Mar 14 2012
News Yesterday, Paypal announced that it would be reversing its stance on bans on fiction. According to the Chicago Tribune, Paypal will look at books on an individual basis: PayPal’s new policy will focus only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text, spokesman Anuj Nayar said on [...]
Mar 12 2012
News Visa responds to erotica authors and say that it isn’t imposing any kinds of restrictions on fiction: Relevant to this situation, the sale of a limited category of extreme imagery depicting rape, bestiality and child pornography is or is very likely to be unlawful in many places and would be prohibited on the Visa [...]
Feb 23 2012
News RT is offering a chance for one reader to have her (or his) name in Kristen Callihans’ next book. And now, Kristen Callihan is offering readers a way to become part of her new series. One lucky reader’s name will be used for a character in the upcoming series second, Moonglow. More on the [...]
Mar 3 2011
An author who is using PubIt** has reported that books with erotic romance in them are being stripped of their samples. Sampling is an important selling tool. Another author reported that her sales have dropped nearly 10 fold without the sample. On the PubIt! site, here is what it says about Samples: Samples: Barnes & [...]
Dec 16 2010
I wanted to post this early in the morning. Our reviews will follow later on today. Today is Jane Austen’s birthday and to celebrate Sourcebooks is giving away digital copies of the following books (look for them at your favorite etailer): Eliza's Daughter, by Joan Aiken (Sense and Sensibility continuation) The Darcy's & the Bingley's, [...]
Nov 11 2010
A day after Amazon released a statement stating that it would not remove an objectionable book containing what the self published author described as a way to be a better pedophile, Amazon has reversed its stance and the book is no longer in the catalog of self published Kindle titles. The controversy reached mainstream with [...]
Mar 11 2010
One of the most attractive things about the iPhone/iTouch and soon to be iPad is the robust App community that offers everything from the ridiculous (fart apps) to the sublime (Stanza). But Apple rules the App store like Tomas de Torquemada (Inquisitor-General of the Spanish Inquisition). It’s a reign of terror and uncertainty for app [...]
Oct 29 2009
Amazon filed for and was recently granted a patent to change words in a book in order to track down the source of pirating. John Scalzi called this a stupid idea because it violates his creative control over the work. I think Amazon has the right idea. A change to the html css stylesheet, for [...]
Apr 13 2009
Recent comments from Amazon seem to directly dispute the idea of a hack or external tagging issue, but rather an internal cataloguing error. I don’t think that Amazon’s explanation is any explanation at all. It doesn’t address what it’s “adult content” policy is and what it will do in the future to books in terms [...]
Apr 12 2009
UPDATE 1: Here is a spreadsheet of books denoting their catagory metadata along with whether the book has an amazon rank. If you are a gmail user, you can (I think) access the spreadsheet for sorting. If you aren’t a gmail user, here is a web page of the spreadsheet. Additionally, there is a Change.org [...]
Apr 12 2009
UPDATE No. 2: Amazon executive customer service email is: ecr@amazon.com and the customer service phone number is 1-800-201-7575. You can use Robin’s template: Dear Amazon, It has come to my attention that you are de-ranking books, supposedly on the basis of "adult content." Apparently, according to the Amazon Dictionary, this is defined as books that have anything [...]
Jan 16 2009
Is Richelle Mead and her Vampire Academy series the next Twilight phenomena? PW reports that the three books have a totle of 600,000 in print. Jia has read these books and likes them. Maybe she’ll do an omnibus review for us. David Carnoy, a journalist/editor at CNet, wrote a fiction book which NY publishing wouldn’t buy. [...]
Sep 5 2008
There’s some strange goings-on at Random House. First, it canceled the publication of the Jewel of Medina on the grounds that it would stir up some terrorist action. After sending out advance editions of the novel THE JEWEL OF MEDINA, we received in response, from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the [...]
Jul 2 2008
Several booksellers filed suit in May to challenge the newly passed Indiana legislation that would require every store that sold “sexually explicit” material to register with the Secretary of State and pay a fee. Because the term “sexually explicit” was so broad, the US District Court hearing the case ruled that the law was “too [...]
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