Nate Hoffelder

Amazon has quietly dropped another hint about their expansion plans. The-eBook.org reported today that KindleGen, one of Amazon’s tools for generating Kindle ebooks, now lists Russian as a language option (for the interface).

See the bottom line for the new language option:

Update: A reader has informed me that, even though Russian isn’t yet listed in the KDP supported languages list, the KDP support team no longer blocks Russian language ebooks. Thanks, Vladimir!

There has been no official announcement from Amazon on their plans for the Russian ebook market, but I do know that Amazon has had a presence in Russia since at least April 2013. That’s when they hired Arkady Vitrouk, the former CEO of the Russia’s Atticus Publishing Group, to head the Russian Kindle Store.

Amazon has never been one to broadcast their expansion plans but they have in the past dropped hints. For example, the Kindle Touch shipped in 2011 with support for Italian, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese, and the Kindle Paperwhite launched in 2012 with support for Chinese and Japanese. All of those countries eventually received a local Kindle Store.

This new support for Russian is almost certainly a sign of Amazon’s intentions, just like last month when Amazon added support for a couple dozen additional languages in the Kindle Store, including everything from Afrikaans to Icelandic.

I have no guess as to when Amazon will launch the Russian Kindle Store, but I suspect that it will happen as soon as they can make it happen. There already are two international ebookstores in Russia (iBooks and Play Books); Apple and Google both launched in Russia in late 2012. Kobo is also interested in that market, and there were also hints that Barnes & Noble was interested in expanding into Russia, though that does not seem likely at this point.

Update: Apple hasn’t launched in Russia; they support the Russian language in iBooks but do not yet sell ebooks in that market.

When the mainstream media made indie publishing into a synonym for pornography last week I was both appalled and infuriated. Many sites, including The Daily Mail and The Kernel, were reporting on the news less because it was news and more for the tabloidistic shock value.

But as annoying as that may be, today I am going to have to admit that there was more than a grain of truth in the reports. It’s not just media hype; indie publishing has a porn problem.

Or rather, indie publishing has a far higher concentration of erotica and adult content than is found in traditionally published content. I personally don’t see that as a problem, but I can see how others might.

Aaron Stanton, the founder of BookLamp and the Book Genome Project, was the first to really look for data which could shed light on this topic. Over on Digital Book World last night he posted some details from an analysis in which he compared a slice of the indie published titles that BookLamp has analyzed with the traditionally published titles that have been fed through BookLamp’s system.

Aaron found some rather startling results:

Over 28% of the 15,000 indie titles which were collated for this comparison were erotica, compared to less than 2% of the 100,000 plus traditionally published titles in BookLamp’s database.

As you may know, BookLamp has developed a way to analyze the text of a book and identify details like the writing style and major themes. They call this the book’s genome, and it is that genome that was used to classify the ebooks as erotica.

To be more exact, BookLamp searched each book for sexual content and then created a chart like the one above. Each green square represents 1,00 words with no sexual content, yellow means some, and red, well. As you can see 50 Shades clearly belongs in the erotica category, and it was not alone.

Getting back to the survey group as a whole, Aaron also reported that BookLamp found that around 3% of indie titles involved questionable themes:

Now, one could argue that this single source does not reflect the actual titles available, which is true. In fact there’s really no way to know for sure without feeding a sample group the size of the entire Kindle Store through BookLamp’s servers and collating the results.

Given the cost and logistical issues involved, that is probably not going to happen. And that’s why I went looking for another source of data:

Smashwords

This ebook distributor carries all types of content, including erotica, so I took a moment to see just how many titles they carried in the erotica section. I found that the SW website listed 48,000 titles in that section, out of a total 256,000 titles.

That is around 18% of all titles in the Smashwords catalog.

And these are just the self-identified erotica titles; there could be more listed in other sections. I was debating this issue with Aaron last night, and he pointed out that:

I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate to make the assumption that a book with erotic content will always be in the erotic section, or classified as such.  Many times books that statistically should be categorized as erotica by their amount of sexual content (and would have been by a traditional publisher) are not when published independently.

But even though there is a demonstrably higher concentration of erotica among indie-published titles, I still think that it is a misnomer to label the group based on a minority of the content. And I think it is wrong to punish a group for the actions of a minority.

