Amazon cracking down on erotica ebooks.

[Thriftypreneur]

Been reading a bit today and it seems Amazon has changed their acceptable content policy again and is deleting lots and lots of erotica books (with or without warning) from the store.

Just a heads up for any of you who are in that genre. For some reason, it seems like they're cleaning house in that genre in a big way.

More at Kboards: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,163390.0.html

 

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[Vigilante]

strange and unfortunate

 

[Thriftypreneur]

strange and unfortunate

Yeah. Some people believe it has quite a bit to do with titles showing up in unrelated searches and categories, thus pissing off customers, and I can say from first-hand experience, I doubt it's all erotica writers purposely misrepresenting their books to avoid adult filters, but KDP's utter incompetence with category placement. When you have fiction romance titles getting manually listed under Nonfiction > Science and Math > Reference, your staff has big issues.

Either way, it's just more bad news for erotica writers.

 

[DennisD]

It's a difficult position to be in for Amazon.
It's a highly profitable niche for them with obvious moral/ethical controversy. I'm betting the ability to discreetly read erotica accounts for a HUGE portion of Kindle sales.

But at the same time, one small mistake from one of their employees could result in legal issues, public/media backlash, and other very bad consequences. They should really figure out another system for dealing with this.

 

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[Thriftypreneur]

They should really figure out another system for dealing with this.

Pretty surprising that they haven't, to be honest. I feel bad for anyone who depends on income from their erotica writing. I can imagine, as they keep swinging a broader and broader brush over the genre, that people are losing significant amounts of sales overnight. But, it really does show why the commandment of control is so important, not that there's much self-publishers can do about it.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Commandment of Control.

Just saying...

Of course, I'm subject to the same risk/challenges with Amazon as it is my primary channel.

 

[Thriftypreneur]

Just saying...

Of course, I'm subject to the same risk/challenges with Amazon as it is my primary channel.

Yep. I think it's just a problem because Amazon has such a huge, overwhelming position in the ebook space. You can't even really diversify because the other guys make up such a small portion of the market. I hear people say all the time that 80-90% of their sales are from Amazon, which is scary. Granted, they could close shop tomorrow and someone would swoop in to take their place, but, as an ebook publisher, you're pretty much forced to live and die by their whims, at least for now.

 

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[Breaking Free]

Glad I don't write erotica. They seem to target certain "themes" according to the posters. And I guarantee if Amazon bans certain work, and if there's a market for it, some other vendor that's not as public facing as Amazon will emerge as the place to get erotica.

If I were Amazon, I would create an entirely different "store" for erotica books and ebooks. Just filter them out entirely so you have to search for them. No overlap, no "What's this naked woman doing in my sci-fi?" confusion.

But, the problem there is, what's the line between romance and erotica? And what would be their definition of erotica if they tried such a split?

 

[Yankee427]

I see the need there for an erotica online bookstore to replace Amazon if they don't take them.

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

I see the need there for an erotica online bookstore to replace Amazon if they don't take them.

I was about to say this.

 

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[Rawr]

I see the need there for an erotica online bookstore to replace Amazon if they don't take them.

Good luck with that.


Amazon is the distribution mecca.. authors will and have reuploaded the books already.


I mean I understand, but that's just not how it is...

 

[COSenior]

Annoying, just one more thing to have to check on every day rather than write. It's enough to make a girl give up and write romance. My books are still up, BTW, but one is flagged adult. Thanks to Rawr for the link to do the checking.

 

[TopChef]

Good luck with that.


Amazon is the distribution mecca.. authors will and have reuploaded the books already.


I mean I understand, but that's just not how it is...

Rawr. I have to disagree with this.

I think now is the perfect time for someone to take a piece out of Amazon. I used to work in management at Walmart back when Walmart was an 800 lb gorilla. Walmart is still powerful, but in the early to mid 2000's people thought that Walmart would wipe out everyone. Instead Walmart found itself out flanked by 99 cent stores and ethnic grocery on one end of the spectrum and Whole Foods, Target, and Cost Co on the other.

That's what happens when you get big and you try to please everyone. You end up pleasing everyone a little less than someone else can and you invite others to come in and take your business.

