Victoria Rayne,
Author

Disclaimer: Any information presented that isn’t from the official Amazon site is speculative and anecdotal in nature. I don’t intend to speak on behalf of Amazon or claim to understand the exact workings of their site. This is simply the picture I’ve woven based on a thorough perusal of forums and individuals discussing the topic.

I’m going to confess one thing right off the bat: I’m a worrier. A BIG TIME worrier. On my journey through writing The House of Honey and Venom, I’ve done hours upon hours of research trying to figure out if my book a) meets the content guidelines for the platforms I want to publish on, b) meets the content guidelines for the website builders I want to use, c) meets the content guidelines for the distributors I want to use, etc. etc. etc. When you write fiction with explicit sex scenes, these are all things to consider. And I’m honestly a little bit anal (no pun intended) about making sure I don’t break the rules.

Why should I care about breaking the rules? Well, keeping on good terms with retailers and websites is a way to ensure the longevity of your career as a self-published author. Let’s say you sign up for an Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account and publish something against Amazon’s TOS, and then your account gets banned. What do you do now? In terms of publishing through KDP, there’s nothing you can do. Unless you appeal and get the ban lifted, you’ve simply lost that avenue of publishing.

Since Amazon is like, 90% of the global book market, this would be a devastating blow to one’s writing career. From what I understand, your only avenues after an Amazon ban are to go through a traditional publishing company or to start your own publishing company and sign up through that (though I’ve heard mixed things about whether the latter is allowed, so take that advice with a grain of salt).

I’ll admit, though, there’s one thing about the whole Amazon KDP ban situation that has always confused me. If you’re banned from publishing through KDP, I can understand that you’re not allowed to try and sign up for KDP again. But what about selling your book on Amazon through an avenue that isn’t KDP? What about going through a distributor like IngramSpark or Draft2Digital?

Let’s say you go through a distributor, opt to “publish wide”, and they automatically list your book on Amazon. If Amazon decides that book is against their TOS, are you in trouble, or is the distributor in trouble? I asked this question once on r/selfpublish, but wasn’t able to get a definite answer. In fact, my post ended up sparking much more conversation about what content is and isn’t allowed on Amazon, which no one seemed to entirely agree on (in fact, some commenters got a bit heated in their disagreements).

The only content guidelines I could find for selling books on Amazon were specifically on their Kindle Direct Publishing site, and they were the following:

“Offensive Content: We don’t sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia, advocates terrorism, or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive.”

-Content Guidelines, Amazon KDP

View these guidelines yourself here.

I tried to find a set of content guidelines for books that aren’t sold through KDP on Amazon, but all I found was this page about bookselling, which didn’t include any information about book content at all.

Okay, okay, you might be wanting to ask me: Victoria, these content guidelines are not that constricting. How hard is it not to glorify rape? And to that I answer: easy. I would never intentionally glorify rape in my writing. But the truth is, Amazon seems to be pickier about content than they let on. Even though their policy appears pretty lenient from their TOS, books (and entire authors) are allegedly getting banned from Amazon for publishing content that’s much less dark. According to r/eroticauthors, dicey things like dubious consent and pseudo-incest can land you in hot water, even though Amazon doesn’t say anything about not allowing that content.

Then there’s the rumored “Amazon dungeon”. What is that? Well, here’s a definition I found by erotica author Sierra Cassidy:

“The Amazon dungeon is an author term that we use to note when a book is removed from discoverability on the Amazon website. It cannot be found by searching, it will not be recommended by the algorithm, it won’t show up in the Customer’s Also Bought section, and you cannot run ads for the book.” 

-Sierra Cassidy, the Amazon Dungeon Pt 1

Apparently, your book can get dungeoned for a variety of reasons, all of which are unclear and nowhere are they directly stated by Amazon. Some reasons Cassidy sights are: covers that are too provocative; titles, subtitles, or blurbs that contain words the Amazon system automatically flags (even if they seem innocuous enough, like “omegaverse”); something too dicey or risque in your “look inside” text; being reported; or just bad luck with the automated system.

I definitely fear for the future of The House of Honey and Venom on Amazon, since it contains a lot of dubious consent via incubus magic. The thing is, my book is about the importance of consent and bodily autonomy, and directly addresses the dubious consent as a problem in the context of the story. I can only hope that if I publish on Amazon, the site sees my book for what it is: a story with a positive message about sex. But who knows? Maybe it will be flagged as unsavory by a content moderation bot. I’m going to do everything I can do avoid that happening. Quite frankly, this story is so dear to my heart (not just the message, but the characters too!) and I really want people to be able to find it. I hope for those who’ve been through less-than-healthy relationships or who simply relate to the characters will be able to find a sense of homecoming in The House of Honey and Venom. I may just have to cross my fingers that Amazon will allow people that opportunity.

For an in-depth list of dicey topics that Amazon doesn’t tend to like, check out this informative Reddit post. It gives lists of topics that are not allowed on Amazon but allowed on Smashwords, topics that are discouraged on Smashwords, and topics that aren’t allowed on either.

You might be reading the lists in the Reddit post and scratching your head, thinking, “But I’ve seen way worse stuff than this on Amazon! In fact, I read it all the time!” I know. I don’t really get it either. Plenty of stuff gets popular on Amazon that doesn’t necessarily pass the litmus tests supplied in this post. Some people will tell you that Amazon’s strictness is a complete myth, and that this fear is all perpetuated by online echo chambers. Others will tell you that publishing an ounce of dubious consent will get you banned instantly. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. All we can do is play it safe and hope for the best. And maybe publish wide across a variety of platforms, just so our eggs aren’t all in one basket if Amazon shoots that basket right out of the water.

Now that you’ve read all my thoughts, I want to clarify one thing: I’m not an expert on any of this, nor am I in any way equipped to give you legal advice. I’ve simply absorbed all of this information through my time perusing forms like Reddit, especially subreddits like r/eroticauthors and r/selfpublish. If you have any corrections or thoughts to add, please leave a comment and let me know!