Amazon Is Going Further to Hide Erotica...Even When You're Looking for It!

Well, if the weirdness with Red Phoenix's latest release, The Keeper Finds Her Mate (Keeper of the Pack #2), wasn't bad enough, Amazon is now hiding erotica books even when you're looking for them.

Late Wednesday night, I started poking around Amazon by entering my favorite authors or erotica writers I've met online. I got some interesting search results. If one or more of that author's books has been flagged with the dreaded ADULT label, those books won't show up, even you go to the Books>Kindle submenu. And it is more than one writer that this is happening to:

To get around the ADULT label, some authors, like Selena Kitt, are going through their library and changing covers and titles.

This is the original cover of Selena's book Connections and is still used on the Excessica storefront. Excessica is a cooperative of erotica authors headed by Selena.

By the time I downloaded the book from Amazon on July 25, 2012, Selena had to digitally add a bikini to the cover model, but the book was still listed as erotica.

(By the way, this is the cover that still appears on Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.)

Jump forward to the Kernel Pornocalypse in October of 2013. Everything labeled as erotica was getting banned, regardless of how covered the models were.

So Selena tried a different tactic. Not only did she create a brand-new cover, she changed the category of the book. It is no longer in Erotica, but listed as New Adult.

In this case, a reasonable argument can be made that the story is New Adult. There's only one sex scene, and it's not all that graphic. Also, Selena would be the first to warn against misleading readers.

But to paraphrase a statement Kallypso Masters made on Facebook during the Red Phoenix incident earlier this week, just how many hoops do writers have to jump through?

And she's got a point.

How long will Amazon continue to pretend it's not selling erotica? And why are their rules so arbitrary?

DH commented that putting out a defined set of rules means people will twist them to get away with things. I responded that many of us are already gaming the system to get around Amazon's undefined rules that we are figuring out.

I guess the point of all this rambling is why does Amazon make it so hard to find things that readers do want to read. Is it worth pissing off readers by hiding things, or in Red Phoenix's case, refusing to put something up for sale without saying why, thereby unleashing hordes of furious fans?

And at what point are we writers going to piss off the readers by gaming the system, changing a blurb too far to where the readers feel betray?

Why the hell can't we just call a duck as duck?

Erotica Readers Rebel over Amazon's Vague Rules

Back in January, I talked about how erotica writers were adapting to the 2013 Pornocalypse.

Part of the problem has always been Amazon's guidelines.

Pornography

We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.

Offensive Content

What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect.

Since the guidelines are so vague, the actual criteria changes from month-to-month, leaving writers guessing about what sets off Amazon's version of the Stepford Wives. Erotica writers have banded together to deduce the triggers that send the Wives into a frenzy, and the guidelines put out by Selena Kitt and others erotica writers have been stable for all of three months.

Apparently, Amazon has new criteria that once again, they told no one about.

Yesterday, Red Phoenix's much awaited book, The Keeper Finds Her Mate (Keeper of the Wolves #2) was blocked on Amazon, even though it was already for sale on Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. Red posted the e-mail she received on her Facebook page in hopes that someone could figure out what it was that Amazon objected to:

During our review process, we found that your book contains content that is in violation of our content guidelines. Our content guidelines apply to the book interior, as well as cover image, title and/or product descriptions. As a result, we will not be offering this book for sale.

Several experienced erotica authors and readers looked at the public information. No naked boobs or butts on the cover. The wolf refers to the fact that the characters are werewolves, not that the book contains bestiality, exactly the same as the first book in the series.

Blurb
Layla took on the role as Keeper after her mother’s untimely death. She succeeded in her first Bonding Ritual, but is surprised by the forbidden act she must perform every full moon. A whole new future opens up when she is rescued from certain death by an unknown wolf. Will the strength of her bond with the four Alphas overcome the desire to deny her fate and start a new life with another?

Warning: 18+ This book contains scenes that some readers may find objectionable. 

A couple of folks thought maybe "forbidden," "mate," or "objectionable" might have added to Amazon's No-no List of Naughty Words.

But we'll never know for sure because Red's fans stepped in. And they were pissed!

