Rayne Hall's Blog: Rayne Hall, Fantasy and Horror Author - Posts Tagged "indie"
The Kobo Fiasco
Some of you may already be aware of what's going on. Others may not.Here's a simplified summary.
Kobo realised that *some* indie-published books in their catalogue contained illegal or icky erotic content. So they pulled *all* indie-published books.
Yep. You've read that right.
Here's some more info:
The books aren't permanently deleted, they're quarantined pending individual reviews. That sounds fair enough until you think about it. Can you imagine how long it will take Kobo staff to check several hundred thousand titles individually? Especially considering that Kobo staff are overworked and can't even cope with their normal workload.
Kobo spent much time and money courting indie authors and persuading them to publish with authors. With one fell swoop, they've destroyed that trust.
What caused this sudden action? This is where you may laugh: A tabloid newspaper in Britain published an article showing that a retailer in Britain was selling books containing incest. This exposure caused outrage against that retailer. All that retailer would have needed to do was instal an 18+ filter. Instead, they panicked. And Kobo (supplying that retailer) panicked too.
If Kobo genuinely thought there was an emergency, I can understand that that they would take a rapid drastic action.It might have made sense had they decided to temporarily quarantine all erotic books, or all books containing certain suspicious words such as 'Daddy', and check them for illegal erotic content.
But to do this to all indie books, simply because they're indie?
Note: Bestselling erotica titles were not pulled - an interesting instance of double standards.
On the plus side, Kobo sent an email to authors that books would be quarantined and why. I appreciate being informed. That's something. Alas, only authors who published directly with Kobo received that email. Authors who published to Kobo via Smashwords or D2D were not informed. They were shocked to see their books had vanished.
Moreover, that letter was worded to give the illusion that only a few titles would be temporarily removed pending review. It did not admit that *all* indies were pulled with one fell swoop.
And moreover, the letter is full of hypocritical statements such as "Our goal at Kobo is not to censor material; we support freedom of expression." and "Further, we want to protect the reputation of self-publishing as a whole."
These claims are in direct contradiction to Kobo's actions.
My subjective assessment: B***S**T.
The situation is of course more complicated than I've described. For example, not all books were removed at once. Mine were still in the Kobo catalogue yesterday - but today they've disappeared. And Kobo has several websites (some of them are regional, some are by other criteria) and the sweeping deletion has not happened to all of them at once. I believe some (but not all) American customers can still get all titles. If you're an author, your books will still show on your dashboard page even if Kobo has pulled it from the catalogue.
I suggest we allow Kobo until Friday to sort out this mess they've created. They may realise their mistake and do a u-turn, and restore books wholesale the way they've deleted them, and then remove individual suspect titles the way they should have in the first place.
If Kobo don't backtrack by Friday, I suggest it's time for authors (indie authors and sympathetic trad authors) and readers (especially Kobo customers) to unite and speak up.
If we allow Kobo to get away with this monumental breach of trust, other retailers and publishers will think they can do the same.
Some months ago, readers and authors used social media to campaign against the outrage of banks censoring books (the famous Smashwords vs PayPal case). We were very successful then. PayPal backed down, the freedom of literature was restored, and the credit card companies also gave up their self-appointed role as book censors.
If Kobo doesn't correct their anti-indie stance, it's time to speak up. Tweet, retweet, blog etc about it. Feel free to share this blog post. On Twitter, we're currently discussing suitable hashtags. #kobofiasco and #kobogeddon are emerging as favourites.
Some authors are already removing books from Kobo, calling for Kobo boycotts etc.
However, I suggest we wait before we take drastic action. Kobo *may* after all get their act together and sort this somehow. I suggest waiting until Friday before we get seriously active.
I used to have a positive opinion of Kobo, and used to promote Kobo a lot (largely because I hoped it would grow into a strong competitor to Amazon). But now, I'm no longer sure.