But that’s what happened last week both in the media and in ebookstores when Kobo, Amazon, et al purged a wide variety of indie-published ebooks from their ebookstore, including titles which were not questionable nor even vaguely resembled erotica.

Now that we can see the scope of this issue  I think it’s even more clear that last week’s purge was a solution out of proportion to the problem at hand.

What do you think?

Digital Book World

Barnes & Noble has had a troubled history with hardware development, sometimes releasing a device that was ahead of the market (Nook Color) and sometimes releasing gadgets no one wants to buy (Nook HD) but that hasn’t stopped them.

Their latest gadget cleared the FCC last night and it looks to be an ereader.

B&N has taken the cautious step of hiding all the images and the more interesting details, so all I know at the moment is that this device, the BNRV500-A, was tested for Wifi and has a rectangular shape. According to the tests it has 4GB of storage and a 1.5Ah battery.

I can’t find any mentions in the test reports of screen size or resolution, frontlight, or card slot, but one report does include a diagram which suggests that the new device has the same general proportions as the Nook Touch and Nook Glow. The model number is the same as that of the Nook Touch, which is a sign that we are looking at an ereader.

B&N is probably going to replace the existing Nook Touch with the new model, and they are probably going to launch it in the next few days or weeks.

I am also expecting to see a new tablet from B&N. I have seen numerous leaks including listings for a BT keyboard, a new Nook for Dummies book, and new accessories, and I also have numerous inside sources that say that a tablet is coming. The latest info is that this time around B&N’s tablet will have at least one camera.

There’s no new info on when the gadgets are going to launch, but my sources had told me that it was supposed to have happened already.

FCC (XHHBNRV500-A)

There has been an explosion in ebook subscription services over the past year, with new services launching in the US, Denmark, Brazil, and Denmark (there are 2 competing services in that one small country).

And now a new service has launched in Spain. It hasn’t gotten much attention in the English-language media but a new ebook subscription service launched last month in Spain.

Nubico is a collaboration between the Bertelsmann publishing conglomerate, the Spanish publisher Planeta, and Telefonica. It launched with around 3,000 titles, most of which came from Planeta.

Subscribers pay 8.99 euros per month for access to up to 5 titles at a time, and there is also an additional charge of .99 to 3.99 euros in order to read certain front-list titles. According to press reports the ebooks can be read on Nubico’s apps for Android, iPad, and iPhone as well as on your PC or ereader. The ebooks are encumbered with Adobe DE DRM, though it is not clear exactly how Nubico enforces the removal of ebooks from the ereaders (expiration, perhaps).

I am reporting on this story second-hand and am working from a number of Spanish-language news stories, so there are details I cannot verify. Unfortunately, the Nubico website has been unavailable whenever I checked over the past several days so I have been unable to confirm details, a detail which should concern anyone looking to sign up.

Nubico is Bertelsmann’s second ebook subscription effort, following the early 2012 launch of Skoobe in Germany. There’s no word on the number of subscribers Skoobe has, but I do know that they have a catalog with 25,000 titles.

That is a far smaller selection than offered by the Kindle owner’s lending library, Oyster (US-only), or Scribd (globally), but it is also a larger selection than the Madrid-based 24Symbols.

Xataka, El Pais, BuchReport.de

New estimates from the Câmara Brasileira do Livro show that the Brazilian ebook market saw stellar growth in 2012. Their research revealed that over 4 times as many ebooks were sold in Brazil in 2012 as in 2011.

But that doesn’t really matter much because ebooks were still less than 1% of the overall Brazilian book market. While that is obviously a minuscule figure, the other details from CBL are much more interesting.

CBL’s research also included a survey of Brazilian publishers which showed that 68% sell ebooks, and that 59% are still unsure as to what format they should be selling. Of the total who answered the question, 70% reported selling DRMed ebooks. As for distribution, 52.4% of use digital distributors and 58.7% use other sales channels.

Most of the publishers also reported that ebook revenues were negligible, with 54% saying that their digital revenues were less than 1%. That provides a contrast for the 10% of publishers who reported that ebook revenues accounted for over half of total revenue.

It’s not clear from my sources, but I suspect that the 1% market share is based on a survey of publishers and not market research. There is also no information on which ebookstore had what share of the market in 2012.

