Censorship of consensual incest fantasy at AMZ

It says "Virgin" under my name, still, which I find hilarious. But it's appropriate because I'm rather inept at finding my way around the LDB. I'm sure my question has been asked and answered a million times prior, so my apologies for not finding either, but it goes like this.

Actually, first, a statement: I detest censorship. Especially by a merchant. You, Mr Merchant, made a deal with the world to sell books. Sell them, already. But I've heard that the consensual incest category at AMZ has to be clad in the equivalent of pasties: The mom has to be the adoptive mom in, for example, a mom-son consensual 18+ incest fantasy novel. When I search on "incest erotica" the search returns, for example, a promising title which starts out — alas — with the following:

"We aren't twins, Jimmy and I. Truth be told, he's not really my brother. Not my blood, anyway. Just as Pa isn't really my Pa..."

BORRRRR-INNNNG! Also: how craven and creepy-coy. Seriously, what's with the dirty old man wink-wink, AMZ? Why have a search for "incest erotica" return _any_ results _at all_ if it's going to be that way? "Pa isn't really my Pa." Gimme a break.

My question: is there any alternative to AMZ? By which I mean: author gets paid for her work. I started writing consenual incest fantasy stories in mid-2015. I perhaps have ambitions for a novella or even a novel — but not if there's no market for it. Rather: if the market won't _permit_ the market for it. No pasties for me, please.

Thank you!!!

xoxo, Zoey Zola

If you find a major publisher that pays reasonable rates and will publish incest, please print the contact. I just got a, 'now see here,' letter from Amazon.

R. Richard said:

If you find a major publisher that pays reasonable rates and will publish incest, please print the contact. I just got a, 'now see here,' letter from Amazon.

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So don't promote it as incest. Position it as an adventure or romance or whatever where the principals just happen to be close kin, as spottily revealed down in the text. Sort of like I worked in the first episode of 'Neath Western Skies, Ma! If I'd left 'Ma!' out of the title and called it a Cowboy Romance, who'd have noticed?

Hypoxia said:

So don't promote it as incest. Position it as an adventure or romance or whatever where the principals just happen to be close kin, as spottily revealed down in the text. Sort of like I worked in the first episode of 'Neath Western Skies, Ma! If I'd left 'Ma!' out of the title and called it a Cowboy Romance, who'd have noticed?

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Clever idea. I tried that and the editor people at Amazon eventually noticed. They didn't call me a crude motherfucker, but they came close.

R. Richard said:

Clever idea. I tried that and the editor people at Amazon eventually noticed. They didn't call me a crude motherfucker, but they came close.

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Calling an incest author a crude motherfucker... that's funny!

As long as you don't have a title with Mom and whoever in it and the description is generic, Amazon doesn't give a crap what's inside.

I have one at smashword where the title is Cross Country Mom.

At Amazon the title is Cross Country Road Trip.

Other than the title change, everything else is the same inside.

Zeb_Carter said:

As long as you don't have a title with Mom and whoever in it and the description is generic, Amazon doesn't give a crap what's inside.

I have one at smashword where the title is Cross Country Mom.

At Amazon the title is Cross Country Road Trip.

Other than the title change, everything else is the same inside.

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I beg to differ with you. I used a reasonably generic title and a carefully edited blurb. There was no hint of incest. The book is now blocked and I have been threatened with removal of all of my books from Amazon.

ZoeyZola said:

It says "Virgin" under my name, still, which I find hilarious.
I'm sure my question has been asked and answered a million times prior, so my apologies for not finding either, but it goes like this.

Actually, first, a statement: I detest censorship. Especially by a merchant. You, Mr Merchant, made a deal with the world to sell books. Sell them, already. But . . .

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Welcome to the AH.

Let us suppose, for a brief moment, that I am a Merchant.
I'm not in a position to 'censor' anything practical, but I should be in a position to determine what I stock for sale. I make a modest profit and pay my necessary taxes as do all honest traders.

But it only takes one vociferous ID10T to take offence at my stocking "My Mom's a Slut for Me" or some similarly lurid title, to the point where he/she spreads the word about the community and my Bank, (with whom I've had a good working relationship), gets suddenly aware of threatened withdrawals of accounts and so on that puts them in some financial peril.
So they withdraw their services to me.
[incidentally, I recall this sort of thing happening in both the USA & the UK].
Now, what do you, the protesting customer with a desire for lurid material of an 'Incestuous' nature, think I'm going to do?
Rightly or wrongly, I'm almost certainly going to disappoint you in your quest for that particular material. If only because I have other customers with more 'acceptable' requirements and I want to stay in business.
So I would say to you, that 'special' customer, "You want lurid Incest, write it yourself".

As an aside, and remembering what my Mama looked like when I was in my teens, she would be low on my 'to do' list.

