They don’t like it; so you can’t read it

If this guy wouldn’t read it, don’t self-publish it. 
It could be the whole thing started from a certain type of e-book, or maybe a handful of them, that steer erotic themes into territories they shouldn’t tread. Moral questions were asked, someone with a sense of civic duty wrote a scathing news story, as if the concept of questionable erotic literature were anything new, and the businesses selling the immoral books sat up in their chairs and acted surprised. But those immoral books, questionable in nature, dealing with underage sex, beastiality and other taboos in a way that might not have made it seem wrong; they were not the only ones to feel the wholesome swat of digital moral justice that resulted from the recent Kernel news story. The fine line between immoral erotica and good old-fashioned smut is suddenly quite thin indeed.
With terms such as “dangerously close” and others, the Kernel piece (which they called investigative journalism) in essence accuses indie publishers and self-published authors of nearly crossing what is already a line blurred by individual taste and morality – much like forming an opinion of someone based on the books you see in their home, which in and of itself is “dangerous.”
Where it was once a cause for celebration, thanks to the bombastic, droll Fifty Shades of Grey, that erotica had finally found mainstream acceptance, it is just as suddenly thrown back into the puritanical gallows for being completely unacceptable.
What is unacceptable, of course, is how the sweep of the digital broom leaves big name publishers out of harm’s way, how it leaves celebrated erotic literature safe and untarnished, Lolita (about an underage girl) and even, one could argue, Fifty Shades itself – about a confused young coed after all, and based from fan fiction taken from a teen series and stripped into graphic sexual situations. But there’s a movie being made from that one, and headlines in the news about who is being chosen to portray the character of Grey.
While these headlines titillate, the stories that birth characters just like Grey’s are being deleted from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo; anywhere people can find a good steamy, slutty tale with little effort. And it isn’t simply the immoral ones that test the tastes of readers, but all the slutty books produced from small press publishers and self-published authors – at least those that fit the parameters of certain keyword searches. They are all threatened, all under the suddenly moral gaze of giant online retailers. It isn’t just the ebooks about incest and rape on the virtual chopping block, it is all erotica according to some – an entire genre of written words could soon vanish.
And that is indeed what will occur should the sweep continue, should Amazon and other online giants, many of which have become leaders in the publishing world (putting many small presses out of business in the process) pick and choose with keyword searches alone. There are immoral books out there, ones that push the boundaries of tastefulness, but if they are the first to fall, they will not be the last. Books selling a particular religious belief may come next, books on marksmanship, books on homeopathic medicine.
And if they fall, to be fair, so should the big publishers and their boundary-pushing books.
Links on the issue at hand:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/10/13/amazon-bn-whsmith-now/#.Ul2VVUbCTiE
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24491723
http://www.onthemedia.org/story/amazon-incest-porn/
http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/exclusive/5961/how-amazon-cashes-in-on-kindle-filth/#