If Kobo manages to review all the pulled books, to delete the illegal ones and restore the legal ones by Friday, I'll applaud them. Otherwise, I'll be in the front lines of the #kobogeddon campaign.
Rayne Hall
Fantasy & Horror Fiction
Dark * Dangerous * Disturbing
viewAuthor.at/RayneHall
Kobo realised that *some* indie-published books in their catalogue contained illegal or icky erotic content. So they pulled *all* indie-published books.
Yep. You've read that right.
Here's some more info:
The books aren't permanently deleted, they're quarantined pending individual reviews. That sounds fair enough until you think about it. Can you imagine how long it will take Kobo staff to check several hundred thousand titles individually? Especially considering that Kobo staff are overworked and can't even cope with their normal workload.
Kobo spent much time and money courting indie authors and persuading them to publish with authors. With one fell swoop, they've destroyed that trust.
What caused this sudden action? This is where you may laugh: A tabloid newspaper in Britain published an article showing that a retailer in Britain was selling books containing incest. This exposure caused outrage against that retailer. All that retailer would have needed to do was instal an 18+ filter. Instead, they panicked. And Kobo (supplying that retailer) panicked too.
If Kobo genuinely thought there was an emergency, I can understand that that they would take a rapid drastic action.It might have made sense had they decided to temporarily quarantine all erotic books, or all books containing certain suspicious words such as 'Daddy', and check them for illegal erotic content.
But to do this to all indie books, simply because they're indie?
Note: Bestselling erotica titles were not pulled - an interesting instance of double standards.
On the plus side, Kobo sent an email to authors that books would be quarantined and why. I appreciate being informed. That's something. Alas, only authors who published directly with Kobo received that email. Authors who published to Kobo via Smashwords or D2D were not informed. They were shocked to see their books had vanished.
Moreover, that letter was worded to give the illusion that only a few titles would be temporarily removed pending review. It did not admit that *all* indies were pulled with one fell swoop.
And moreover, the letter is full of hypocritical statements such as "Our goal at Kobo is not to censor material; we support freedom of expression." and "Further, we want to protect the reputation of self-publishing as a whole."
These claims are in direct contradiction to Kobo's actions.
My subjective assessment: B***S**T.
The situation is of course more complicated than I've described. For example, not all books were removed at once. Mine were still in the Kobo catalogue yesterday - but today they've disappeared. And Kobo has several websites (some of them are regional, some are by other criteria) and the sweeping deletion has not happened to all of them at once. I believe some (but not all) American customers can still get all titles. If you're an author, your books will still show on your dashboard page even if Kobo has pulled it from the catalogue.
I suggest we allow Kobo until Friday to sort out this mess they've created. They may realise their mistake and do a u-turn, and restore books wholesale the way they've deleted them, and then remove individual suspect titles the way they should have in the first place.
If Kobo don't backtrack by Friday, I suggest it's time for authors (indie authors and sympathetic trad authors) and readers (especially Kobo customers) to unite and speak up.
If we allow Kobo to get away with this monumental breach of trust, other retailers and publishers will think they can do the same.
Some months ago, readers and authors used social media to campaign against the outrage of banks censoring books (the famous Smashwords vs PayPal case). We were very successful then. PayPal backed down, the freedom of literature was restored, and the credit card companies also gave up their self-appointed role as book censors.
If Kobo doesn't correct their anti-indie stance, it's time to speak up. Tweet, retweet, blog etc about it. Feel free to share this blog post. On Twitter, we're currently discussing suitable hashtags. #kobofiasco and #kobogeddon are emerging as favourites.
Some authors are already removing books from Kobo, calling for Kobo boycotts etc.
However, I suggest we wait before we take drastic action. Kobo *may* after all get their act together and sort this somehow. I suggest waiting until Friday before we get seriously active.
I used to have a positive opinion of Kobo, and used to promote Kobo a lot (largely because I hoped it would grow into a strong competitor to Amazon). But now, I'm no longer sure.
