Unpublished

[sr71plt]

You write incest or animal porn, SR?

I don't write incest, but I have written animal porn, in the sense of sentient shapeshifters fucking while shifted. It never ever occurred to me to try to sell that through paypal. I can't imagine anyone imagining that would fly.

but people can convince themselves of almost anything. There was a crack in the wall once, it should be there forever. The company ignores its own policies for a while, but-- there is a reason those policies were written in, in the first place.

I have an incest element in some of my works, but, although it comes in in emotional motivation for this or that--and maybe a major element in that regard--it's not there for purient positive response to doing it. (It's always a negative that a character is trying to recover from.)

And so do a lot of mainstream works that aren't being dinged by any of this.

Animal porn? no.

What you didn't ask and is a legitimate question to my last posting now that I think of it, is how many chargebacks there are on this stuff as compared to other stuff. I guess my saying that it's about equal across my genres doesn't really cover the possibility that chargebacks are hefty in genres I don't have any marketplace experience in taking profit from.

And, no, I'm not incensed that someone who wants to write about fucking and torturing his sister/mother/brother can't force someone to publish and sell it for him/her. Nor do I remotely buy into the concept that if we don't force people to do that for us, it means Literotica will be closed down next Tuesday.

 

[Stella_Omega]

" financially deleterious habits."

I like the sound of that, My life in three words.

Ouch, me too!

And, no, I'm not incensed that someone who wants to write about fucking and torturing his sister/mother/brother can't force someone to publish and sell it for him/her.

Haha yeah-- I'm not even incensed that I can't sell my outlier stuff. Nor would I go looking to buy it, either. Not when the three or four other people who write it are willing to barter it for mine.

 

[R. Richard]

While you people are busy insulting each other and arguing about who's more politically correct, you're stumbling about the edge of the simple solution to the problem. I'm trying to talk with Mark Coker to try to convince him to implement the simple solution that solves the chargeback and credit card problem. However, I'm still waiting on Mark.
In the meantime, feel free to continue your insult battle, for all of me.

 

[PennLady]

While you people are busy insulting each other and arguing about who's more politically correct, you're stumbling about the edge of the simple solution to the problem. I'm trying to talk with Mark Coker to try to convince him to implement the simple solution that solves the chargeback and credit card problem. However, I'm still waiting on Mark.
In the meantime, feel free to continue your insult battle, for all of me.

What's the simple solution? 'Cause part of me thinks if it was so simple, it would already be implemented by someone somewhere. And perhaps it has been.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What's the simple solution? 'Cause part of me thinks if it was so simple, it would already be implemented by someone somewhere. And perhaps it has been.

Using a different payment gateway.

 

[TxRad]

Using a different payment gateway.

Or do what I did and do away with charge backs on all written material.

You buy it, you read it, you own it. That has been the deal since day one.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Or do what I did and do away with charge backs on all written material.

You buy it, you read it, you own it. That has been the deal since day one.

How do you do that? Because the credit card companies will enforce chargebacks anyway if they see fit.

 

[sr71plt]

I've already given what I think are simple solutions (and without being coy about it). It's just that those who don't want to hear aren't listening.

1. Charge more for services for objectionable categories, passing the higher cost on to those wanting to buy the material. (What are "objectionable?" Let the market determine that).

2. Stop giving returns for e-books. The incentive is no longer necessary. The market is established.

If there are deeper forces driving this, let them then come out of the wall to see what they are and to determine what to do about them.

Some of us aren't spending all of our time yammering about it here, Richard. I'll bet my publishers have me just as protected already as you indicate you've been off doing. And, yes, I correspond with them on this a couple of times a day.

So, do you want a hint on where to stick the self-righteousness and the "I've got a secret an ain't agonna tell you" attitude?

Incidentally, I've been meaning to ask (although not expecting an honest answer), how are sales going on all of those works with blank covers?

 

[TxRad]

How do you do that? Because the credit card companies will enforce chargebacks anyway if they see fit.

A very simple no return on e-book policy is easy to get across to credit card companies and paypal even for a small company. We replace defective media and that is all.

Although I must admit that 70% of the business is cash and carry.

 

[talismania]

I'm probably going to regret saying anything, but...

I think people should also consider item (g) of PayPal's User Agreement:

(g) items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction,

PayPal is the number one funder of stolen adult content... those folks who post stories they've lifted from, say, here and sell under their own name get paid through PayPal. So do people who sell pirated DVDs, online videos, pics and music. And digital piracy is a super-hot issue in Congress right now. Policing stolen content is also consuming lots of time and money. Guess which categories of adult fiction are most often pirated?