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Kobo all launched a local ebookstore in Brazil very late in 2012, so local competitors like Gato Sabido, Saraiva, BajaLibros, and Librara Cultura (now Kobo’s local partner) probably dominated the market.

Brazil has a population of around 200 million, most of whom speak Brazilian Portuguese.

eBook Portugal

image by F H Mira

I have been saying for a few months now that the most interesting ereader launches were coming out of Europe and this latest device is no exception. The Finnish startup Leia Media is going to be testing their first ereader next month, and they have high hopes that it will become the basis for a new subscription based content platform.

Details are still thin on the Leia Reader, but I can tell you that it is built around a 9.7″ color E-ink screen. The prototype will have wireless connectivity and is reportedly going to be solar-powered. Leia is claiming that the usage time will be infinite because this ereader will charge off of the ambient light in a house.

Or at least that is what Leia hopes will happen during the upcoming pilot. Starting next month the Leia Reader will be distributed to several hundred users. During the pilot these testers will be getting the morning and evening editions of the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, and if the pilot is successful Leia plans to expand availability both in Finland and around the world.

The Leia Reader is supported by a consortium of 5 Finnish companies, each of which are contributing a different part of the platform. In addition to Leia Media, Sanoma News, Bluegiga, Anygraaf, and DNA are assisting in the pilot. Based on their websites, I would guess that BlueGiga provided technical expertise for the wireless connectivity, and Anygraaf probably built part or all of the back end.

Leia Media

Alles-eBook.de

India’s billion plus populace has a new ebookstore option today.

Kobo has just signed 2 Indian bookstore chains as their partners. WH Smith India, a subsidiary of the UK bookseller, will be selling Kobo’s ereaders and tablets in their 24 stores in India. Crossword, WH Smith’s larger and more successful competition, will also be carrying  the hardware in 84 stores across the subcontinent.

In addition to the new partners, Kobo is launching 3 ereaders and the Kobo Arc Android tablet in India. There’s no mention of Kobo’s newest products, but the press release does mention that the Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo, and Kobo Aura HD will sell at a rang of prices from 7,999 rupees ($130 USD) to 13,999 rupees ($229 USD), and the Kobo Arc will sell for  11,999 rupees, or about $195 USD.

Crossword already has some of the hardware on their website, where it is discounted by 12% to 16%. They don’t list the Aura HD,  yet. They also have yet to integrate a Kobo ebookstore but are instead sending customers to Kobo’s website. WH Smith India shows no sign of Kobo, but their website would best be described as underdeveloped. I don’t think it’s an ecommerce site so much as it is a placeholder.

Kobo claims to have 4 million titles in their ebookstore in 68 languages, including 95% of India’s bestselling content featuring work from top-selling Indian authors including Jhumpa Lahiri, Ramachandra Guha, and Sachin Garg.

I hope that’s true, because Kobo is going to be facing steep competition in India. Amazon, Apple, and Google all having launched a local ebookstore in the country last year, and Amazon has even signed a couple local retail partners, including Croma. This gadget retailer is also going to carry Kobo’s ereaders but I don’t think they will also be a partner in the ebookstore.

But in spite of Kobo’s late entry, their practice of signing local partners is probably going to give them an advantage.  This was certainly true in France, where Kobo is in 2nd or 3rd place.

In a survey commissioned by Kobo and conducted by Ipsos India, 93% of self-identified readers, said they are familiar with reading devices or apps that allow for reading across a variety of devices and 56 percent said they would prefer to read digital content on a dedicated reading device. Furthermore, 54 percent of respondents said they would read more if they had an ereader that provided them with access to their own digital library anytime, anywhere, anyplace.

Over the past few days Microsoft has been teasing new platform updates that will ship with Windows 8.1, and I think they may have dropped a telling hint about their ebook plans.

In addition to posts on Bing Smart Search, a post on SkyDrive, and a recap of everything new coming to the Windows Mail app, Microsoft has also published a post which happens to mention that one of Microsoft’s development teams was called Xbox MVR. According to the blog post MVR stands for "Music, Video, and Reading".

The post in question was written by the head of the Xbox MVR team, and it focused on the changes coming to Xbox Music (and how it would look on Windows 8.1), but almost as an aside the post happened to mention that Xbox Music was one of the projects being developed by the Xbox MVR team.

