"Most of the stuff on Smashwords is porn," Jonathan Bloom, whose ebook Hell Is Above Us is available on Smashwords, tweeted recently. "I feel like someone trying to sell a homemade quilt on the street next to a line of high-end hookers."
On Saturday, February 18, PayPal contacted Smashwords with an ultimatum: Remove the "edgy" erotica, or face deactivation of their PayPal account. Since PayPal is integrated into the Smashwords website, Smashwords had no choice but to comply. "I've had multiple conversations with PayPal over the last several days to better understand their requirements," founder Mark Coker wrote in an e-mail to authors whose works were categorized as "erotica" on the site. "Their team has been helpful, forthcoming and supportive of the Smashwords mission. I appreciate their willingness to engage in dialogue. Although they have tried their best to delineate their policies,Spro Tech has been a plastic module & moldmaker, gray areas remain.Don't know what tooling style you need? Their hot buttons are bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and underage erotica."
While Smashwords already prohibited self-published authors from submitting stories featuring underage characters in works of erotica, they had to implement new guidelines for bestiality, rape, and incest in order to comply with PayPal's ultimatum. Smashwords will no longer allow authors to sell erotica featuring "pseudo-incest" or "shape-shifters in paranormal romance" engaging in sex while in "were-creature" form. Smashwords' new guidelines apply only to works labelled as "erotica," so other genres are okay. For now.
"We do not want to see PayPal clamp down further against erotica," Coker wrote. "We think our authors should be allowed to publish erotica. Erotica, despite the attacks it faces from moralists, is a category worthy of protection. Erotica allows readers to safely explore aspects of sexuality that they might never want to explore in the real world... Erotica authors are facing discrimination, plain and simple. Topics that are perfectly acceptable in mainstream fiction are verboten in erotica. That's not fair. If you're going to push the limits, push the limits of great writing, not the limits of legality."
"What I find chilling is that the money exchanger, not the merchant, can make such a decision,Don't know what tooling style you need?" commenter L.K. Rigel wrote on a Dear Author blog post, where news of PayPal's actions were reported on Friday. "PayPal is,What are some types of moulds? after all, basically a bank. So now a bank gets to decide what customers can buy or merchants can sell? The decision is only palatable because they're cutting off stuff people mostly find abhorrent." Moriah Jovan wrote,The best rubbersheets products on sale, "Paypal is NOT a bank and they spend a lot of time in Washington lobbying to keep from being defined and thus regulated like a bank. They have far more latitude than banks do."
On Saturday, February 18, PayPal contacted Smashwords with an ultimatum: Remove the "edgy" erotica, or face deactivation of their PayPal account. Since PayPal is integrated into the Smashwords website, Smashwords had no choice but to comply. "I've had multiple conversations with PayPal over the last several days to better understand their requirements," founder Mark Coker wrote in an e-mail to authors whose works were categorized as "erotica" on the site. "Their team has been helpful, forthcoming and supportive of the Smashwords mission. I appreciate their willingness to engage in dialogue. Although they have tried their best to delineate their policies,Spro Tech has been a plastic module & moldmaker, gray areas remain.Don't know what tooling style you need? Their hot buttons are bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and underage erotica."
While Smashwords already prohibited self-published authors from submitting stories featuring underage characters in works of erotica, they had to implement new guidelines for bestiality, rape, and incest in order to comply with PayPal's ultimatum. Smashwords will no longer allow authors to sell erotica featuring "pseudo-incest" or "shape-shifters in paranormal romance" engaging in sex while in "were-creature" form. Smashwords' new guidelines apply only to works labelled as "erotica," so other genres are okay. For now.
"We do not want to see PayPal clamp down further against erotica," Coker wrote. "We think our authors should be allowed to publish erotica. Erotica, despite the attacks it faces from moralists, is a category worthy of protection. Erotica allows readers to safely explore aspects of sexuality that they might never want to explore in the real world... Erotica authors are facing discrimination, plain and simple. Topics that are perfectly acceptable in mainstream fiction are verboten in erotica. That's not fair. If you're going to push the limits, push the limits of great writing, not the limits of legality."
"What I find chilling is that the money exchanger, not the merchant, can make such a decision,Don't know what tooling style you need?" commenter L.K. Rigel wrote on a Dear Author blog post, where news of PayPal's actions were reported on Friday. "PayPal is,What are some types of moulds? after all, basically a bank. So now a bank gets to decide what customers can buy or merchants can sell? The decision is only palatable because they're cutting off stuff people mostly find abhorrent." Moriah Jovan wrote,The best rubbersheets products on sale, "Paypal is NOT a bank and they spend a lot of time in Washington lobbying to keep from being defined and thus regulated like a bank. They have far more latitude than banks do."
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