The Indie Ebook Watershed? (part 2)

Last month I blogged about the scandal that hit the ebook market when UK high street retailer WH Smith fielded numerous complaints about books of a more - shall we say - adventurous nature appearing alongside kiddie books on their website. Their search engines were not filtering out adult content or indeed even flagging such content as appropriate for over 18s only. WH Smith's slightly knee-jerk reaction was to take its online store down completely while the matter was investigated.

you'd be surprised what else comes up in a search...

 

WH Smith gets its ebook feed from the Kobo store, as do many other online retailers of ebooks. In response to complaints from WH Smith, Kobo in turn pulled all "independently-published" ebooks from its virtual shelves. Don't ask me how it defined independently-published - anybody can set up a publishing company or imprint with little or no financial outlay. Only the taxmen in their various guises need to know the true legal entity of a business.

So. Fast-forward a few weeks. My ebooks are once again listed with Kobo (at least some of them are - my new release hasn't yet appeared there but I'm confident it will in time). They've not yet reappeared on WH Smith's shelves and I doubt they will. But is this the end of the story? I don't think so.

Online stores do deals with different ebook suppliers. Like Kobo, Barnes & Noble/Nook Press ebooks go out to small online stores throughout the world. For instance, here's one of my books in the Indigo ebook store. Indigo is a Canadian company with physical stores across the country.

And don't forget physical books. I have three paperbacks now, published via CreateSpace. This is US-only and frankly nobody ever buys books from the CreateSpace site itself - they buy via Amazon or via one of the many sites that CreateSpace distributes too across the world via its Expanded Distribution option. This optional extra distribution used to cost an extra $25 - now it's free - and I've actually sold more print books via Barnes & Noble than I have on Amazon itself.

So what's wrong with that? Well - I have no idea where my books are being sold. Google alerts doesn't seem to help here (you all have Google Alerts set up, don't you? Authors and non-authors alike, it's invaluable for knowing who's talking about you...). So I was surprised to find my paperbacks being sold on UK site Fishpond. No, I'd never heard of it either. Quite why anybody would even consider buying a UK book priced in dollars and shipped via the US, when they could buy it from Amazon.co.uk is beyond me - but what is disturbing is the description:   

black & white illustrations and Age Range: 15+ years.

Yes, really.

For the purposes of anyone who has not read my books, my thrillers are very dark, very graphic and absolutely in no way are suitable for under 18s. Oh, and there are no illustrations.

I have no idea where this information is coming from. It's not in my meta-data from CreateSpace, so who tagged my books and why? There's no "look-inside" feature, and I'd be horrified if people thought it might actually have illustrations and be suitable for mid-teenagers. I could possibly understand all books defaulting to an age-range (even if it's clearly the wrong one, and there is nothing that suggests it's a child or YA book), but to state it has illustrations? How? Why?

I've contacted Fishpond and they are looking at the my issue and hopefully amending the description. But what will happen if I change my book, re-upload and CreateSpace pushes a fresh copy out to all its satellite sites? And what else is out there that I know nothing about? How can I control  how my books are presented to the public?

Answer - I can't. And that's why I think this ebook watershed has only just begun.

An Indie Ebook Watershed?

A couple of days ago, UK high-street retailer WH Smith took the unprecedented step of switching off its entire online store and replacing it with a “holding page” explaining the reasons for this action. This was apparently due to customer complaints after a number of ‘inappropriate’ books were retrieved by the website search engine while customers were looking for children’s books.  More information and examples can be found at a variety of online news sites, such as the BBC, the Daily Mail and the Mirror. Even the Guardian is getting in on the act.

For those readers unfamiliar with the store, WH Smith has a branch on most UK high streets and sells books, stationery items and magazines; the bigger stores also sell CDs and gifts. It has a generally wholesome image, promotes Richard & Judy book titles and is considered family-friendly. Not the place you’d expect to find hardcode pornography then – even the lads’ mags are doubtless regulated to the top-shelf where small fingers can’t innocently pick them up with a comic. I say doubtless because in all honestly, I’ve never looked …

So why do they exist in the online store? Because WH Smith – like many other retailers – takes a data feed from Kobo, an ebook retailer that publishes books from anybody and everybody with little or no vetting of the contents. Kobo itself takes data feeds from other ‘ebook aggregators’ – websites that distribute a book to multiple online retail sites on behalf of the author or publisher (and either charge a per-title flat-fee or take a cut of the profit in return for the service). Kobo is slightly different however in that it also allows authors to upload direct to the site.

This isn’t uncommon in the online retailing business. But as the sale of ebooks and ebook readers has taken the market by storm, ebook aggregators and retail sites have never really invested time or money in content-filtering – ensuring that not all books get published, and those that do are regulated and tagged appropriately to ensure that they do not fall into the wrong hands. Many of the books that have caused this furore have apparently violated the t&c of the sites in question and may even been illegal. WH Smith is potentially liable for prosecution - hence the reaction to pull the entire website.

