Censored by Amazon – by Liz Adams
Welcome to today’s guest post by erotic author (and our client), Liz Adams, whose latest spicy romance was censored on Amazon.
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Amazon censored my latest erotic short story, “Call Me Maybe: Sexual Caresses at an Airport,” by removing it from the Amazon search engine.
When I did a search for my book in “All Departments,” my book didn’t come up. The results said “No results for ‘Call Me Maybe: Sexual Caresses at an Airport.’” I knew what had happened. Amazon flagged my book as having adult content. I was heartbroken!
It’s true, there was a scene with some heavy petting and a brief sex scene, but I have to wonder how Amazon defines “adult content.” There are tons of books that can be found on the search engine which are much more taboo than mine.
When I called Amazon to remove the restriction, the lady asked me if I had adult content in the story.
I replied, “It has less sex than The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Bible.” I was being truthful. My ebook was actually a sweet little love story. It’s of a young man in college trying to understand what women want. Not much taboo there.
She said the restriction was placed there to prevent children from stumbling upon it. Okay, I get that. But I’m curious why my spicy romance was censored and ebooks out there like “No, Principal, Don’t F*** My A**!” are not.
Whatever the reason, I just chucked it up to being unlucky. I unpublished the book and re-published it with a slightly different title and a different cover. (I love the new cover!)
I removed the phrase “Sexual Caresses at an Airport” from the title, toned down the cover a bit (though the original cover’s only sexual image was of a man behind a woman caressing her bare midriff), changed a few naughty words in the text, and completely changed the voice from first person to third person.
“Alina Said, Call Me Maybe” passed the censors this time, but by unpublishing it, I also lost the good ranking and great reviews.
It’s free today and tomorrow (3/13-3/14). If you’re curious to read a previously censored book, I invite you to see just how taboo (not) my racy story is.
Alina Said, Call Me Maybe: http://bit.ly/Free-Romance-1
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Liz Adams, author of the bestselling erotic fairy tale Alice’s Sexual Discovery in a Wonderful Land, lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. Her short story Amy “Red” Riding’s Hood, an erotic version of Red Riding Hood, is an Amazon bestseller and winner of Goodreads’ Book of the Month for October 2012. Liz studied music and creative writing at UCLA and worked as a freelance model before making her writing her career. In her spare time she cuddles with her husband on the couch to watch her favorite shows and often they work together doing research for her books. Feel free to contact Liz through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Liz.Adams.Author.
Links:
Alice’s Sexual Discovery in a Wonderful Land: http://bit.ly/
Amy “Red” Riding’s Hood: http://bit.ly/
Hansel and Gretel with the Sexual Hunter: http://bit.ly/
I’ve heard that publishers are very leery of quotes from
songs and song titles… to the point of getting permission
from Frank Sinatra’s estate for the words “Do be Do be do”.
So the censorship could ALSO have been because the title
referenced a popular song title/lyric.