Reblogged from: Jade C. Jamison
One thing I will say about the publishing community of indie
authors—we know how to network. Yesterday, more drama, and it spread
like wildfire. We’d been hearing the buzz about Kobo/ WH Smith pulling
down “questionable” content, but then they announced that they were
pulling down
everything indie without regard to content. It
was a no-holds-barred frenzy of figuratively pulling books off shelves.
Then articles appeared, accusing not only Kobo but Barnes and Noble and
Amazon as well of the same sort of behavior. Shortly thereafter,
Facebook was going crazy with not whispers but shouts, crying
censorship. Readers were angry with the rumors that all their books
could be deleted off their Kindles with no warning (because they’re
paying for the “license,” not the “book”), and authors were angry
because—bottom line—Amazon earns most of us more money than all the
other outlets combined. We reach a wider audience with Amazon, frankly,
and to even dream that we can no longer use the seller as an outlet is
upsetting, to say the least.
While the jury is still out—because neither I nor any other author or
reader have seen anything in print from Amazon confirming or denying
this rumor—I am a little hopeful, because not one but two readers
contacted me to tell me they had spoken personally with someone at
Amazon over the phone and were assured that these were rumors and
nothing more. One woman who posted on one of my discussions about the
matter said they told her they would have someone in PR release a
statement to quell the rumors on Facebook.
As you know by now, that statement has not yet been released…and,
until it is, I and my fellow indie authors will wait, hopeful but
nervous.
In the meantime, I have done all I can. I have signed the petition at
change.org
(if you want to sign or see it, click the link. When I signed it
yesterday, it had fewer than 300 signatures and now, as I post this
article early Tuesday morning, it has over 10,000!). I also urged
others to sign. Deeper than crushing our livelihood is the threat of
censorship, something I think most of us can agree is a bad thing. When
others can start to choose what you can and cannot read, then they
begin to worry about all the other areas of others’ lives they aren’t
happy with. We live in a free country, folks, which means we have the
liberty to choose what we personally like, and that also means that we
might not always like what someone else is doing. Get over it!
Read more...
***
As you can see, yesterday was a firestorm of epic proportions of which no one was immune. To date, all of my books, both under my given and pen name, have been pulled from Amazon UK's shelves, along with every other author I share space with. I don't know when they will be available for purchase again, but this morning I was prompted to re-sign a terms of conditions agreement, so I am hopeful that they will be soon.
On a brighter note, all of my work is still available (and hopefully will continue to be) on ALL of the other platforms (Amazon US, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords, and Apple iTunes). For those authors who have had all of their work pulled, hang in there!
