It is easy to get tremendously worked up over the recent and ongoing changes taking place at the various e-book retailers. Many self-published erotica works are being cleared off the virtual shelves of stores like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc. For more on this read Nate Hoffeider’s article: “Self-Published Erotica is Being Singled Out for Sweeping Deletions from Major EBookstores.”
I’m not a supporter of censorship of any sort – economic, ideological or social. I’m just a realist. The Western world (which is the only one that even debates the issue of the evils of censorship with any sustained energy or effect) has seen a historical ebb and flow in the value placed on freedom of speech and other attendant, related freedoms.
My guess is that this latest move by eBookstores is purely pragmatic, not moral. That the books they are removing do not earn them enough profit to be worth the legal risks they perceive to be taking in stocking them. And being businesses, their decisions are informed more by their accountants and legal teams than any content editorial decision-making entity. And (yes, you can jump on me for this in the comments) the vast majority of what they are deleting is material that most of the content-based decision-makers are not willing to defend for its artistic merit.
Self-publishing has brought us extraordinary voices we would not have otherwise heard. Voices so new and fresh that the traditional and even larger indie publishers (few of whom have shown a shred of willingness to participate in literary innovation for years) could not spot the value in them. But it has also brought us a mountain of crap, derivative, badly-written, sometimes blatantly plagiarized, un-proofed garbage, its one redeeming quality being that no tree died in its printing.
Moreover, my guess is that these retailers possess no one who has even a basic grasp of the nuances of what might or might not breach the laws regarding obscenity in any given country. And the reality is: they don’t have to. Ebook Retailers have no altruistic obligation to the cultural landscape of our society. They have made no pledges to stand shoulder to shoulder with the literary innovators of our age. They’re textual Walmarts. That’s all they are. And so there is no compelling reason for them to defend anyone’s right to sell some self-pubbed ebook that interrupts the smooth running of their businesses.
The minute we started calling music, literature, film, etc. ‘cultural product’ is the moment we started treating it like a material thing that might be bought or sold on the basis of superficial standards of profitability. And ‘product’ sellers started selling it. The minute we started demanding that the books we bought should ‘do what they say on the package’, or slot neatly into genre parameters, or come up to our specific expectations (not as readers, or explorers in the world of fiction but as ‘consumers’) was the moment we said goodbye to an enduring, nuanced and untransactional relationship with literature.
This issue is not going to go away or get better anytime soon. We have become so consumer-oriented, so intensely market-driven, that it will probably take generations before enough people notice how achingly vacuous our society has grown and do anything about it. And when that does happen, it won’t be a happy time either. Because unless there is a groundswell of common sense and critical thinking (when was the last time that happened?), the loudest voices are going to be the ones who think the only place depth is to be found is in some hyper-religious version of morality.
So, for now, I expect that transgressive literature will be driven underground, into the shady byways of indie ebook retailers. These problematic books may not gross enough profit for the major eBook retailers, but it’s probably enough for someone smaller.
And so we go back to purchasing our questionable reading material in the electronic version of brown paper packages. Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. I’m not opposed to forcing consumers of transgressive literature to admit that what they’re buying is, indeed, transgressive. In fact, I think there’s a certain fetishistic pleasure to be had in having to do it.
Moreover, no one is stopping writers of transgressive material from distributing it off their own websites, or in subscription form. And if you really believe in the material you write, as I do, then the loss of what is, for most of us, a laughable sum of money that won’t even cover the cost of my cat food… is no loss at all.
Write because you love writing. Write because you have to. Write to be read. Write to speak to the uncomfortable realities of our desires, to the erotic truths that a terminally hypocritical society will not acknowledge.
As a writer of erotic fiction, that’s my job. All that business stuff… is just a distraction.
this is such a hopeful post, RG. thanks for writing & sharing it. my only quibble concerns distribution by writers. alas sites are owned by internet service providers who are also being pressured to avoid this type of material. we had to leave one ISP because of their rules even for e-mail. getting work printed is also an issue. i know of a printer in Quebec who refused to print a publication because it showed full frontal male nudity. the printer was fine with female nudity but not male. i do love the idea of underground ways of distributing & publishing material. it tends to free art. gives us something to rebel against & watch our work grow stronger 😉
Oh, I will definitely keep writing . . .the question is, will I bother investing in all the sevices needed to share that writing in a worthwhile way? The answer – probably not.
Then perhaps that is also good. Because you can seek out someone who has a passion for seeing this sort of work made available and let THEM do that. Which is the way it should be.
Been there, done that – watched small presses crumble around me. Without broad distribution channels the chances of those presses surviving becomes even more tenuous. Getting it to people you know are interested is easy . . .getting it in front of people who don’t realize they’re interested, that’s what you lose without broader distribution. Color me tired, frustrated and ready to just let them eat pap, it’s obviously what the world wants.
Funny, my experience of being on the large distributors was having someone giving Gaijin a single star for not being a romance. I figure, sooner or later, if someone is really interested in the sort of thing I write, they’ll find me. And they’re probably NOT ready to read it until they decide to go looking for it anyway.
