MORE CENSORSHIP – Smashwords has started pulling taboo erotica titles, despite them saying it is not a policy change, but an effort to tighten up their regulations – doesn’t that mean a change?
From Phaedus Wolfe, CEO of LotsCave.com who publishes and distributes my books:
“First Amazon, then Barnes & Noble, and now Smashwords are controlling the direction the entire publishing market, defining exactly what erotica consumers are allowed to read. If you control the terms, then you can control the outcome of social direction. UltraSmut authors are ignoring this at peril. You will lose every publishing platform going forward, including Lot’s Cave, if authors do not put a stop to this. Some ill-informed authors might agree with various publishing latform claims that this is just “competition”; this is just “free market”; and if one does not like Amazon, if one does not like Smashwords, go make your own publishing platform. These authors have never started their own companies and don’t know what it means to start a business. These companies, including Smashwords now, have all built themselves up to the point of monopoly power on the back of protectionist government regulations.
“Small companies like Lot’s Cave need large companies like Smashwords to plow the path ahead, without which it’s difficult to survive. We desperately want and need Smashwords to provide taboo authors an uncensored publishing platform. If Smashwords caves in to the vocal few complainers and discontinues publishing ultra-smut, it will make life extremely difficult for us by requiring Lot’s Cave to justify its existence.
“Lot’s Cave originally raised its concern when Smashwords implemented a new classification system for content deemed controversial. At the time, Mark Coker stressed the importance of doing so stating:
“Our new approach empowers those who know their content best – the author or publisher – to directly categorize and certify the erotic themes of their books. This will give our sales channels greater confidence to receive the erotica they want while avoiding the titles they don’t want…” “
Amazon started a trend we need to STOP!