PS. In case you do not know, the term 'Virgin' refers to your experience in the Lit environment. Join in some of the discussions (try the General Board for real fun) and your posts number will rise and you'll soon loose the Virgin appellation.

PPS; As far as I know, Incest is illegal.

Take a look at the various "How to" pieces and almost anything written by Laurel.
It's her train-set, and we'll jump whenever she wants.

I write in several categories. One of my best selling categories is incest. One of my publishers will no longer publish incest stories, because the credit card company will no longer allow such stories.
I would like to find a publisher that will pay good money to publish incest stories.
Incest may be illegal, So is murder, Murder mysteries are and have always been good sellers.
I'm an orphan and I don't want adult/child incest.
Plots are me, I write stories with strong plots and usually strong characters. If the characters involve themselves with incest or murder, so what?
I understand the need for a publisher to publish only what his payment processor will handle. I still would like to find a publisher that will pay good money to publish incest stories.

A business deciding what will and will not be in its inventory stock is not engaging in censorship; it's engaging in deciding what its mix of products will be, which is pretty much a basic right of business. Controlling what your product is isn't the same thing at all as controlling who you sell it to, either.

There's nothing stopping a publisher from publishing books on incest or distributors from selling books on incest. If you perceive a profitable hole in the market that's not being filled, you have as much an opportunity to fill it as anyone else does. What you don't have a right to do is to tell a business what its products have to be.

Handley_Page said:

PPS; As far as I know, Incest is illegal.

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I explore that in my essay What is Incest? Legally and morally, incest is erratic. Incest HERE ain't incest THERE. What's verboten HERE is common or mandatory THERE. It's not like murder, the intentional unlawful taking of another's life, or robbery, the forcible taking of something from someone. Motherfucking, daddy-doing, and sibling sex are pretty much frowned upon in many cultures; beyond that it's wide open. And just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's not common. Do you always obey speed limits while driving?

I don't write for commercial markets now so I don't really care. If I did write to sell, I'd write stuff that COULD sell. T'ain't rocket science to figure that out. I've seen enough incestuous F&SF and other mainstream lit to know it's not a deal-breaker WHEN DONE RIGHT. I'd likely get away with mainstreaming Make Me Scream! because the incest is a very minor part of the story.

Context, context, context.

R. Richard said:

I write in several categories. One of my best selling categories is incest. One of my publishers will no longer publish incest stories, because the credit card company will no longer allow such stories.

I would like to find a publisher that will pay good money to publish incest stories.
Incest may be illegal, So is murder, Murder mysteries are and have always been good sellers.

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A while ago, we had a decent tread going about the actions of the credit card company and their 'moral' stance. I'd love to understand by what right they set themselves up as judge, etc..

Just before they chopped Louis head off in the name of civilisation and transformation, incest was allowed. Just putting that out there. That - and - similarly to the other thread a few days ago, if Amazon want to remove all R. Richard's books for a few incest books, then they should remove all Anne Rice's books, and not just hers, I can think of many books we consider classics, that have hinted at or included incest in their stories.

R. Richard said:

I beg to differ with you. I used a reasonably generic title and a carefully edited blurb. There was no hint of incest. The book is now blocked and I have been threatened with removal of all of my books from Amazon.

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Must be you then.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest"

Ummm, I guess that'd be me :-O

I'm also guessing that the answer is "NO!" to the question: "Is there any alternative to AMZ?" Which I think I already knew. Hope springs eternal that someone here can recommend one.

I checked out Smashwords — thank you, @Zeb_Carter! I wonder what kind of revenue Smashwords generates compared to AMZ? I'm certainly encouraged that they permitted a nipple on the cover of "The Stag Party." Wait! There it is at AMZ, too! Huh?

I was using "pasties" metaphorically in my prior post, and I still think it's appropriate to the problem. Where will the next "50 Shades" franchise come from if not Literotica's 2nd most popular category? Is my theory. (Is "Erotic Couplings" 100% incest fantasy-free, btw?)

So I still say there is huge hypocrisy in play here, in that AMZ's search engine produces _any_ result for "incest erotica." Try asking AMZ for a "lobster gender determiner," for example, and see how well you do.

Thanks, everyone, for an interesting discussion!

xoxo, Zoey Z

Zoey's credo: "Incest fantasy is normal. Incest reality is NOT."

Did you bother to do an Internet search on "Incest ebook publishers"? I did and came up with some. I didn't pursue it further because I don't write incest for the market.

ZoeyZola said:

Ummm, I guess that'd be me :-O

I'm also guessing that the answer is "NO!" to the question: "Is there any alternative to AMZ?" Which I think I already knew. Hope springs eternal that someone here can recommend one.

I checked out Smashwords — thank you, @Zeb_Carter! I wonder what kind of revenue Smashwords generates compared to AMZ? I'm certainly encouraged that they permitted a nipple on the cover of "The Stag Party." Wait! There it is at AMZ, too! Huh?

