My last published book, David's Spankings, has just been censored on Amazon Kindle.
This is the initial email I received:
Hello,
We’re contacting you regarding the following book:
B0BQT2894Z
David's Spankings: A young man's journey into domestic discipline at the hands of his aunt and her submissive lesbian love-partner.
During our review process, we found that your book violate our content guidelines. As a result, we are not offering your book for sale on Amazon.
As a reminder, violations of our content guidelines may negatively impact your account status and you may also lose access to optional KDP services.
You can find our content guidelines on the KDP website:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/G200672390
If you have questions or believe you've received this email in error, reply to this message.
Amazon KDP
Yogesh
Amazon Content Review Team
If you look at the pertinent section of the referenced content guidelines, it's very short and not of much help:
Offensive content
We don’t sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia, advocates terrorism, or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive.
I was very careful with the age of all participants. The main character is David, aged eighteen. I was also very careful dealing with consent. Everything done is 100% consensual and with safewords explicitly discussed. I consider it to be quite educational in those regards. My cast of characters is very diverse in terms of sexual preferences: gays, bis, lesbians, and straights. There is no incest in it. David's aunt and mother spank him for disciplinary purposes (with his consent), but there is no sex. David does have sex with his "aunt" Chrissie, who is only an aunt by lesbian marriage to his bio-aunt. David does consent reluctantly to gay sex, doing it in exchange for having straight sex later. And he winds up liking the gay sex.
Of course it's "pornography", but TONS and TONS of stuff on Kindle is pornography, so that really doesn't narrow it done. Yes, yes, I am over the top, I know. But IT IS a work of art.
As per the email, I wrote back asking for clarification, but received essentially the same email back from them five times. Here was my last try getting it escalated.
Hello,
As stated in our content guidelines, we reserve the right to determine what content we consider to be appropriate. This content includes both the cover art image and the content within the book.
For more details about KDPs Content Guidelines, visit Help:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/G200672390
I'm sorry, but we can't offer any additional insight on this matter.
Regards,
Amazon KDP
Manikandan
Amazon Content Review Team
-----Previous Message-----
Hello,
We received the information you submitted for the following book(s):
B0BQT2894Z David's Spankings: A young man's journey into domestic discipline at the hands of his aunt and her submissive lesbian love-partner.
We need some additional time to review everything. We'll be in touch within 5 business days. We appreciate your patience.
Thanks for using Amazon KDP
Manikandan
Amazon Content Review Team
-----Previous Message-----
Please see earlier responses. It feels as if I'm talking to a robot. As I've previously stated, I've read those guidelines and they are not helpful. I am presuming you banned my book referring to the part that says "or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive." That is no guidance at all! I have read many books on kindle that contains material that could be deemed offensive or pornographic by you.
My book is educational about alternative lifestyles, educational to practitioners of BDSM, and a work of art. Please escalate this to a manager and ask them to respond with which specific parts offend so I can rewrite and resubmit in all good faith.
Thank you,
Julie
As I say, all the responses look as if they are either auto-generated by an AI or fully templated as they seem to not even acknowledge my question.
I was not really making any money from the books personally. It is literally all going to a very worthy cause directly into a bank account that supports somebody who works tirelessly for a charity that helps people greatly. So thank you for that, Amazon! Grrrrrrr!
As a result of this censorship, I'm releasing the book here on blogger free of charge as a pdf. I'll figure out how to make it more e-reader friendly later.
I believe it is still accessible to you if you purchased it on Kindle, but you cannot anymore find it or buy it on Kindle. My apologies to everybody who bought and paid for the book on Kindle. I really, really, appreciate your support and encouragement, and the money went to a very good cause.
New links are posted wherever I previously had amazon links. You can find the download page here: Download Page.
I refuse to deal with Amazon. About 10 years ago, they terminated my blog's affiliate relationship stating that the content of my blog did not meet their "rules" or some such term. My blog is about consensual adult spanking. I appealed, pointing out that the paddles, spanking books, etc. sold by them were directed at consenting adults and those were the products I linked with to help sell. I lost the appeal. Amazon lost a customer, but I am sure they do not care. The hypocrites may have saved a few dollars in affiliate commissions but showed no sound reason for doing so.
ReplyDeleteHi Mitch!
DeleteEvil empire indeed.
I'd say they deserve a spanking but they'd probably enjoy it, and I don't want to give them the pleasure.
ReplyDeleteQuite!
DeleteThis must be so frustrating for you, especially with all the effort you put into your books.
ReplyDeleteIf it helps I did a bit of research on this after similar experiences, and it often seems to be the cover or description that causes books to be rejected by Amazon, rather than the text itself.
Republishing with a different cover and/or less explicit description has worked for me, though of course it's probably still an AI crapshoot like you say.
Doubt it was your book's excellent cover that was the problem as it isn't explicit - though it is certainly erotic ;)
Interesting. Thank you. I'll consider it.