I’m agreeing with pretty much everything here. So far it seems that small presses are not subject to the same purge. Even very small presses. Unless the rules change again, then that may be the future of authorship on places like Amazon. Also, while the business end of erotica may be a drop in the bucket for the big retailers, I really don’t think it’s that small a market worldwide en toto. Individuals and indie distributors may find that this ends up being a a net opportunity. I say that knowing that Amazon and the like have immense reach and distribution. But the internet consumer is clever.
One small thing — there *is* a groundswell of common sense and critical thinking happening. It’s more a groundripple at this point and perhaps would be better characterized as “critical questioning” than thinking, but I see more people becoming more willing to pull up short and say, “Wait. What’s going on here? That’s not right. I don’t know how to fix it, but that’s not right.” First step to solving a problem — realizing there is one.
Then again, I’m a hopeless optimist. Even here in Redneck Central (otherwise known as Alabama, US), I’m a hopeless optimist. I have to be. Otherwise, there is no reason to continue to draw breath.
I’m finding it difficult to appreciate the positives of this situation when the negatives are so infuriating. I do support higher standards in erotica and porn, and it would be nice if there were some kind of a uniform vetting process for indies prior to distribution, but the means to that end cannot be censorship.
I feel for the people making a living off their (porn) ebook sales. According to a popular forum I follow, it’s been an important source of income for many people; as in thousands a month, not a laughable sum. Even the 80% who make less than that, on average earn at least a car payment from it.
Granted, the quality of that product has been adequately described here, and some of the themes I wouldn’t want anyone to read, but still, it feeds people and I’m not the thought police. I guess my answer would be to encourage more people to produce better erotic writing and to allow everyone the choice to avoid what is terrible. It’s very easy to return an ebook, should the purchaser have missed the opportunity to judge the book by it’s cover.
I hope someone will start their own distribution site favoring erotica, in this climate it should be able to grow into an impressive business once everyone finds it. Maybe someone else could start their own ISP and an entity to rival PayPal. In the meantime, I for one would try distributing through my own website. It’s the WWW. If you’re good, you are bound to find a significant following. I find Amanda’s comments on this alarming, but so far haven’t experienced it personally. I hope Raz is correct.
I can’t believe it’s possible to grow up in a time of Risky Business in the theaters and wind up in Victorian England by middle age. It’s truly hard to grasp.
So corporations can do whatever they want. Ok. But corporations are now people and censorship and discrimination are supposed to be illegal. What do we make of that?
You bring up a lot of problems, Penelope:
Vetting for standards? Who’d do that and why would they bother? Self-pubbing on Amazon was designed to be computerized. Computers can’t make decisions regarding ‘quality’ and if they were to see the profit in applying paid humans to it, you’re back to the same problem of that one man’s art is another man’s porn.
I feel for anyone who can’t find a job and feed themselves. Period. But considering the history of writing and writing erotica in particular, it has never been a good judgement call to depend on it for your living. The number of writers, historically, who have been able to achieve that could be counted in the dozens.
I disagree with you regarding what is fit to read. Personally, I despise any sort of censorship. Adults should be able to read anything they want, regardless of how disgusting I might find it. However, refusing to sell something is not, technically censorship. And how would you like it if YOU had a business and were required to sell something you found morally repugnant? Or if you felt selling that product might lead to having to shoulder legal costs?
There already are a number of online eRetailers that specialize in erotica. It might be wise for us to stop favouring the convenience of an Amazon account and support them, because they ARE selling what you want, depending on what you want. They’re just a little harder to find. That’s my point. Although I find the major eBook retailers a pretty repugnant, self-serving lot – they’re businesses. They can choose what they will or won’t sell. And so can anyone. So, maybe it is time to track down and financially support those little e-book retailers that carry what you like and keep them ticking over.
The more serious, graver problem is when online transaction processors refuse to process certain transactions. This, to me, is where a much more serious problem lies. Online transaction processors are not in the business of selling anything. They simply process the transaction. The fact that entities like Paypal can decide they can pick and choose WHICH transactions to process… this is an ethically different question.
The US Supreme Court ruling that corporations are ‘persons’ is truly a puzzling one. I think there will be legal experts and scholars scratching their head over that little bit of insanity for years. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a decision that eventually gets overturned. In the meantime, if you have the money to take Kobo to the supreme court over it, be my guest.
There is very little justice in the US that can be claimed without significant funding. I suspect that entities that do defend freedom of speech, like the ACLU, would chose to pick battles that might garner more mainstream support than the sales of erotic literature. This isn’t fair, but since they have limited funding, they need to pick their battles wisely. If you’d like them to fight for the right to force transaction providers to process ANY LEGAL SALE, then I suggest you donate to them. I do. The proceeds of my sales on my anthology ‘Coming Together Presents Remittance Girl,’ go to them.
I will have to make sure all of the holes are patched up before I post another argument around here again. But I’m not sure what the disagreement is about censorship, I said basically the same thing: I don’t advocate it in any form.
As for doing my part, I will indeed change the link to my one little title to Smashwords.