As of April 2012, PayPal's amended User Agreement will allow the company to validate the identities of its users, including use of third party verification and asking for your driver's license. It's not because they want to know if their users are legal to drive.

PayPal is focusing on adult content for several reasons, and one of those reasons is the current SOPA bill making its way through Congress.

http://gizmodo.com/5877000/what-is-sopa

I absolutely oppose censorship, but I'm not ready to declare war on PayPal for that reason. Other reasons, yeah. But companies like PayPal (a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay) have no interest in setting themselves up as policeman in a censorship war. They're much more afraid of market factors and government regulation (i.e. fines and penalties) than they are of consumers of any ilk.

Anyone who wants to see the corporate thinking behind what PayPal is doing should look up the eBay 2010 annual report (it's online). Make a beeline to page 44. It's interesting, if a little dry.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw my two cents into the pot.

 

[sr71plt]

Paypal will--and has for years--freeze an account where that is proved, Talismania. It's not their responsibility to go researching for the proof. If those who can prove copyright infringement contact Papal, Paypal will freeze the offending count--and always would have (and sometimes has done so), when someone brings the proof to them. (The nasty part on Paypal in this is that they'll keep the money in the account rather than give it to the copyright owner, which is something Amazon also appears not to do. I suspect this could be challenged in court, though. The courts can't rule until someone brings suit, however).

The real kicker is proving copyright, where the bizarre worlds of both U.S. copyright law (you can't go to court in the United States without a formal copyright no matter what the Berne Convention says about your work being protected upon creation) and the reality that a tiny percentage, an imperceptable percentage, of erotica writers file for formal copyright. There's no way that Paypal or the courts or much of anyone else is going to get wrapped up in a She says/he says fight over who owns something that wasn't formally registered.

 

[talismania]

You're right, Pilot, that PayPal isn't doing this for copyright infringement. They never have been in the enforcement business. They're concerned with fulfilling looming new government regulations identifying, and getting access to the bank accounts of, international online pirates. And no, I don't think our stolen fiction is the real target, not for a minute. That's not even on the radar. The big bucks lie elsewhere (music and proprietary software, for example)... they all use PayPal.

I think SOPA is a hot mess, to be honest. But I'm not discounting the effect of imminent regulation on the timing of PayPal's announcement.

That's the only point I was really trying to make. I think there's a bigger picture, and some people have tried to get at that. I just like to say "consider this."

 

[R. Richard]

Incidentally, I've been meaning to ask (although not expecting an honest answer), how are sales going on all of those works with blank covers?

The covers aren't blank. They don't have pictures, but they aren't blank.

I have been selling quite a few stories, although not nearly as many as I had hoped for. However, my best selling works, at least in Smashwords, have been my incest themed stories. I expect a severe decline in sales, unless I can get the problem solved.

If I do get Mark Coker to buy off on my 'secret solution,' I guarantee that you'll know about it.

 

[sr71plt]

More power to you then.

 

[PennLady]

Using a different payment gateway.

Well, yes, but he made it sound like he had an idea for something really new and I was curious.

 

[sr71plt]

Well, yes, but he made it sound like he had an idea for something really new and I was curious.

That's just R. Richard for you.

 

[PennLady]

That's just R. Richard for you.

Lesson learned.

 

[R. Richard]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stella_Omega
Using a different payment gateway.

Well, yes, but he made it sound like he had an idea for something really new and I was curious.

Mark Coker has made it very clear that he can't use a different payment gateway. His Smashwords operation is tightly coupled to PayPal. Thus, I didn't suggest to him that he use a different payment gateway.

I hope that you will excuse me, but the little back and forth that you people have going here sounds much like a feedback comment that I received on one of my Literotica stories. The responder told me that he was giving me a 3 vote for my current chapter, because he didn't like what I was going to write in the next chapter. When the next chapter was posted, he gave me an 'oops.' It turned out that what he thought I was going to do wasn't at all what I did.

I make a part of my living as a professional systems analyst. Trust me, none of you is a professional systems analyst. In fact none of you is even a good amateur systems analyst. Why don't you try critiquing brain surgery, an area where I'm sure that you're better qualified. JMNTHO.

 

[PennLady]

Mark Coker has made it very clear that he can't use a different payment gateway. His Smashwords operation is tightly coupled to PayPal. Thus, I didn't suggest to him that he use a different payment gateway.

Fine. Look, you said you had a "simple solution" that would solve all the problems. Then you didn't say what it was. So yes, I'm curious and if you'll note, I'm not "critiquing" anything. All I said was I was curious. When you say something like that, with no details or context, people are going to talk about it. In fact, I don't think people drop huge hints like that unless they want to drum up some talk.

