Rayne Hall's Blog: Rayne Hall, Fantasy and Horror Author - Posts Tagged "indie-publishing"

Kobo may treat you like s**t, but I love you.

(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.

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.

I went on an indie book shopping spree to show my support for indie authors. After the contempt Kobo showed indies, I wanted to give a token of my solidarity. Because I respect indie authors.

Here’s what I bought:

The Necromancer's Gambit – Nicolas Wilson
Fear of Widths - David D Levine
From Orbit by Rob Goforth
The Accidental Courier – Robert Darke
Cloaks of Vermin and Fish by Forrest Aguirre
Death in a Northern Town - Peter Mckeirnon
Mercury, Sulfur, & Salt - Ben Stahl
The Book of Revelation, Live Onstage and Four Other Stories -Douglas Kolacki
The Red Knight by Karen Davies
The Rubberband Man and Other Stories - J. David Clarke
Timeshaft - Stewart Bint
Water's Lover - J. Annas Walker
Whispers of a Storm - Anthony Lavisher
Wrong Place Wrong Time by David P Perlmutter
A Vampire Carol – Tara Maya
Lucid – A.J. Church
Don't Be Afraid – J.C. Piech
Clipped - Devon Mccormack
Bite Me – Lana Amore
Cursed – S.A. Archer
Earth Tones – Angela Wallace
Paulie – M.A. Myers
Luvya Getcha – Martin Price
The Answer to Your Question -Paulette Alden
Twisted: Four Paranormal Stories - Jonathan Broughton
Your Gift to Me Bonnie Bartel Latino
Writing Active Setting Book 2: Emotion, Conflict and Back Story Mary Buckham
Writing Steampunk - Beth Daniels
Fairy and Blood:Lilac - William J Crisel
Hannah’s Prayer – Regina Sanders
Freaks Like Us - Jackie Trippier Holt
The White Death and Other Ghastly Ghost Stories - Debbie Kuhn
True Monsters - Judas X. Machina
Gossamer Wings and Other Stories - Scott Zachary
Full Circle -Terry Tyler
Untethered - Katie Hayoz
Northman - J.D. Hughes
Twisted Tails - Kensington Gore
The Highlander – Zoe Saadia
Terms & Conditions Apply – Pippa Jay
The Sundered – Ruthanne Reid
Severed – Dax Varley
Darkness Rising – Ross M Kitson
Dark’s Daughter, Hope – Joshua E. Bigger
The Harmony of Isis – Catherine M Walter
Destiny Binds - by Tammy Blackwell
Bullhorns: Screams of the Innocent - Brian Dunagin
Nightmares and Angels – David King
POED – Candy Korman
Angefire: Dark Angel – Hanna Peach
The Forest Between – Eugene Weiss
Heart on Hold – Sara Barnard
The Rython Kingdom - Mandy Eve-Barnett
Division of the Marked - March McCarron


I chose some books because I like the genres, others because I wanted to try something different, some because they were recommended to me or because they took my fancy at the moment. Some titles are authored by people who follow me on Twitter, who belong to my writing groups, who supported my stand against Kobo’s anti-indie discrimination, or who have contributed stories to the Ten Tales anthologies. Others were random picks.

The list contains more than fifty titles, because some of them were free. Normally, I don’t care whether a book is indie or trad pubbed, I just want a good read. But this particular shopping spree was for indie books only. I believe all of these to be indie books, but sometimes this is difficult to ascertain. Where possible, I bought the books from Smashwords (a site genuinely supportive of indies). I also bought some from Amazon.co.uk and a few paperbacks. I didn’t buy any from Kobo .

I look forward to many hours of reading pleasure. :-)

Rayne Hall