Self-published authors and small presses have had a number of their titles pulled from the Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Amazon bookstores due to an erotic firestorm. This was attributed to hardcore material being listed side by side with kids material on most major bookstores. Kobo has taken action by deleting erotic content and just published an update to authors participating in Kobo Writing Life.
The Director of Kobo Writing Life Mark Lefebvre released the following statement to all self-published authors. “As you may be aware, there has been a significant amount of negative media attention in the UK regarding offensive material that became available across a number of eBook platforms. Kobo was included in the reports from media and we are taking immediate action to resolve an issue that is the direct result of a select few authors and publishers violating Kobo’s content policies.
In order to address the situation Kobo is taking the following steps, We are removing titles in question from the Kobo platform. We are quarantining and reviewing titles to ensure that compliance to our policies is met by all authors and publishers. We will ensure that content meeting the policy is made available online as soon as possible. We are reviewing our policies and procedures to implement safeguards that will ensure this situation does not happen in the future.”
Mark went on to mention “Our goal at Kobo is not to censor material; we support freedom of expression. Further, we want to protect the reputation of self-publishing as a whole. You have our promise that we will do all we can to ensure the exceptions that have caused this current situation will not have a lasting effect on what is an exciting new channel that connects Readers to a wealth of books.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.