If Kobo manages to review all the pulled books, to delete the illegal ones and restore the legal ones by Friday, I'll applaud them. Otherwise, I'll be in the front lines of the #kobogeddon campaign.
Rayne Hall
Fantasy & Horror Fiction
Dark * Dangerous * Disturbing
viewAuthor.at/RayneHall
The Kobo Fiasco - Update
(You may want to read my previous post on the subject first, to understand what it's about.It's two blog posts back.)
The main disaster zone is definitely the UK. I've tested every indie author I know, and nobody's books are still available on Kobo.
Here's the shocking twist: When I search these authors (non-erotic ones), Kobo shows me other books instead.. pornographic ones! Considering Kobo's justification that they were cleaning up the catalogue, this is a sad joke.
With other countries, I get conflicting reports. Some people in the US tell me they can see indie authors in Kobo's catalogue, though not everyone. Others report that they can see indie books in the catalogue, but the buy links have been disabled.
Some bizarre though rare variations occur, too. One person from the US told me they could see all my books on Kobo - but they were attributed to "author unknown". Go figure.
Kobo still hasn't installed an 18+ filter, which would surely have been the first step in solving their problem.
Em Taylor did an interesting experiment: She searched "School of" on Kobo - something a child might likely search - ... and 80% of titles displayed were erotica! That was *after* Kobo deleted all indie books. Do we need any further evidence that pulling indie books was idiotic?
(If you don't believe this, check the screenshot Em posted in the comments section of the first Kobo Fiasco blog post.)
In the meantime, some people claim that Kobogeddon never happened, that we're imagining things. That's because they still see their books on their Kobo Dashboards, because they access the US site, or because they're convinced that "Kobo would never do such a thing."
Yeah. Right.
The main disaster zone is definitely the UK. I've tested every indie author I know, and nobody's books are still available on Kobo.
Here's the shocking twist: When I search these authors (non-erotic ones), Kobo shows me other books instead.. pornographic ones! Considering Kobo's justification that they were cleaning up the catalogue, this is a sad joke.
With other countries, I get conflicting reports. Some people in the US tell me they can see indie authors in Kobo's catalogue, though not everyone. Others report that they can see indie books in the catalogue, but the buy links have been disabled.
Some bizarre though rare variations occur, too. One person from the US told me they could see all my books on Kobo - but they were attributed to "author unknown". Go figure.
Kobo still hasn't installed an 18+ filter, which would surely have been the first step in solving their problem.
Em Taylor did an interesting experiment: She searched "School of" on Kobo - something a child might likely search - ... and 80% of titles displayed were erotica! That was *after* Kobo deleted all indie books. Do we need any further evidence that pulling indie books was idiotic?
(If you don't believe this, check the screenshot Em posted in the comments section of the first Kobo Fiasco blog post.)
In the meantime, some people claim that Kobogeddon never happened, that we're imagining things. That's because they still see their books on their Kobo Dashboards, because they access the US site, or because they're convinced that "Kobo would never do such a thing."
Yeah. Right.
I Find This Disturbing
If anyone still thinks that Kobo pulled books because of their erotic content, consider that Kobo is promoting books like this:
[caution before you read the blurb. It may be disturbing]
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eboo...
At the same time, Kobo pulled picture books for 4-year-olds, poetry collections, textbooks, sweet regency romances....
In the UK, Kobo pulled books by just one criterion: If written by an indie author, it was pulled. (In the US, a mix of bizarre criteria was applied)
The really gross aspect is that people searching for deleted indie-authored children's books get shown books like that one.
[caution before you read the blurb. It may be disturbing]
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eboo...
At the same time, Kobo pulled picture books for 4-year-olds, poetry collections, textbooks, sweet regency romances....
In the UK, Kobo pulled books by just one criterion: If written by an indie author, it was pulled. (In the US, a mix of bizarre criteria was applied)
The really gross aspect is that people searching for deleted indie-authored children's books get shown books like that one.
Rayne Hall, Fantasy and Horror Author
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