I recently published a collection of short stories through Amazon’s KDP program, which allows any old schmuck to sell a book. There’s nothing all that new or remarkable about it, except that in less than twenty-four hours (the time it usually takes for Amazon to list said schmuck’s book) I got an email saying the book was blocked due to reasons.
And if you think I’m being vague, you should talk to Amazon sometime. Their content policy for self-published books (who knows what it is for everyone else) states: we reserve the right not to sell certain content, such as pornography or other inappropriate material.
And that’s it.
Sure, we can all guess what it is they don’t like. It’s not difficult. The list probably includes things like incest, anyone under the age of 18 having sex they enjoy, bestiality, necrophilia, and rape. I’m guessing they’re not a fan of shit either, but I haven’t tested that one.
Which brings us back to Guy New York, Book Detective. Because of course, I was curious why they didn’t like this particular collection out of the 75 or so books I’ve published with them. The email they sent told me it might have been banned due to, “content within your book, book title, cover images, etc.”
That’s right. The said etc.
They also told me I was welcome to fix the problem and then upload the book again as a new title. However, they did let me know that “If we identify additional submissions with similar content that violates our guidelines you may lose access to optional KDP services and/or face account level actions up to and including termination.”
Not that they’d ever tell me what that “similar content” is, but there you have it.
So where does a poor schmuck like me go? What do you do when you get a vague letter about a potential problem that you’re allowed to fix, but if you fuck it up you could have your entire account and therefore income annihilated for reasons you still don’t understand?
Well, I did what anyone would do.
I looked through the book, figured out which story I suspected they didn’t like and replaced it with something potentially less offensive. Or at least with safer keywords no matter the content.
And guess what? They published it! On the second time around, without that one little story, they published it in about eight hours, and it’s currently live on Amazon right here for anyone to buy.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q2DFQD7/
So what was the problem and why am I getting angry at computers? Why do I wish a real person would read my smut and then tell me I’m an immoral bastard instead of hearing it from a machine?
The story in question takes place at a party. A spanking party to be exact. Which is relatively tame in the world of kinky sex. A few nice slaps to the butt can’t hurt anyone right?
But, true to form, I didn’t leave it at that. No, the couple is bored at the spanking party. Horribly and tragically bored, which means that instead of playing along like they’re supposed to, they decide to do a little roleplay in their quiet corner where nobody else can hear them. After all, these people didn’t consent to overhear their kinky shit, this is a spanking party!
So they moved into a little scene where she calls him Daddy and he calls her a little girl and they do all sorts of creepy things while playing their game. At the heart of it, we have two grown-ass adults at a party who are talking to each other. Sure there are some fingers and hands here and there, but it’s mostly a game of conversation.
But the computer doesn’t know that. The only thing Amazon’s algorithm knows it that someone said “Daddy,” someone said, “little girl,” and there are other words like “fucking,” “sucking,” and maybe even “sex.”
Heaven forbid.
So, we’re left with a story of negotiated and consensual adult sex being blocked (the entire book as a matter of fact) because of a few key words, which I can, by the way, find in a hundred other title currently on Amazon. Which means they’re doing a shit job. They’re catching the wrong things (if there even are right things to catch) and they’re making it clear to everyone that appearances are more important than insight.
From a sex-positive, pro-education, let’s all be good people perspective, it makes it incredibly difficult to write about sex with any amount of nuance. It’s difficult to write about the sex that many people like to have, and it’s difficult to discuss safe ways that people can play with kinks like age-play, non-consent, or incest.
And from a free-speech perspective, what it means is that the folks trying to write about these things with any level of honesty are going to get fucked, while the ones looking to play shady are able to slip through the firewall by avoiding certain keywords, not placing their books in the erotica category, and otherwise gaming the existing system for their own nefarious gains.
Which leaves readers with poor choices, authors overly cautious, and Amazon pretending to take the high road while actually plugging their ears and pretending nothing is wrong.
All of which means the world is a lot less fun and a lot less safe.
As well as a whole fucking lot less interesting.