censored by Kobo/WHSmith
Oct. 15th, 2013 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesThis latest "won't someone think of the children!" hoopla in the UK media about the torrent of abuse porn supposedly to be found next to the kids' books in Smith's ebook catalogue?
Apparently that would include my fantasy-as-in-speculative-fiction short story published by Musa. That does have adult content, but there are plenty of books from Musa that don't. But all of Musa's books have been yanked by Kobo. *All* of them. Not just the erotic romance lines. We are, amongst other things, talking here about the publisher of the sequel to the novel that was made into "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".
Also my self-published erotica short, surprise, surprise. That one's erotica, but it's consenting adult humans who aren't related to one another.
Discussion elsenet suggests that this is because Kobo has decided that the easiest way to placate the Daily Heil is to simply block everything from Smashwords, and everything from self-publishers. Since Smashwords is used as a distributor by a number of small presses, including Musa, books from those small presses are now banned regardless of content. Kobo is supposedly going to start letting stuff back on once they've checked it, but I wonder how long that's going to take and what criteria are they going to use?
Apparently that would include my fantasy-as-in-speculative-fiction short story published by Musa. That does have adult content, but there are plenty of books from Musa that don't. But all of Musa's books have been yanked by Kobo. *All* of them. Not just the erotic romance lines. We are, amongst other things, talking here about the publisher of the sequel to the novel that was made into "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".
Also my self-published erotica short, surprise, surprise. That one's erotica, but it's consenting adult humans who aren't related to one another.
Discussion elsenet suggests that this is because Kobo has decided that the easiest way to placate the Daily Heil is to simply block everything from Smashwords, and everything from self-publishers. Since Smashwords is used as a distributor by a number of small presses, including Musa, books from those small presses are now banned regardless of content. Kobo is supposedly going to start letting stuff back on once they've checked it, but I wonder how long that's going to take and what criteria are they going to use?