DeleteRidiculous right wing censorship. Ruining sex positivity
ReplyDeleteBezos (Amazon owner) is pretty non-aligned politically.
DeleteThere are those on the religious right who want to censor porn.
There are also those on the left who think selling sex degrades women and want it banned in all forms.
Who knows.
Just so you know Julie, I did purchase this book on Amazon from you and now when I try to navigate to it I'm given a "Page not found" error. They've scorched the earth here.
ReplyDelete-Kasey
Yes. But if it's in your library on the kindle, it should still be there.
DeleteHave same problem with Quora you really have to dance around with your words. Example school paddling: No- Paddle happy bat shit crazy nun. Yes- Paddle happy bat guano nuts nun.
ReplyDeleteThe guidelines are so vague and arbitrary. I don't know what specifically to dance around.
DeleteI don't do any really long posts, so been able to figure out what does and doesn't work by trial and error. Vanessa at Queening Chairs was also having problem a while back with Fet life.
DeleteWhy can't they just be a bit more clear, and still reserve the catch all?
DeleteWhat else would you expect from Yogesh and Manikandan?
ReplyDeleteBogey
Non-player-characters.
DeleteI can’t wait for my next spanking now that it’s taboo again.
ReplyDeleteJust kidding, it’s disappointing. And when the mega businesses do this stuff, it feels like government censorship even if it’s not.
Rosco
Amazon Kindle has become a bit of a book distribution monopoly, which makes it quasi-governmental.
DeleteYour book is mild compared to what I have seen on Amazon. Pornography, the picture showing the act of sexual intercourse, well it must depend on their view. There is nothing that is not sacred on the internet today, and one cannot find at Amazon. Jack
ReplyDeleteVery inconsistent and arbitrary, I agree.
DeleteThat's bizarre. As you say, there are thousands of adult, spanking-oriented titles available for Kindle, including ones that are expressly about aunts, step-mothers, etc. spanking young adults and even recalling spankings as minors. I'm a believer in the principle that companies can do what the hell ever they like with their own platform, but it's still frustrating when they shit like this and won't even give you the reasoning, which might allow you to change something to meet their concerns. But, face it, it's the problem with publishing anything on someone else's platform. You or I could wake up tomorrow and find years and years of work on our blogs erased.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it >may be< the big black dude holding him by his throat and hips as he ass fucks David with his giant cock to a messy orgasm all over his aunts' bed? But, really, who coukd possibly label that obscene? π
DeleteYeah, you're right. Nowhere close to any obscenity line!
DeleteThough, seriously, have you thought about maybe just changing the description and resubmitting? Maybe the reference to "young man" in the first sentence was enough to draw a reaction from an uptight reviewer?
Your conversation with them probably was with a bot though, honestly, I sometimes wish decisions were being made by bots. The subjectivity of human reviewers is plainly part of the problem.
Perhaps. Thank you.
DeleteYeah, twitter permanently banned my burner account because they say I violated their rule about threatening people. The only tweet remotely close is one saying Gen. Milley should be court martialed for his letter to his Chinese counterpart which stated he would tip China off if the US was about to launch an attack. If that's not giving aid and comfort to the enemy, I don't know. Then I mentioned that one penalty for that crime is the death penalty. Twitter censorship is off the charts...and I guess someone in DC or the Pentagon sweeps social media for mentions of Milley and they told Twitter to ban my account.
ReplyDeleteTwitter 2.0 is way better that way then Twitter 1.0
DeleteYeah, referencing the death penalty in relation to a public figure . . . no one could have ever anticipated something like THAT might lead to a ban. π
DeleteOK let's see. Right now you're either in Temecula (know u won't get it) Florida, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits , 1984, or Chat GPT's Fahrenheit 451. :-)
ReplyDeleteTemecula?
DeleteTemecula, CA. Banning school books that reference LBGTQ+ that Gov. Newsom is going to see schools have have access too. Also home SNL's Lisa from Tenecula.
DeleteI'm in favour of all naughty books.
DeleteMy guess to why it was banned: a lot of people reported it and it triggered some kind of automatic review / ban.
ReplyDeleteAs other people mentionned, plenty of books on amazon have more explicit / extreme content (be it spanking involving minors or CNC that is bordeline rape), but I guess they don't get as much views as your book and more importantly there aren't as many people disliking the author (nothing against you of course, but since your blog gets political at times I can see some people going out of their way to report a book you wrote, especially since apparently you don't even need to buy the book to report it).
Perhaps. It would be typical of my more cowardly critics. Karma will get them. Paradoxically, it doesn't hurt me. I'll get a bigger audience giving them away for free. It will hurt the lady who runs the charity I support.
DeleteThe Kindle has been responsible for a blooming of literary smut. You can read smut on the train or at your Grandmother's house without anyone knowing.