I think they just gave us a hint just how much Microsoft cares about ebooks, and I think we now have a second explanation for why MS invested $300 million (plus a promised $300 million) in Nook Media last year. Of course, B&N had already indicated that MS would launch ebookstores in 10 countries but now we have an idea which team at Microsoft is doing the work.

If I am right then this is  a sign of a second parallel ebook effort inside MS. In addition to the new Reader app for Windows 8 which is being developed by the Office team, we now have a hint that there is also an ebookstore under development by the Xbox MVR team.

My source thinks that this might be a sign that MS is going to release a handheld reader of some kind, but I’m not so sure. Remember, this hint came from a post about Windows 8.1, which tells us that the Xbox MVR team develops for Windows as well as the Xbox.

But I could be wrong. There have been rumors in the past that indicated that Microsoft’s future Xbox might have a 7″ tablet style controller similar to the one found on the WiiU, but aside from a leaked and possibly fake spec sheet all we have are rumors. That device was called the Xbox Surface in the rumors, which of course means nothing.

If that Xbox Surface (or something like it) does show up then we’ll probably find that it has an ebookstore, but I also don’t expect to see an ebookstore on the Xbox One. I’m not convinced that anyone will want to read for any length of time on their TV screens.

liveside.net

If you’re frustrated by the delay of the global launch of the Yotaphone and the E-ink smartphone cases then I have some good news for you. Charbax caught up with the Chinese gadget maker Onyx this week and they told him that they will be shipping the E43 smartphone later this year.

The Boox E43 smartphone has a 4.3″ E-ink screen. It runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread on  a 1GHz Freescale  CPU with 512MB RAM, a microSD card slot, Wifi, Bluetooth, and support for EDGE and GSM networks.

It’s been under development for a couple years now, and in that time it’s gotten a lot better. The screen resolution is now up to 800 x 480, and E43 also now has a capacitive touchscreen and a frontlight. This device is going to weigh in at 120g, and according to the video it has a standby time of about 2 weeks.

The first couple minutes of the video show off the E43, but after that Charbax takes a brief tour of the Onyx booth at  the HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair. It’s well worth your time because this video will give you the first ever look at Onyx’s larger and newer Android-equipped ereaders.

As you can see, the video shows that Onyx has a 6.8″ ereader on display, and that means that someone has finally developed an ereader with the screen found on the Kobo Aura HD. And if I heard the video correctly then Onyx also has a 9.7″ ereader that runs Android 4.0. Now that is very cool.

If you’ve been following ebook news over the past few days then you probably know that Amazon, B&N, and Kobo have been scrambling to respond to the news that they were selling questionable content.

While this story had originally focused on the UK ebook market, the fracas later grew to include the international Kindle and Kobo ebookstores, and I have just learned that Kobo’s local ebookstores in Australia and New Zealand have been affected as well.

Dear Author tipped me to the news that Whitcoulls, Kobo’s bookseller partner in New Zealand, has temporarily shut down their ebookstore. They haven’t gone as far as WH Smith and turned off their website completely, but they did remove the ebook section and replace it with this notice:

Due to recent publicity surrounding eBook publishing through automated feeds provided by our eBook partner, Kobo, Whitcoulls has suspended the sale of eBooks through our website.  This suspension will remain in place until we can guarantee that any inappropriate material, that has been available through self published eBooks, has been removed from the Kobo eBook catalogue.

Whitcoulls is joining in the general overreaction to the news last week that Kobo and other ebookstores sell adult content. All of the major ebookstores and Kobo are scrambling to remove the more questionable titles, with Kobo even going so far as to purge their ebookstore of self-published ebooks. Kobo’s UK partner WH Smith has also shut down their website as a result.

According to David Gaughran, Kobo removed around half of the self-published titles available in the Kobo UK ebookstore, including titles from a variety of genres other than erotica:

FYI: If you are not in the UK, you can’t see the Kobo UK store, and won’t know if your books have been removed. My tests show 50% of SP gone

— David Gaughran (@DavidGaughran) October 16, 2013

They also removed those titles from their Australian ebookstore.

I can confirm today that those titles are gone from the ebookstore on BookWorld, one of Kobo’s Australian partners. That ebookstore is still operational but it is missing an unknown number of self-published titles, including SF and nonfiction works by David Gaughran. He uploaded his own titles through Kobo Writing Life so they should be available.

