PayPal Revises Policies to Allow Legal Fiction_Posted by Mark Coker (by erotica writers and such, curtailing their mercantile censorship)

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

In a victory for free speech, PayPal today announced plans to revise their content policies to allow Smashwords writers full freedom to publish and sell legal ebooks.

I met with PayPal at their offices yesterday in San Jose. They outlined their proposed policy changes for me. I was impressed.

This is a victory for all writers and readers. It removes credit card companies, banks and payment processors from the business of censoring legal fiction. It creates a new precedent that should allow other payment processors who have previously discriminated against legal fiction to relax their policies.

It will make more fiction more available to more readers. It gives writers greater freedom to express themselves. It gives readers more freedom to decide what they want to experience in the privacy of their own imagination.

If you haven't followed the Paypal censorship saga, you can see how the campaign developed by reading my email dispatches to Smashwords authors, publishers and customers. They're archived in the Smashwords Press Room (see PayPal #1, #2, #3, #4, #5).

When I received the first email from PayPal February 18 with the ultimatum to remove certain erotica content or face loss of PayPal services at Smashwords, my first inclination was to try to limit the damage so we could protect mainstream erotica from further censorship incursion. Thanks to the outpouring of opposition to these policies, I saw an opportunity to make PayPal our partner in a greater campaign to protect all legal fiction from censorship.

Credit for this breakthrough goes to the indie author community who made phone calls, wrote letters and emails, blogged and tweeted; bloggers who raised visibility of the issue; advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) who were the first to stand up for our authors; mainstream media who raised visibility of the story to greater levels; and last but not least, PayPal. PayPal worked with us in the spirit of partnership to understand the issues, understand Smashwords and how we represent a new model for publishing outside the traditional gatekeeping system, and to understand that fiction is fiction and literary merit should be determined by readers.

I'm sending out an email today to all Smashwords authors and publishers with more details and thanks. An archived version is in the Smashwords press room here._Posted by Mark Coker

RE: A Cautionary Tale for the Aspiring Novelist From: warrenadler.com

A Cautionary Tale for the Aspiring Novelist
From: warrenadler.com | May 17, 2010

It has always been difficult for an aspiring novelist to get published by a traditional publisher. By novelist, I mean those who write mainstream novels that do not fall into any genre slot. The revolution in publishing and the b... Read more at warrenadler.com

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Traditional publishing is lost, at present. Change is already here, and NYC and other trad publishing centers are cranking boring and poorly executed materials: no proofing, no sense, no drama, bad continuity.

In fiction and nonfiction.

Author publishers can have these errors, too, but they, we, don't claim to be the great leaders, while yet lost, following a form that no longer suits the day, nor can be maintained, as they lay off and fire those who can proof, and find sense, and encourage drama, and notice the gaps of continuity.

The 1930s are over, but the traditional goals of that day are still here, dragging, dragging, dragging.

I make more sales with ebook fiction than paperbacks of the same. I write materials that have too many multi-ethnic characters, too much sex, and characters who are too deeply layered.

Well, I like character. My friends and family have deeply layered characters. I like sex, whether its in action or merely thought. And most everyone else does, too, although they pretend otherwise. I rather have my characters have character-driven sexual action than murder after graphic murder.

But that makes me in my own niche triangulated between Zane and D. Gabaldon and E. Bronte. They don't know what to do with people like us, who aren't writing stereotypes.

Plus, few trads let you have control of your covers, your full story text, its layout style, and like eighty-ninety percent of the income your work generates; the rest folding back into software, marketing, etc.

The trads can give you a huge push, but they also can pull you out of the bookstore and make your book disappear all in the same year, because they have someone else's book product to move. I've seen that.

Is that worth it?

"Eragon," I'm told, was author published, if that's true, that's good. A long shot but a hit just the same.

And plenty of authors who've gone the trad route are generally "unknown" names. Not to be rude but I've heard of the "War of the Roses," but not your name, Warren. But, now I do. Most don't put themselves out there, like S. J. Cannell and J. Patterson.

But what, to me is most important is to it, those of us who actually write, who actually complete a book, and edit it until it gleams like fine silk, and publish it into the minds of world get paid, by income and requests for "more...."

Most actors and musicians don't make enough to live off, perhaps, writers should understand that most of us fall into that, as well. But, while others have steadier incomes, they'll never be able to do what we do, or get into the innermost feelings of others as we do.

--Neale Sourna at LinkedIn, Affiliated Authors