And with the explosion in ebook sales comes the realisation that anything can be published. By anybody. Whether there is a market for it or not. Since Fifty Shades of Grey, there’s been a race to the bottom, even from the big publishers to produce ever more explicit erotica. Who can blame the independent authors for wanting a slice of a very lucrative pie? But with no gatekeepers, no content-filtering and little quality control from the online publishing/retail sites that Amazon’s KDP, Kobo Writing Life, Smashwords etc, there is nobody to police the increasingly smelly cess-pit of internet pornography. And some of the stuff out there is horrific. Just the other night I glanced through some new titles available via Smashwords. One in particular stood out with tags that would make your eyes water, a blurb that was offensive in the extreme and certainly not something any self-respecting author would want to be connected with. Does nobody at Smashwords even take a cursory glance at the titles uploaded?

Rape-fantasy and incest are not topics I would personally want to read about. I don’t believe in censorship, but if authors cannot or will not self-police or self-regulate, do we really have a choice? There is a world of difference between pornography written for titillation and memoirs about child-abuse. Or a textbook on healing or psychology, or the description of a rape in a crime novel. Do we deny victims of abuse a voice? It’s the glorification of it that is the issue – therefore simply searching for keywords or titles will never been a means of identifying books which should maybe be in a category all of their own, and invisible to store search engines unless explicitly invoked. But then who is to say that Fifty Shades or even titles like Lolita should be banned? Even Lady Chatterley's

Lover was considered indecent in its time. 

So what will happen now? I sense a watershed moment for ebooks. WH Smith has said it will remove 'all self-published books' before it re-opens its site. So that will leave Fifty Shades and other ‘legitimate’ erotica titles, and readers will lose the ability to buy some amazingly good books of all genres from writers who for a variety of reasons do not always publish with a publishing company. Kobo has already deactivated possibly all titles it considers to be self-published, regardless of genre or content - none of my titles are currently available to buy. Other ebook sites like Barnes & Noble, Apple and Sony are doubtless considering their own actions. Even the mighty Amazon has pulled several books recently. And how do you define self-published anyway? Anybody can set themselves up as a publisher. Anybody can buy ISBNs. We are in danger of throwing out the entire bathroom as well as the baby with the bathwater.

For the record, I think that WH Smith has made the right move in the short term. It remains to be seen how the company will deal with this crisis in the medium-to-long-term and how companies like Kobo react. Now you may say that children should not be surfing the net unsupervised and I agree with that. But even with supervision, do you really want your five-year-old seeing book covers and blurbs that are at best distasteful and at worst illegal? And imagine the online revenue that WH Smith is losing by pulling the entire online store while they work out what to do next. That shows you just how seriously they are taking these allegations and their concerns may not be unfounded if some of the offending titles are found to be illegally obscene and not just morally obscene.

Maybe sites like Amazon and Smashwords should be charging independent authors to upload a book for sale? Perhaps that would generate sufficient revenue to employ staff to vet books offered for publication. At the very least the retail sites should be employing better filters on their search engines. It's not rocket science these days.

I predict that October 2013 will be a turning point in self-publishing and ebook retailing and I hope we go forwards in the right direction.

Flashmobbing

Flashmob. Wikipedia says: A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.

So the modern version of what we all used to do as kids then? Stand in a busy place – a shopping centre (open air, obviously), park, or anywhere that isn’t enclosed – and look up at the sky. Squint a bit and point. If you’re with a friend, exchange a few oohs and aahs. Sooner or later somebody will want to know what you’re looking at, but won’t want to ask so will look up too. It then takes on a life of its own à la Emperor’s New Clothes, as nobody will want to admit they haven’t a clue what’s going on. When you have gathered enough of a crowd, walk away. It works. I’ve done it.

Of course these days with the internet and social media available to everyone everywhere, it’s easy to call up a group of friends instantly if something’s going on. So here’s an idea … take a paperback of your book, or maybe two or three if you can, into your local bookstore. Or any place that sells books, but refuses to stock your book because you’re an indie (read sub-species) and Gardners or whoever won’t deal with you. Hide said books on shelf and leave. Can you get into trouble for putting stuff into a shop, as opposed to stealing it? I don’t know.

Call up your mates. One or two initially. Get them to go into shop and rave loudly about your book. Call some more up. Of course there aren’t enough books to go round. And you’re a local author! Why doesn’t the local bookshop have more of your books?

