more important. Also putting something in the erotica category is now hard coded to not allow additional categories. 

Going back to Bookstrand, it appears to be down entirely now. Their server is up and identifying as bookstrand, but the pages just aren't there.


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> Honestly, I think 75% of the issues here are covers and titles.


I'm sure covers are a huge factor. Even here on KB, there are a few covers that...shall we say...don't leave a whole heck of a lot to the imagination. I have the filter on at Smashwords to avoid some of the extremely graphic covers that show up in some searches. I think it is very smart for sites to give visitors that option so that those who don't mind or want to see those covers can and those who don't can avoid them.


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## JuliaHarwell (Feb 19, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> The difference is it needs to have a romantic/emotional/character driven plot rather than just be a random encounter. As long as it has romance it qualifies as erotic romance, not just erotica. But it's the plot, not the language. The actual doing the nasty can be explicit.


Thanks for your answer Katie, but I get the difference between erotica and erotic romance. I was more wondering about erotic romance vs a werewolf romance -- as in, selecting the Werewolf/Vampire or whatever other category, instead of selecting Erotic Romance. If a story is focused on their relationship, but still contains steamy sex scenes, what would an author categorize it as?


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

JuliaHarwell said:


> Thanks for your answer Katie, but I get the difference between erotica and erotic romance. I was more wondering about erotic romance vs a werewolf romance -- as in, selecting the Werewolf/Vampire or whatever other category, instead of selecting Erotic Romance. If a story is focused on their relationship, but still contains steamy sex scenes, what would an author categorize it as?


Actually I think it's only Erotica that will supersede all other categories, not Erotic Romance (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). I did some experimenting with my books yesterday on ARe and found that if you clicked Erotica as a category, any other choices would be removed. They've yet to implement the Erotic Romance subcategory so I can't tell whether it does the same thing, but I'll wager it's a bit more free.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I suspect that Erotic Romance lets you cross list, given the way the site is working, but the first reply I got back from ARe on this a few days ago seemed to indicate that both Erotica and Erotic Romance were limited categories. I wrote back to Lori to ask specifically and I'll repost the answer.


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## JuliaHarwell (Feb 19, 2012)

Thank you so much Sara and Katie for the information, you are amazing


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I wrote to them:



> Obviously "Erotica" is now hard coded to not allow anything under that category to select other categories. That's easy.
> 
> But it's not clear if the same true for "Erotic Romance." If its romantic and explicit, it's "Erotic Romance" but is it acceptable to cross list erotic romance with other categories (gay, werewolf, etc) or are those limited to chaste romance?
> Romance titles can have up to 3 categories selected. The key is that it needs to be a Romance.


Their reply:



> Erotica titles can have 1 category - Erotica. If the book is Erotica, that category MUST be selected. Tagging can be used and is highly encouraged to differentiate specific elements. An enhancement request for the addition of Erotica sub-categories has already been received, so there is no need for more people to write in about that issue. We have an on-going list of enhancement requests that are discussed. If approved they are prioritized, and worked through. The split of the category is something that evolved from this process as are most changes that occur to the site.
> 
> Re-shelving has not begun and people should not be moving titles at this time. Our official email indicated instructions would be forthcoming when the process is in place. We are doing some limited, live testing.


So really, they aren't answering the question unless they think it's really obvious that erotic romance isn't erotica.



> Thank you so much Sara and Katie for the information, you are amazing


Your welcome, keep in mind I'm not at all an insider or expert at all (please eroticaforums open up again!), but I'm relatively good at research.


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## Sara Pierce (May 15, 2011)

Good information Katie, I'm glad they're going to be splitting the categories up as that alleviates a lot of my worry. I haven't emailed any questions to Lori as I'm content to wait and see what happens but I'm SO GLAD there's communication from them about what is occurring. Gives me a solid dose of respect for their efforts. 

Still, it's great to hear the information they give out to other queries.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

I put a blog post together on this issue and encourage others to do the same.

http://michellemccleod.blogspot.com/2012/02/banning-books-and-blocking-authors.html

M


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## BiancaSommerland (Mar 8, 2011)

Yeah...so I got the smashwords email. And the others. Got it. And I've read through the thread so I see where everyone's head is at. I could get all pissed and shout about how I have the right to write a story without restrictions even though I write erotic romance, but why bother? Everyone has the right to their opinion.

And I have the right to do something to support mine. PM me if you want to know more. I've got some interesting ideas and if you write erotic romance or erotica and don't want to dilute it according to someone else's guideline, well, there are options. I already have a number of authors on board.


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## nathangrant (Nov 28, 2011)

So what if you have a character that was a victim of rape, and suffered a mental trauma, and another character helps them work through it.  Is saying they were raped and it is bad, considered something that now can't be in a book?


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## BiancaSommerland (Mar 8, 2011)

nathangrant said:


> So what if you have a character that was a victim of rape, and suffered a mental trauma, and another character helps them work through it. Is saying they were raped and it is bad, considered something that now can't be in a book?


If you're writing anything 'erotic' then apparently that stuff can't be in your books.


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## nathangrant (Nov 28, 2011)

Good to know, thank you.  I've re-written the text and re-published the book so now it is an argument.


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