Kobo promised yesterday that they would eventually restore most of the titles they purged, but they have not explained why they felt it necessary to remove inoffensive ebooks like David’s guides for self-published authors.

I have queried Kobo on this but have not received a response. But I assume that they are awfully busy at the moment coping with the mess they have created, which is understandable.

image by eliduke

When Scribd launched their subscription ebook service a couple weeks ago it quickly grew to be the second most popular service here in the US (following the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library). Today Scribd decided to share some details about their success.

They’ve posted an infographic with some highlights, and I have embedded it below.

The infographic tells us that Scribd’s subscribers have so far spent 9.6 years reading ebooks. We don’t know many subscribers Scribd has, but I can tell you that the power readers go through an average of 10 ebooks each month. Scribd has also revealed that one user in Wichita KS holds the record of reading 14 books in 2 weeks after having spent spent over 45 hours a week reading.

When it comes to hardware, Scribd’s records show that the most popular reading device was the iPad – by far. Android devices came in second, with PCs in third place and smartphones rounding out last place.

I have to say that I was surprised; I was expecting smartphones to rank higher due to the simple fact that there are more iPhones out there than iPads. I had also thought PCs would drive nonfiction reading, but apparently iPad users are driving the technical and academic reading. Most people are reading general fiction though business titles, romance, and relationship books are almost as popular.

I am not surprised by Scribd’s success. Their ebook subscription service draws on Scribd’s past experience with document storage and sharing to provide a highly functional service with polished apps for Android, iPhone, and your web browser. Scribd’s ebook subscription service is available globally and includes titles from HarperCollins as well as E-Reads, Kensington, Red Wheel/Weiser, Rosetta Books, Sourcebooks, and Workman.

When WH Smith responded to the news that they were selling adult content by turning off their website and promising to turn it on again "once all self published eBooks have been removed", I thought that they were exaggerating.

Now I am not so sure.

I have numerous independent reports that Kobo is pulling self-published titles from their UK ebookstore. And they’re not just removing erotica; I have confirmation that self-published ebooks from a wide variety of genres have been removed.

For those who are just tuning in, Kobo and their UK partner ebookstore WH Smith are responding to the "news" last week that they were selling adult content. I have already covered that story extensively, and you can find it here.

Kobo remains unavailable for comment, but earlier today Draft2Digital, an ebook distributor, sent out an email to all of their authors (found via TeleRead). They shared the bad news that all D2D titles had been removed from Kobo:

We have discovered that over the weekend Kobo removed all books published through our account. While we have received no official word concerning this issue, we believe this is related to recent articles in the media concerning erotica titles available at WHSmith and Kobo’s storefronts.

However, Kobo’s response to this situation seems to have been removal of all books for any publishers (including distributors) that have offending titles until they find a solution.

And that’s just the beginning.

Update: I have heard back from D2D. They say that Kobo removed all 7,883 titles they distribute, no matter the genre. I was also told that Kobo did not give them any notice whatsoever and that D2D is still waiting for Kobo to explain just what went wrong.

I have reports in the comment section of this blog from three different authors that say their ebooks are gone from Kobo’s UK ebookstore. One report comes from David Gaughran, who as you might know is an SF author. He doesn’t write erotica, but he does publish his own novels via Kobo Writing Life:

All my titles have been removed from Kobo UK, and I don’t write erotica (and I uploaded direct).

On a quick check of about 10 random authors (who don’t write erotica), about half seem to be missing from the UK store – including some big sellers. All Draft2Digital titles, and some Smashwords and Kobo Writing Life titles.

Oddly enough, his ebooks are still available in the US, even though D2D says that the titles they distribute are completely gone. It is only in his home market of the UK that Kobo will not sell his ebooks.

And that’s not all. There are several more confirmations on KBoards (here, here, here), including several that said that they don’t write erotica. One saw 58 titles be removed without notice or warning, while another reported that:

I just lost two Smashwords titles (both crime, not romance or adult in any way). I think they’re just taking time working through it.

At this point Kobo has removed titles from a couple different distributors and from their own self-pub platform. It is not clear exactly what Kobo thinks they’re doing, but right now it looks to me like they really could be planning to remove all self-published titles from the UK ebookstore they share with WH Smith. While that might sound crazy, it is no more insane than WH Smith’s decision to shut down their website.