Of course they won’t be able to pay for them as the books aren’t on the shop’s stock system. Which means they don’t exist as far as the shop is concerned. But with any luck the manager will hear all the fuss and come out, and if there’s an ISBN on the book and it looks professional, he just may be tempted to buy some stock to satisfy these fans who have met you recently at some literary event (be creative…) and want to buy your books.

You might have to persuade your “fans” to come back and actually buy the book later, of course. Or even at the time, if the manager is astute enough to facilitate this. But he might order more. And then you’re on the system aren’t you? You officially exist.

Have I ever done this? No. If you try it, let me know how you get on.

Indie v Trad – The Battle Rages On

I don’t get this indie/trad warfare. Traditional books are better because they are edited. Er – no. Indies have editors too. Indie books are better because they are cheaper. Amazon is often selling best-sellers at 20p these days. Trad writers can write better books because they don’t have a day job to distract them. Nope – a lot of trad authors have day jobs – advances are less, and sometimes non-existent for debut and even mid-list authors in some smaller houses. All the myths on both sides can be debunked with little or no effort.

But why do we have to compare?  Why differentiate at all? From the reader’s perspective, he or she doesn’t care how the book came to market. The reader looks at the cover and the blurb; maybe a sample or a few reviews if they exist. Then it might be the price. Indie authors have less overheads so can price ebooks lower – true. But amazon can fight back with their 20p promotional sales of the big names, so that argument goes out of the window too.

I guess the only time a reader might care how the book got to market is if they have been burned by poorly-edited indie books in the past and have now decided to boycott anything that smacks of self-publishing.  That’s down to the author. Trad writers have editors, yes, but indie writers can too – you might have to buy in editing services (and cover design and anything else you don’t have the skills for), but if you want to be a professional writer, that’s the price you have to pay. And that’s what all writers should be aiming for, surely? However you publish a book, there is no excuse at all for spelling errors, grammatical mistakes or just bad editing.

I would prefer to bring all writers together, not talk about their differences and make allowances. I want to be treated by a reader the same way he or she would treat any other writer - with the same expectations of professionalism and a quality product. Is that too much to ask?

Are you Homophonic?

Diagram from wikipedia by Will Heltsley

Here is an interesting diagram I found today on wikipedia while researching what the correct term was for two words which are spelled differently but sound the same and have completely different meanings. The word I wanted was homophone.

Why? Well I found an interesting thumbnail image of a self-pubbed ebook cover in one of the many facebook forums I frequent. And yes, if I was being my usual pedantic self, I would probably have written fora, but forums seems to be the accepted norm these days and God forbid, I rock the boat often enough as it is.

This thumbnail looked interesting so I read the post and clicked on the link to amazon. The blurb didn't blow me away but I thought I'd look further so clicked on the "look inside" feature. And what did I find? The second line of the first chapter had a mistake that clearly indicated the author didn't understand the difference between a common word and its homophone. Now I'm not naming names or even the word, because that wouldn't be fair, but wake up, self-published and indie authors! This isn't a game. You're putting your book out there as "published"; you are asking people to pay money for it. Amazon is not a critique site and you can't expect readers to edit your work for you. If you can't afford to pay an editor, then trade beta-reads with a friend or writing colleague - sometimes just a fresh pair of eyes can be enough.

In my opinion, even typos are a no-no, but they are at least forgivable. Punctuation can be tricky and we don't always get it right, but we owe it to ourselves and our readers to do our best. But not understanding words - the tools of a writer's trade - is unforgivable.

KDP Select & Large Fries To Go, Please

So I looked at KDP Select - amazon's amazing new offer for indie authors. Sign exclusively with us for 90 days and we will put your ebook in our amazon prime lending library. You get a share of half a million dollars in December alone. $500,000? Just for December? Where do I sign?

Read the small print. You get a share of the money pot depending on how many times your book is borrowed as a proportion of all borrowings. And the library is growing rapidly by the hour since amazon emailed all us indie authors yesterday. But in return, amazon demands exclusivity - you cannot sell or distribute your book anywhere during that 90 day period - that presumably means you can't sell your books off your own website and you can't give books to reviewers.

Where it really get complicated is if you have ever sold your book via smashwords. Quite apart from the fact that you have to wait for smashwords to pull the books from B&N, Apple, Sony and other sites (which can take a few weeks), you need to remember that even if you unpublish a book from smashwords, the site retains a copy to service previous customers of that book, which they will presumably distribute to said customers who wish to re-download. Bang go amazon's terms & conditions then. And once you violate amazon's t&c, the wording is sufficiently vague for them to get away with anything.

I'd maybe consider it for a new book. But you'd have to have a huge proportion of downloads (not numbers, but % of total downloads) to be making real money at this new game. So I'll pass for now and stick with smashwords and getting my books into as many different outlets as I can.

But KDP Select does sound like a menu option in a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, doesn't it?