DeleteGiven the amount of porn on Kindle, it's difficult for me to see that the book violated any real guidelines given all the other material that is on Kindle.
My guess is that the above anonymous comment is on target: the book got reported. Once it's reported, if it has kinky content, it probably gets banned. Whether someone reporting you was due to your political posts, I don't know.
Frustrating that we have to speculate when it woukd be so easy for them to tell me when I ask.
DeleteWell, that is just poppycock! The audacity. Do they know who you are!?
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
DeleteA couple of points: You are getting email from Indian contractors working for Amazon. You may want to try (it's hard to do) contacting a U.S. person. Start by calling customer service. Ask for a North American rep. Then, maybe you can get to someone who is able to consider the problem.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I published using Smashwords. They aren't at all as stupid as the Kindle team. Smashwords can get your ebook out on lots of outlets.
Third (bonus idea), use the KDP app to format your book for paperback publication. KDP will print your book as a paperback and hardcover. I did that. It was a bit tricky at first. You have to set margins to correctly match the size of the printed book, but you can do it and the results are very nice. Perhaps Amazon won't censor printed books.
Let's face it, your books are porn containing BDSM content. Amazon has been unclear on this subject for a long time. A friend of mine published BDSM books paper) and Amazon carries them. One, "The New Topping Book by Janet Hardy" is still for sale along with her other titles. Amazon has never reviewed books it sells. I suspect a reader might have complained. In any case, go for paperback. It's fun to see your book in print. Also, maybe make the cover more vanilla...perhaps a shot of a hairbrush. :)
My cover is pretty vanilla already: my legs!
DeleteI'll look into smashwords, or maybe publishing with a different cover and description.
One other thing: Both of your other books are still being sold on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteYes. Seems odd!
DeleteI'll publish my next book there as well and see if it lasts.
You didn't publish my long comment, just my addendum.
ReplyDeleteParked in spam for some utterly unknown reason!
DeleteWhat you wrote about is happening, it is the real world for some. What a time to sensor, when all that is happening in this world. My wife feels it is some male behind this. She reminds me females handle sexual desires so much better than males. Her mother taught her that sex is depend on the female, males are to immature and need guidance. As my wife points out, my spankings are more than I realized, she could care less if others know, her girlfriends seeing me naked in facing the wall, no big deal, other than I have a very red bottom. There are males who want to read such a book, and females also. Amazon should get a life. Jack
ReplyDeleteChecked spam. Not there π’π
ReplyDeleteHi Julie:
ReplyDeleteI had a couple thoughts as to what might have "ticked-off" the Amazon "public safety team," or however they "style" themselves and their activities.
(1) As was previously discussed, the scene in your book where David has male-on-male sex, and his partner grabs him by the throat has a very strong "vibe" of NON-consenusualty; something that many corporations are (rightly) very concerned about.
(2) In reading the book, I noticed that you included a link back to your own StrictJulieSpanks blog. I seem to recall reading somewhere in Amazon's "Publishing Quality Standards" that "outside links" or using Kindle books for "similar 'promotions'" is absolutely verboten!
Some things to consider if you choose to resubmit to Amazon, or possibly move on to another publisher (which might have similar concerns).
Best of luck, -- Donn
Thanks Donn.
DeleteI read the TOS around links and it seems okay.
For sure I play with consensual non-consent, which I think is at the heart of our spanking fetish for many.
I'll keep writing as I please. If I can't get it published on kindle, I'll publish elsewhere or distribute for free.
I love the way you write. The book should be published on Femdomcave.com. They have a huge collection of books. Check them out. I have been a member since they stated about 12 years ago. Not sure of their terms, but you would be the best author and I am sure they would love to publish your work. Pumper
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'll have a look.
DeletePlease keep writing, and please let us know where and how we can buy your stuff. It's the best spanking porn out there. As for Amazon, they must be out of their minds. There is tons of spanking porn available for sale on Amazon/Kindle, including the (non-sexual) spanking of children. If I had to guess, someone working for Amazon read what is on this website, figured out you had at least a few conservative/traditional views and decided you needed to be cancelled.
ReplyDeleteMaybe... but my stuff is pretty edgy.
DeleteJulie, check out works by Annie Bee, Sarah Wyatt and Robin Wright, all on Amazon, all available on Kindle. Almost all their stuff is considerably edgier than what you write, whether we are talking about severity of punishment, really kinky non-spanking BDSM or the spanking of kids (which you don't do at all).
DeleteI know. It feels pretty random, all right.
DeleteJulie, I downloaded and read it (for freeπ₯΄). It's so good!! It really grabbed me, you know? Can you tell us the charity your friend works for? I'd be happy to send them a few $$
ReplyDeleteNo need, really, but thank you if you do. π
DeleteShe'd appreciate if you would donate to https://renascent.ca/
I'm glad you liked it!
Thanks Julie, will do. And looking forward to "Spanking Stories"!
Deletevic