I was using "pasties" metaphorically in my prior post, and I still think it's appropriate to the problem. Where will the next "50 Shades" franchise come from if not Literotica's 2nd most popular category? Is my theory. (Is "Erotic Couplings" 100% incest fantasy-free, btw?)

So I still say there is huge hypocrisy in play here, in that AMZ's search engine produces _any_ result for "incest erotica." Try asking AMZ for a "lobster gender determiner," for example, and see how well you do.

Thanks, everyone, for an interesting discussion!

xoxo, Zoey Z

Zoey's credo: "Incest fantasy is normal. Incest reality is NOT."

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Actually, if you want to be distributed to the other venues, you can't have nudity on the cover. I first published the book without nudity for distribution, then republished the cover with nudity. IF I update the book for any reason with that cover it won't be distributed downstream.

I don't know what the revenue stream is at AMZ. Smashwords isn't all that bad, not as good a Amazon, but as long as you keep publishing new works, you older ones continue to sell.

I had a cover a few years ago that caused the distributors to object. It’s a butt shot on an ancient warrior GM book, Dirk Hessian’s Labryinth. Allromanceebooks.com accepted it as is. Smashwords wouldn’t take it without the butt being covered. Amazon turned it down (and the publisher just said “screw you” and it’s not on Amazon).

The Allromanceebooks version:

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/dbimages/520337.jpg


The Smashwords verson:

http://dwtr67e3ikfml.cloudfront.net/bookCovers/dbe9347b92b7001cddc7f57c789ff32b028380db-thumb

Smashwords will sell that cover as is, it's Sony and Apple that complain about nudity on a cover, so they just won't distribute it down the chain to their outlets.

Zeb_Carter said:

Smashwords will sell that cover as is, it's Sony and Apple that complain about nudity on a cover, so they just won't distribute it down the chain to their outlets.

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Umm, no. As I clearly stated, it was Smashwords that demanded to have the butt covered. The version with the butt covered is on Smashwords.

sr71plt said:

Umm, no. As I clearly stated, it was Smashwords that demanded to have the butt covered. The version with the butt covered is on Smashwords.

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Yes, they will, but Smashwords themselves will sell it that way. If you, but you don't, had read the notice, they just said your book wouldn't qualify for distribution to their premium channels.

Details
This book needs modification before it can be reviewed for the Premium Catalog.

Cover image problem - We cannot distribute your book if the cover image doesn't meet retailer requirements. The cover you uploaded is either missing, too small, or corrupt. Cover images should have a minimum width of 1,400 pixels, and should be vertical rectangles, meaning the height is greater (taller) than the width. For more instructions on covers, see our FAQ on Ebook Cover Creation Tips or see our blog post on the new Smashwords cover design requirements from 2012. To upload a new cover, click to Dashboard: Settings.

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I have sales on Smashwords for this item with the naked cover.

https://dwtr67e3ikfml.cloudfront.net/bookCovers/40abde4b83532a18f28416d9698667415d29fce5-thumb ............ http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/2940044715813_p0_v1_s118x184.jpg

And the second one is what is at B&N and the rest of the distribution chain.

You may be right about not reading the Smashwords notices. I leave that to my publisher so that I can write three books in the time that others write one and deal with all the minutia themselves.

sr71plt said:

A business deciding what will and will not be in its inventory stock is not engaging in censorship; it's engaging in deciding what its mix of products will be, which is pretty much a basic right of business. Controlling what your product is isn't the same thing at all as controlling who you sell it to, either.

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This.

Let's go over it again. In the US, a privately owned business may:

1. Sell what they wish, as long as it's legal. And refuse to sell something, for any or no reason.
2. Hire who they wish, and within certain wide guidelines, fire who they wish, for any or no reason. Some states do constrain firing somewhat, but for the most part, if they don't want you, you're gone.
3. Sell to who they wish, denying service to anyone for any reason.

A company at the mercy of shareholders is the same, but the shareholders will exercise a lot of control over large scale decisions, which can be either good or bad.

A company receiving money from the US government for goods or services can end up under all sorts of contractual or legal requirements limiting how they buy, sell, hire, fire, breathe and chew gum.

Amazon answers to shareholders. Shareholders in this case answer to market pressures and most who buy on Amazon and stumble on incest are going to be horrified - and make that clear to Amazon and the world in no uncertain terms. Amazon made a business decision, end of story.

Whoops, need to amend this - some of this applies only to small businesses. Over 15 or 20 employees and you can start getting dinged on hiring and firing practices.

Easy fix: Start your own publishing house, Incest-A-Zon.Com -- all incest, all the time.

You can certainly do that. What's being complained about are the distributor functions, not the publishing functions. You could open one of those too, but then you'd have the problem of getting buyers to come to you. Places like Amazon and Smashwords sell books because they are huge, across-the-genres listings attracting a large number of browsers and buyers. Publishers don't do too well selling directly from their Web sites.