And Coker could use a different payment gateway. It would take time to put it in place, but he could. He's chosen not to, and that's fine.

 

[lovecraft68]

Fine. Look, you said you had a "simple solution" that would solve all the problems. Then you didn't say what it was. So yes, I'm curious and if you'll note, I'm not "critiquing" anything. All I said was I was curious. When you say something like that, with no details or context, people are going to talk about it. In fact, I don't think people drop huge hints like that unless they want to drum up some talk.

And Coker could use a different payment gateway. It would take time to put it in place, but he could. He's chosen not to, and that's fine.

Read your bog piece yesterday, very well written. I found out yesterday as you had stated that according to the rep I spoke with from visa they do not have anything n place as paypal is claiming they do on pornographic material.

From what I was told, if it is legal to purchase it they will honor. He also confirmed what one of the people who replied to your piece said and that was that charge backs on adult material are higher. He said the basic reason is because they feel that more than half the time it was in fact a legitimate purpose that someone is failing to admit to.

I was also told that they are not automatically honoring those claims anymore. When they see that there are no false purchases before or after the questionable charge, they are beginning to lean towards the purchase being made by the cardholder.

He told me that where many of these charges stem from are people who sign up for a $1.99 2-day trial on a porn site, forget to cancel (exactly what the site wants) and get whacked for a months charge.

The 2 things to note here are that 1) paypal appears to be lying when they are involving the CC's and 2) the CC's do not have clauses against "objectionable material"

So now even if pay pal is within it's legal rights to do this they have painted themselves out to be liars and the shady operation that they have proven to be in the past (I would personally love to see someone challenge their legal right to hold sellers money for 21 days)

And again the fact that they had Coker on the ropes then called him back to back off speaks volumes. If they were truly under CC influence that would not have occurred.

On the note of a solution for SW other than pay pal they already have it, but it is less than ideal.

SW offers to pay with paper check. Now their rule is they won't cut a check until you accrue $100 in royalties. Now the drawback for him is a lot of work, but also getting people to fork over routing info.

Also the authors may not want to get paid every other quarter rather than every quarter if it takes a while to get to the $100.

But if it were put to them that it's wait longer or don't make any money at all, then it would be up to the author.

Ideally (and of course easy for me to say as I wouldn't be cutting the checks) I think Coker should have bluffed PP and said "Fine I'll write checks, bye."

I assume others could do this as well, and again not an easy solution, but certainly better than losing a good portion of your business.

But in the end I believe this is a moot point. When paypal stated to Coker that even the "big three" would be allowed if it were incidental. that tells me they are reigning in the horses. Again ,legal or not they made themselves look damn bad, by springing it on people with virtually no notice, and blatantly lying about the CC companies involvement.

Image is every thing and they just painted a not so pretty picture of themselves

 

[sr71plt]

Fine. Look, you said you had a "simple solution" that would solve all the problems. Then you didn't say what it was.

As I noted, that's just R. Richard for you. He blows puffed up smoke.

If he really has something to contribute, he will eventually. Until then, he's just as much background noise as anyone else.

 

[PennLady]

Read your bog piece yesterday, very well written. I found out yesterday as you had stated that according to the rep I spoke with from visa they do not have anything n place as paypal is claiming they do on pornographic material.

Thanks. And thanks for passing on the info from the CC Co's. I wish I could find that somewhere online, but it's interesting to hear anyway.

As for Coker paying his authors, I wasn't really talking about that. I was talking about people purchasing from Smashwords and saying he needed a different way to do that. Whatever he wants to do with checks to make it worth his while with the authors is fine, and if he sends a check, I don't see what he needs routing info for. You send a paper check to someone and the bank deals with it.

 

[lovecraft68]

Thanks. And thanks for passing on the info from the CC Co's. I wish I could find that somewhere online, but it's interesting to hear anyway.

As for Coker paying his authors, I wasn't really talking about that. I was talking about people purchasing from Smashwords and saying he needed a different way to do that. Whatever he wants to do with checks to make it worth his while with the authors is fine, and if he sends a check, I don't see what he needs routing info for. You send a paper check to someone and the bank deals with it.

You're right of course. Had a brain fart on the routing. I was thinking EFT payments

Well seeing as apparently MC/Visa is not behind this he could set up to take payments through them, or regular debit cards.

I think his sales may drop a bit because paypal is good for "anonymity" if you're buying this material behind the spouses back. (I buy all my wife's gifts with PP because she doesn't have the password)

I couldn't find anything on line either, but was fortunate enough to get someone at Visa that didn't mind explaining some things (I explained why I was asking so many questions)