The Kernel Pornocalypse - Round 2

I wrote about the nasty little piece by the British rag The Kernel launched a panic attack throughout the halls of Kobo last month. Other retailers haven't been inactive, but they've been quietly axing or delaying indie erotica behind the scenes.

Nor did I think mine or Alter Ego's books had some special magic exemption from the current witch hunt. So far my erotica series, Seasons of Magick, has remained unscathed.

Alter Ego though?

1) Apple has refused to accept book four in her first BDSM series, despite changes to the cover, since May.

2) Since the beginning of 2012, Apple has sat on Alter Ego's books for three months or more before approving them for sale. By contrast, Blood Sacrifice was on sale at Apple one week after it was shipped by Smashwords.

3) Kobo was taken down all of Alter Ego's books that were distributed by Draft2Digital. Both mine and Alter Ego's books distributed by Smashwords are still available, except for the two(one from each of us)  that were released in October.

4) On Thursday, November 21, Amazon took down two of Alter Ego's books. In the past, Amazon slapped on their super-secret-double-probation ADULT label. This time they simply took the books down. Ironically, one of the books is about a married couple, and just the married couple, trying to jump start their sex life after the birth of their first child. When I told fellow erotica authors which book had been banned, the response was universal: "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

A large part of the problem is that there are no guidelines from any of these retailers about what is and is not acceptable. The second part of the problem is the lack of consistency in these mysterious super-secret-double-probation guidelines. The third problem is that the primary target is indie writers.

What do I mean?

E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Gray is okay. Selena Kitt's Babysitting the Baumgartners is not. Why? Selena's book has the rear view of a woman's hiney on the cover and the word "babysitting" in the title.

Chelsea Fox's Dog Gone It was banned for bestiality simply for have a canine on the cover, though no bestiality is even hinted in the description or the text. Meanwhile, Christie Sims and Alara Branwen's Taken by the T-Rex, which does all three, is still available without the ADULT label and a best seller, even though Amazon has made public statements that they will not accept any books with bestiality.

Charlaine Harris' Harper Connelly series, which includes an affair between the heroine and her stepbrother is okay, even though incest and pseudo incest is supposedly verboten according to a statement by Amazon to the BBC.

So what are indie erotica writers supposed to do?

1)l I strongly suggest you read Selena Kitt's guide to surviving the Pornocalypse.

2) Have your readers protest the unavailability of your books. The retailers are more likely to listen to disgruntled customers than disgruntled writers.

3) Realize that Smashwords is the only retailer that will.take responsibility and place an adult filter on their website. Promote them to your readers.

4) If you want to sell on the other retailer sites, understand that you will have to play the game dictated by Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and, maybe Kobo (assuming they will ever allow new indie books again).

It all sucks but there it is. Best of luck to all indie writers, because the Powers That Be are doing their best to tear us down. I don't know about y'all, but I like my taste of freedom, and I'm not about to give it up!

What Does Success Mean

There were a couple of events last week that made me think.

(This is where DH says, "AAAGGGHHH!)

The first one was having lunch with a former critique group. Four different writing career paths and life events mean we don't critique together anymore, but we still try to get together once in a while.

And by different paths, I mean incredibly different paths. Christie still writes for two of the Big 5 and 1/2, but she's self-published her backlist from the now-defuntct Dorchester and Triskelion. She's also hit the NYT Bestseller List. Teri started with Ellora's Cave, dabbled in indie publishing, and is now focusing on finding a trad publisher for her young adult series. Life has hit Jody the hardest, which is why she focuses on the magazines that still accept short stories. Then there's me, who went 100% indie after nearly two decades of rejections.

Christie related her adventures during her first publisher-sponsored book tour, so of course the conversation turned to book promotion. Needless to say, she's shocked at how little promotion I've done, yet I'm still make a few hundred bucks a month.

Quite honestly, I can't do the amount of travel Christie does for promotion. For one thing, I have a preteen child while her kids are adults with their own homes and significant others. Then there's my health issues. My immune system is so compromised I'm lucky to get through the grocery store without catching someone's disease. Believe me, I wish I were joking. A mild cold swept through GK's soccer team, and I spent a whole day on the family room couch because it was closest to the downstairs bathroom.

The other thing that happened last week was Charlaine Harris's last Sookie Stackhouse novel was released. Despite my best efforts NOT to hit spoiler sites, the fan backlash over the ending was a major topic of conversation on several writer business blogs I follow.

I realize I really don't want Charlaine's level of success. I already have DH pissed at me over something I'm going to do in Book 8 of the Bloodlines series, I can't imagine having thousands of fans sending me hate mail and death threats.

No, I definitely don't want the kind of success Christie and Charlaine have. I would never survive it.

Deep down, I want readers, not fans. I want to give people entertainment in their lives, but not to the point they go Kathy Bates on me. Most of all I want to bring them a little joy. That's my definition of success right now.

But I am a woman, and I reserve the right to change my mind down the road.