Update: Kobo has sent out an email to KWL authors with a partial explanation. They do not explain the removal of the Smashwords titles or D2D titles, nor do they answer all the obvious questions, but they do suggest that most  titles will be restored.

And at this point all we have to go on is 2nd-hand reports from authors; no one at Kobo Writing Life is returning emails today so we have no explanation as to what is going on.

If this does come to pass then it will represent a new high point for sheer overreaction to bad press. It would also tell us that WH Smith, which is probably the instigator for this action, is truly out of touch and has decided to throw the self-pub baby out with the adult content bathwater.

image by Hometown Unicorn

Here’s an interesting footnote in the ongoing moral crusade against self-published erotica.

As I am sure you know, over the past few days, Amazon, B&N, WH Smith , and Kobo have all started removing self-published erotica from their ebookstores, with WH Smith even going so far as to shut down their website with the promise that it won’t reopen until all self-published titles have been removed.

B&N and Amazon appear to be slightly more selective; they’re running keyword searches and removing all the results.

But what you might not know is that this isn’t the first time that ebookstores have overreacted to news reports on erotica ebooks. And I’m not just talking about the time that Paypal tried to censor Smashwords; Amazon and B&N are actually repeating one of Amazon’s past mistakes.

Back in 2010 Amazon was swept up in a wave of I don’t know what, and besides removing erotica that features incest they also removed ebooks whose titles simply contained a word that Amazon deemed inappropriate. Here’s how one author defended his ebooks in an email he sent to Amazon:

You pulled my titles because that reporter at the Fox affiliate labeled my book pornography.  If you actually HAD done your research, you’d see that they do not fall under that category.  I can see them being viewed as erotica because the sex is very intense…and not at all sugar-coated…but that’s it.  And they were on Amazon’s website being offered for sale for years without a problem.  So will you also be removing other books once viewed as porn, like "Ulysses" and "Henry and June" and "Lolita"?  Will you continue to offer DVDs of movies that depict the torture and rape of women, like "Straw Dogs" and "A Clockwork Orange"?

Then, like now, Amazon was responding to unfavorable press by a sweeping removal of Kindle ebooks simply based on a keyword search. The 2 ebooks in question contained the word rape in the title, but did not have any actual acts of rape committed by the main characters.

And that’s not the only problem. Amazon has also had a long running neurosis concerning gay and lesbian ebooks in the Kindle Store. In 2009 Amazon removed 57,000 gay-and-lesbian-themed books from the Amazon.com search results.

Amazon has also occasionally tried to ban yaoi manga from the Kindle Store. This is a genre of Japanese comics that feature m/m relationships, and even though most of the stories are less risque that 50 Shades Amazon thinks they are too icky to be sold in the Kindle Store.

Selling them as paper books is fine, but in 2011 Amazon deleted a number of titles from one publisher. And then in 2012 Amazon nearly banned that publisher from the Kindle Store. They later backed down, but only after negative press stories criticized them.

At this point I really have to wonder why we are still doing business with Amazon (or any of the other major ebookstores). It’s pretty clear that these monolithic entities are too unpredictable in how they will respond to the latest hot news story.

And sadly, this time around it’s not just Amazon which is overreacting. Remember, Kobo and B&N have also removed titles, and that means we can no longer count on other ebookstores to counter the insane actions of their competition.

Now might be a good time for indie authors to go completely indie and start supporting the truly indie ebookstore platforms like Gumroad, Indiro, and others.

What do you think?

image by tonyolm

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and WH Smith are taking a radical response to last week’s "news" that they sell boundary-pushing adult content in their ebookstores. They are now deleting not just the questionable erotica but are also removing any ebooks that might even hint at violating cultural norms.

This story began when The Kernel discovered last week that, much to their dismay, Amazon was selling legal adult content:

The books are sold as Kindle Editions, the name Amazon gives to books that can be cheaply and quickly downloaded to its portable Kindle device. Available titles include Don’t Daddy (Forced Virgin Seduction) and Daddy’s Invisible Condom (Dumb Daughter Novelette).

As with “barely legal” pornographic films, which seek to satisfy base urges associated with illegal and immoral acts while circumventing laws against depictions of underage sex, many of the titles listed on Amazon protest loudly that rape victims are “over 18”.

Similarly, the “daddy” rapists in many incest stories are revealed in the small print to be “not blood related”. But few reading the titles of these books will be fooled about the supposed erotic intent of the volumes.

