Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
These aren't instruction manuals for rape; they're fiction books depicting rapes. If the logic is "we can't have books that have graphic depictions of crimes," they'd have to ban a lot of murder mysteries and thrillers.
However, in this case, it appears the contents were irrelevant; they were removed for having titles that *violated Amazon's content terms.* Except that those terms weren't conveyed to the author; they were the secret content terms that "any decent person should understand," rather than the ones actually written on the page.
The author didn't submit the books attempting to get around Amazon's content requirements; Amazon failed to specify what wasn't allowed. It's unclear whether this was always not-allowed and they just noticed these titles, or they've recently changed their standards, since there still isn't an available list of "things you may not title your book."
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Amazon puts too many books up to be able to judge them on content. They have made the decision to get the books up for sale, and pull them if they discover a problem. As their lawyer, I would be comfortable with that risk/reward formula.
I would NOT create guidelines about what was and was not acceptable. As soon as I say "Rape cannot be in the title" I would have a bunch of books written by the Chicago Rapist. I would only agree to act reasonably in banning books. And since they cannot read every book to determine if it will piss off a majority of their customers, they are coming up with criteria on the fly.
Kinda like the TSA.
