Quote:
Originally Posted by dadioflex
Here's another barrier, if you write fiction with incest or were-sex in it:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/02/...erotic-content
Just reporting it as seen - I find both subjects distasteful, but without these subjects we wouldn't have Flowers in the Attic or the entire paranormal romance genre so... nope, still not caring. |
For clarification, it only applies to erotica with that content in it - depictions for the purpose of titillation. Those subjects can be depicted in other types of fiction. V.C. Andrews fans are safe. And the were-sex restriction only applies if there is a species mis-match during the act.
But to the topic at hand - I don't find the sign-up process unwieldy (any occasional technical issues aside, as I did not encounter any at the time), but I find the site itself (organization, layout of book pages) to be somewhat unpleasant to use. Obviously, that's an individual thing, but it occurred to me that folks might take issue with having to sign up because they don't plan on returning. I mean, I wouldn't want to go through the registration process of a site I don't like just to get one book from there. If they found the site appealing, that resistance might not be there.
So, perhaps the complaint about having to register points to a larger issue they have with Smashwords. That's obviously not something you can make go away, but maybe you can talk up some of the positive aspects of Smashwords to compensate. I like to think that part of the reason Smashwords' user interface is awkward from the buyer's perspective is because it's only part of what they do - on the other side of things, they are innovating the way publishing works and paving the way for independent authors to try to find their place in a crowded market.