If Amazon was smart, they would make their own separate adult book website that was linked into their payment system, prime membership, and order fulfillment. And then they could make that site as smutty as they wanted to without fear of offending their core customer. Just like if Walmart was smart, they would have bought out 99 cent and Whole Foods and used those properties to expand the scope of their business. Instead Walmart tried experimenting by introducing higher end fashion into their stores that didn't harmonize with the Walmart brand and failed.

 

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[exige]

If Amazon was smart, they would make their own separate adult book website that was linked into their payment system, prime membership, and order fulfillment. And then they could make that site as smutty as they wanted to without fear of offending their core customer.

This could be dangerous for them though, as it creates a lightning rod declaring they are in the "porn" business. Right now its there but not publicized (well, I guess until that 50 shades of grey thing came around).

The other thing is, would customers follow to a separate platform like that? I mean, I wonder if part of the reason for the volume of sales of these types of books on Amazon is not only that they own the distribution space, but also that it makes people feel more comfortable because they aren't directly surfing porn sites?

 

[royalasg]

may be they are not getting much return from this category, so they decided to.... :smxB:

 

[Vigilante]

Kindle can take e-books as documents directly emailed to the Kindle via PDF. It wouldn't be very difficult for somebody to set up a website that authors could list on, with a sale of an e-book emailed directly to the users Kindle via PDF with whatever material the user wanted to purchase.

 

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[SBS.95]

It's a difficult position to be in for Amazon.
It's a highly profitable niche for them with obvious moral/ethical controversy. I'm betting the ability to discreetly read erotica accounts for a HUGE portion of Kindle sales.

Not just erotica, but pretty much any controversial topic. I'd be willing to bet they sell a whole lot more electronic copies of "Sex for Dummies" than a physical store like Barnes and Noble does.

Kindle can take e-books as documents directly emailed to the Kindle via PDF. It wouldn't be very difficult for somebody to set up a website that authors could list on, with a sale of an e-book emailed directly to the users Kindle via PDF with whatever material the user wanted to purchase.

PDFs generally suck on the Kindle though. The first time I read TMF , it was because I pirated the .pdf. Obviously later on I wanted to support MJ and buy the book, and when I did, the special Kindle format version of the eBook was soooo much better.

I have one of the older black Kindles with the full keyboard, and the .PDF version of TMF (and most eBooks) is bad. You can't resize text, sometimes you have to zoom in and scroll around to read, and nothing is properly proportioned- sometimes you get entire pages of the little copyright text and page numbers at the bottom.

What Amazon needs to do is ditch this .mobi or .epub or whatever bullshit. Of course, that's not likely to happen because it would make it all the easier for competitors to become Kindle book sellers.

 

[Vigilante]

Not just erotica, but pretty much any controversial topic. I'd be willing to bet they sell a whole lot more electronic copies of "Sex for Dummies" than a physical store like Barnes and Noble does.



PDFs generally suck on the Kindle though. The first time I read TMF , it was because I pirated the .pdf. Obviously later on I wanted to support MJ and buy the book, and when I did, the special Kindle format version of the eBook was soooo much better.

I have one of the older black Kindles with the full keyboard, and the .PDF version of TMF (and most eBooks) is bad. You can't resize text, sometimes you have to zoom in and scroll around to read, and nothing is properly proportioned- sometimes you get entire pages of the little copyright text and page numbers at the bottom.

What Amazon needs to do is ditch this .mobi or .epub or whatever bullshit. Of course, that's not likely to happen because it would make it all the easier for competitors to become Kindle book sellers.

Where some people some problems and obstacles, other people see opportunity.

 

[COSenior]

PDFs generally suck on the Kindle though.

I think the point was that transferring a file via email to Kindle users isn't difficult, rather than what the file type is. You can convert your book at Smashwords or with Calibre and make all files types available using the same idea. For that matter, B&N and other distributors haven't as yet followed Amazon's lead. If Amazon opts out of that market, one of the others will no doubt gladly step into their place as the leading seller. Despite my very public misgivings about Amazon's intentions, I can't believe they would deliberately hand over that kind of market share.

 

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