Facebook statuses flew spreading the word of what Amazon had done to their favorite author. They sent furious e-mails to Amazon, then turned around and bought the book from the other retailers carrying it.

Red still hadn't figured out how to respond to Amazon when The Keeper Finds Her Mate suddenly went live at noon EDT today. While Amazon would never admit it, Red gives full credit to her legions of fans who demanded that her book be made available to them.

As of the writing of this post (it's just after 7PM CDT), Red is climbing the bestseller list:

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,163 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #26 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Paranormal > Werewolves & Shifters
  • #55 in Books > Romance > Paranormal

So what the hell was Amazon thinking by blocking this book? Or was someone in KDP getting a little too power-trippy?

You Can't Fuck Over Your Audience

When it comes to indie writers, there are two major gripes by readers:

1) The story is too short.
2) They are getting ripped off.

Frankly, the readers have valid complaints, but what most writers aren't understanding is that this isn't two different problems. It is the same problem; readers are not getting a COMPLETE story.

Much of the writers' confusion stems from from a couple of misconceptions:

1) Short stories don't sell.
2) Readers love series.

In regards to short stories, a single short is not economical to print. So trad publishers would bundle them into one volume, and then not market the book. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In regards to series, yes, readers go bonkers about them because they enjoy spending time with characters they love. But in a series, each individual tome needs a complete story.

For a story to be complete, it has to have a definitive arc. A beginning, a middle and an end. Stopping in the middle of the story is like stopping in the middle of sex. It's just not satisfying.

Then there's the promise of the genre itself. For example, in erotica, the protagonist's sexual journey changes her. In romance, the heroine and hero find their HEA, or at the very least their HFN. But if an indie writer advertises her story as an erotic romance, she needs to deliver on both promises.

I read a story that was novella length and was advertised as an erotic romance where the heroine was changed by her experience, but she left the hero at the end of the book. The writer received a large number of one-star ratings complaining that the story was too short. The writer believed the readers wanted a novel-length book. What they really wanted was the hero and heroine together at the end.

Our audience is not stupid. As long as you've set up the premise properly and deliver on your promise, they will generally accept your complete story no matter the actual wordcount.

Example 1
Brie's First Day of Submissive Training by Red Phoenix, 47 pages, first book in a nine-book series.

Red's best-selling series is a perfect example of short works combining into a cohesive whole. In the first volume, Brie makes a decision to attend a submissive training school, follows through on that decision, and learns something about herself in the process. This story is perma-free with sexually explicit content, but I strongly suggest downloading it to study Brie's character arc.

Example 2
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, 720 pages, first book in a seven-book series.

Another best seller at the opposite end of the spectrum--the epic fantasy. Reader complaints about George don't include the "It's too short" wail. While the character arcs for the other POV characters are just as complete, Daenerys Targaryen deserves special mention. Her storyline was sliced out of the main book and put together as a Hugo-award-winning novella, Blood of a Dragon.

Example 3
Se7en, (1995) starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey, directed by David Fincher, written by Andrew Kevin Walker.

I include this because Andrew's story and script is so gut-wrenching, yet makes perfect sense. Pitt, Fincher and Walker battled the studio to keep the original ending, and they did the right thing. When the detectives are chasing a serial killer so perverse that sadism should be renamed to "doe-ism," giving the movie a Mary Sunshine ending would have pissed the audience off more. This is a prime example of a not-so-happy ending completing the story. Spacey's Doe, who has been pulling the strings from the first minute of the film, manipulates Pitt's Detective Mills into committing his final murder.

Example 4
The shortest story ever has been attributed to Ernest Hemingway: "Baby shoes for sale. Never worn."

Is this a complete story? You betcha. The entire arc, beginning-middle-end, is there.

The Final Take
Your story can be any length. One of the great things about e-publishing is that writers don't have to worry about the physical limitations or expenses of print. Your story can be as short or as long as it needs to be. Just make sure your story is COMPLETE, the full story arc without any filler.

And don't insult your audience's intelligence by selling them one incomplete snippet at a time. They will know and they will not be pleased.