Adult content

 Hello from Michigan! This morning it’s 24 degrees F and grey AF.

As a romance novel writer, I tailor my work to an adult audience.  It contains sex, as almost every other modern romance novel I have ever read.  It is understood by most readers that if you select a book in that genre, it’s going to get steamy at times.

It seemed a no-brainer when filling out the publishing form on Amazon KDP to select yes when asked “Does this book contain adult content?”  Yes, it does.

Wrong!  Don’t click that option!  Apparently Fifty Shades doesn’t even meet the criteria, which leaves me wondering what would!

If you select ‘yes,’ your book won’t come up in a general search.  When a customer adds your book to their cart, Amazon greys it out for their privacy, like they are buying a salacious, naughty thing.    It seems like such a small thing, but it can affect other things as well. 

I have more to add on this subject, but a little backstory is necessary. 

A source I have found very useful is Kindlepreneur.  There is so much good information on the website free of charge, I refer to it frequently with questions.  I finally decided to try Publisher Rocket, a paid app from the site, after reading countless blogs about how the $100 was worth it.

I agree.  When you publish the book, you have to choose seven keyword phrases customers might use when looking for a book like yours.  Publisher Rocket tells you not only what keywords Amazon customers are searching for, but how likely you as an unknown author, are to be seen with those keywords.  If 1,200 other books are using the same keyword, your book will be so far down the list, no one will ever look that far.  I found myself just randomly trying to come up with things people might search for when they didn’t know they were searching for my book.  It ended up being mostly a few variations of “Sci-fi romance.”  This is particularly unhelpful, as this is the genre.  Duh.

Kindlepreneur also recommends putting your book into more categories.  Amazon limits the number to ten, but Publisher Rocket allows you to search through the options and tells you what sort of competition exists within those categories.  When you create the book listing on Amazon, you can pick two categories.  After that, you need to send a request to have additional categories added by a person at Amazon.

Here is my next fiasco which cost me a night’s sleep and much grumbling.  Since my books have some spice, and there are only so many romance categories that they loosely fit into, I added a few Erotica categories.  My books are not Erotica by definition, which tends to mean that the plot is driven by sex.  I write Romance, where the plot is about the relationship and emotions and sex is a result, not the cause.  I know the difference, but I thought maybe someone searching in that category might be interested anyway.

Well, I got the wrong human on the Amazon side that day.  The person told me I wasn’t allowed to be in both Erotica and non-Erotica categories and removed me from all other categories.  Following the recommended rules at the bottom of the email, I replied directly to the person and explained my book was romance and to please change it back.

I heard nothing for an unusually long time.  Thus far, the turnaround on requests was under two hours.  Most of the day went by when finally I got an email from the “Content Review” department with the following statement “Your book is currently live and available for purchase. Check out the detail page to check the status…” 

What?  I know… my book has been for sale for months…  What?

I went to Google to figure out what the hell and I found I was not alone.  It all comes back to the little yes or no question.  Amazon wants to keep inappropriate content out of the hands of minors, which I can respect and appreciate as a parent.  That being said, as an author, I’d like readers to know my book exists.

 I submitted a new request, simply asking to have the Erotica categories removed and the non-Erotica categories instead.  Again, a long wait.  Finally the reply came and read:

“Books with adult content will not surface in general product searches, but will surface in general Kindle searches for customers who choose to allow adult content. This is the reason you are unable to find your book in general product searches.”

While this was not directly related to the original reason I submitted my request, it resulted in Amazon changing the adult content label.  Unfortunately, the categories still weren’t fixed.  I let a day go by to see if anything changed at the 24-hour mark.  Nope.

So I submitted a request to have the other categories I wanted to be in added and said nothing about removing the Erotica categories.  No problem.  The person I got this time didn’t even question it. 

Bang my head against the wall.   

But at the end of the day, I learned a valuable lesson and will know better going forward. 

 

Check out my book here! à www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKBV51XN ;)

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