Again, this content is legal.

I had planned to simply ignore this as a non-news story, but the major ebookstores were more concerned about legal self-published erotica than I would have expected. The Daily Mail, On The Media, BBC News, and a couple dozen authors on KBoards are all reporting that content is being deleted right and left.

The ebookstores are sweeping a wide broom in the process, with WH Smith even going so far as to shut down their website. They have replaced it with a holder page that explains that:

Last week we were made aware that a number of unacceptable titles were appearing on our website through the Kobo website that has an automated feed to ours. This is an industry wide issue impacting retailers that sell self published eBooks due to the explosion of self publishing, which in the main is good as it gives new authors the opportunity to get their content published. However we are disgusted by these particular titles, find this unacceptable and we in no way whatsoever condone them.

Their statement ends with the conclusion that the website will be operational again "once all self published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available." When that will be, they did not say.

Update: It appears that WH Smith wasn’t exaggerating when they said that all self-published ebooks were going to go; there are numerous reports that Kobo is removing most if not all of the self-pub titles in their UK ebookstore. Click here for more details.

WH Smith is not alone in their overreaction. Barnes & Noble was only peripherally mentioned in this story, but they too have started removing content and released an official statement:

When there are violations to the content policy that are brought to our attention, either through our internal process or from a customer or external source, we have a rapid response team in place to appropriately categorize or remove the content in accordance with our policy.

Amazon has not officially commented on the story, but I do have numerous confirmations from KBoards (I can’t figure out how to link to specific posts, sorry) that Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble have been removing whole swathes of self-published erotica from the Nook Store and Kindle Store. And they are not just deleting the more questionable titles; B&N and Amazon appear to be performing keyword searches in the erotica section and removing everything they find.

Many authors have reported that their titles had been pulled from the Kindle Store with little explanation beyond the statement that the titles in question violated Amazon’s policies on "Description, Cover Image". Many don’t have a clue what that is supposed to mean, including the author who forwarded one of the emails to me.

For example, one self-published title that was swept up in the crowd was Babysitting the Baumgartners. This ebook was unquestionably erotica, but based on the listing on Goodreads it is not in the least bit questionable (other than the word babysitter in the title). This title is not listed in either the Kindle Store or Nook Store any more.

And then there is Riding the Big One, a gay novel which was originally published years ago and subsequently re-released by the author in 2010. And suddenly Amazon decided they won’t sell it anymore as an ebook, possibly because the description mentions the word teenager.

There is also The Nun’s Lover, which appears to have been removed simply because the description mentions the word sister.

Curiously enough, B&N and Amazon have yet to remove The Bible, V.C. Andrews' Flowers In The Attic, Alyssa Nutting’s Tampa, Judy Blume’s Forever, or Lolita.  No, they’re just removing self-published erotica. And that brings me to what I see as the more important story.

This story has already gotten a lot of press, but so far as I can tell everyone from the journalists to the ebookstore staff has made the same assumption that only the self-published titles are an issue. As you can see from that list of titles above, that is simply not true.

Unfortunately, I may have been the only one who noticed. And I might be the one only one who cares about the authors who have been harmed in this moral panic.

It is not easy to get a title restored to the Kindle Store after the staff removed it. Said title has to be approved by some faceless drone inside Amazon before it can be sold again, and thanks to the minimalist explanations provided by Amazon it’s going to be exceptionally difficult for authors to comply.

And that means that this overreaction on the part of Amazon, B&N, and WH Smith is affecting the livelihoods of more than a few authors, none of whom have done anything worse than write and sell what readers want to buy. The overblown response to a couple of news stories is actually causing more damage than the content being vilified.

And that, frankly, is ridiculous.

Further Reading

• Amazon removes abuse-themed e-books from store (BBC News)
• Why Amazon Should Keep Publishing Rape and Incest Porn (On The Media)
• Warning: KDP banning old and new erotica titles en masse from self-publishers (KBoards)
• WHSmith removing all self-published titles; Offline Statement (Kboards)
• How Amazon cashes in on Kindle filth – Jeremy Wilson (The Kernel)
• WHSmith’s vile trade in online rape porn: Bookseller apologises after sales of sick ebooks are revealed (Mail Online)

 image by victoriapeckham