This is such a friggin' good day!  

Paypal, after pressure from credit cards, and thousands of authors, readers, censorship groups, and Mark Coker (Thank you Smashwords!) has released a new statement saying they'll remove their restrictions (or at least limit them back to those containing "potentially illegal" images or child pornography.  


These restrictions hit pretty much every indie-erotic-author out there hard, whether struck with the removal of their books from sites like Bookstrand, or simply offended by being referred to as a "lesser class of writers" or "obscene".

I count this as a major victory for authors, whether indie or not!  

So everyone, GET WRITING! :D :D :D :D

There's also an article in the Chicago Tribune about it. 

So with all the stuff that kept coming up about Paypal censoring online retailers like Smashwords, All Romance eBooks, and Bookstrand I got frustrated and flustered.  I didn't know where to turn.  So I turned to my favorite author of erotic literature (though not erotica per se) Ms. Jacqueline Carey. 

She was the one who found this article and linked it on her facebook page, I am repeating it here so that you may hopefully repeat it to your masses and we can spread this throughout the web.  

A petition to stop Internet Censorship.  

To quote the Petition: 
PayPal has a long track record of suspending, freezing, and terminating customer accounts on the thinnest of justifications, but this is going too far. By telling Bookstrand what books they can and cannot sell using PayPal services, they are also telling readers they don't have the right to read what they wish and telling authors that PayPal has the right to take away their freedom of speech and the press. If you use the Internet to find new reading material, if you use PayPal, and/or if you support the rights of authors and readers to have the widest possible selection of topics to read and write about, please sign this petition and let PayPal know that censorship, no matter what form it takes or how it is implemented, is not acceptable. Readers, publishers, storefronts and authors have the right to choose what books are sold and bought. Don't leave it up to PayPal to choose how you spend your money or where. 

So the Paypal fiasco that has hit Bookstrand and All Romance eBooks has come to Smashwords and they too are refusing to speak against Paypal, they are bending over and taking it up the @$$.  Titles to be removed: Incest, including Pseudo-Incest, Rape, Barely Legal, and Bestiality. 

For the complete "press release" from Mark Coker Founder of Smashwords read here.

To quote some of my favorite bits: 

*THINGS TO AVOID:* Avoid using words such as ‘bestiality,’ ‘rape,’ ‘incest,’ ‘underage,’ or ‘barely legal’ in book titles, book descriptions or keyword tags, otherwise Smashwords may conclude you’re violating the Terms of Service, or trying to push the limits. If you’re writing non-erotic works, and any of these words are necessary, then you’re okay. 

(Particularly the bit about if you're writing non-erotic works then your okay.)

The moralists forget that we humans are all sexual creatures, and the biggest sex organ is the brain. If it were not the case, none of us would be here. Erotica authors are facing discrimination, plain and simple. Topics that are perfectly acceptable in mainstream fiction are verboten in erotica. That’s not fair. Our decisions today are imperfect. Please, act responsibly, don’t try to game the system or publish content that pushes the limits of legality. Help us continue to help indie authors around the world to continue to publish and distribute with freedom. 

At least he sees that it is unfair... Its infuriating that we really have zero options.  Whats even more infuriating is that there is really no course of action - because we are a "Gray area" within society not many people/companies/places will stand up for our voices and our rights to speak out.  Paypal is completely a bully.  

The Binding: An Erotic FANTASY is being removed on Monday because my main characters make love when he is shifted in half wolf-half human form.  Its your last chance to buy it from Smashwords - I will keep it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble as long as they let me.

I was raised on fairy tales, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White.  Always protected by their knight in shining armor, their prince.  Everything always worked out and everyone was always happy.  I have believed for a long time that you just need to keep going and trying and things will work out.
 
By now you probably have heard about the Paypal fiasco, Bookstrand and ARe removing hundreds if not thousands of titles, or declaring that they will be.  Bookstrand sent out letters to indie authors or in release statements saying it was a "Mistake" to publish indie authors because of our "obscenity" and effectively removing most of the indie authors that competed with the sales of their in house published Siren books.  

ARe has seemed much more "politically correct" in their statements, gently admonishing the removal - or reminding that these "pseudo-incest, rape, and barely legal titles" shouldn't have ever been published on their site originally due to their graphic nature.

But whether nice or mean they're still sharpening their swords.  These seeming supporters of Indie writers have turned and hacked of our hands.  

Sure we can still sell our "obscenities" at other markets like Smashwords, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, but in truth I feel more concerned that these "small contenders" didn't even pretend to fight for us.  They simply hacked us apart and didn't think twice.  

What happens when Paypal, our own personal nemesis, starts pushing on our "bigger" resources, will they chop off our heads or stand for our (and their!) rights to publish and make money with us.  Will Paypal - the big fish in online money transactions really take on a site as big as Barnes and Noble?  Will we be secluded and sequestered down to Amazon alone - not because of KDP Select or Barnes and Noble's determination to remove Amazon published books from their brick and mortar stores, but because they offer Paypal as an option for payment?  

Life's not a fairy-tale, its very possible that our Knights like B&N won't stand for us... we have to fight for ourselves, even if we can't lift a sword.

I follow a blog called One Handed Writers. 

Lately they have been focusing their blogs on Paypal using their influence to censor what Paypal feels is "filth" from online retailers (specifically Bookstrand and All Romance Ebooks.)  Read the full blog here.   

I posted the following comment and felt it was worth repeating here:

I absolutely agree with Anjasa (Another commenter) - Nothing about this situation feels good to me.  

Its so murky and frustrating.

The thing that is even more frustrating is all the different twats Paypal has fingers in...  If they make a big stink are they going to force the removal of authors like: 

Jacqueline Carey
George R. R. Martin 
Laurell K. Hamilton
Ayn Rand
And countless others?

One of my all time favorite books is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  The story is about a society who have taken censorship to extremes, firemen burn books.  At the end of the version I have is a letter/coda from Mr. Bradbury explaining that if we don't stand up against censorship eventually everything will be censored... honestly I think he said it best: 

"The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme." 

I wish there was something we could do.  Some "March on Paypal" we could join in.  
What happens when they decide that Pseudo-incest isn't enough?  When any form of "tying wrists" or "restraint" is cut off completely?  Will we re-enter the society too conservative that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz can show THEY OWN ONE BED and don't sleep in two separate?  Personally the idea of going into that repressive society scares the shit out of me.