Amazon's love-hate for Kindle porn

[Alexander Turcic]

This isn't exactly a secret being kept under lock and key. Adult literature is selling well. So well, in fact, that various online booksellers, including Amazon, have been tweaking their search and rating algorithms to downplay the importance of that category. The Atlantic writer Noah Berlatsky makes a persuasive argument that it may, in fact, be this very erotica that has helped the Kindle to thrive:

The Kindle, then, provides both privacy and the promise that somewhere, someone has written exactly the gay werewolf paranormal romance you've always wanted to read. Combine the privacy and range of titles, and there's little doubt that for readers digital is the perfect porn delivery system.

[...]

Porn may have helped make the Kindle successful, but a big part of the reason that the Kindle is so perfectly made for porn is that it doesn't look like it's made for porn. Women (and men, too) who want to read porn on the Kindle don't want to be buying their porn from some place that screams porn! Amazon's advantage as a seller of porn is precisely that it sells lots of things that aren't porn, and that it is known primarily for selling things that aren't porn.

Who would have thought. The Kindle - the ultimate camouflage gear for porn aficionados?

[FizzyWater]

I bought and read erotic romance 12 years ago and read it on my PDA. I didn't need an eReader or tablet to do that.

Having said that, it's always frustrating to see the typical ignorant romance=porn belief come up again. There are romances available without a bit of sex. And there's erotica without any romance. And then there's the stereotypical "the babysitter made me a man" or "I watched my sister take her showers" porn.

They are not synonymous.

[pwalker8]

There actually is a a lot of porn on Amazon, and no it's not the same as romance. It's been said that porn is what carried the internet before everyone jumped on. One of my frustrations with Amazon is that they allow the publishers to control the meta data about the books, so when I try to find out what new SF&F books have come out in the last month, I have to wade through pages and pages of porn and PD books to find any actual SF&F.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

[...]
Who would have thought. The Kindle - the ultimate camouflage gear for porn aficionados?

I can see it now, the next Kindle edition will come with a brown paper bag style finish.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

It may, in fact, be this very erotica that has helped the Kindle to thrive...

What else is new? It's always the porn.

I've come across many articles stating that:

Porn was the best selling genre on VHS, on DVD, and now on Blu-Ray. Porn sites are the most visited sites on the internet. Products that are advertised using sexually charged imags sell better. Porn magazines are the best selling magazines.

And now... Porn is the best selling genre on the Kindle.

It seems the only thing many people want is sex, and without it, we wouldn't have had VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, OR books and magazines, or at least, a lot less.

[manfred63]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It seems the only thing many people want is sex, and without it, we wouldn't have had VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, OR books and magazines, or at least, a lot less.

And kids. We wouldn't have had kids without sex, too.

[Katsunami]

We have IVF now, don't we?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

We have IVF now, don't we?

Not quite as much fun, though.
You get the dirty diapers annd colic sessions without the whoopee!
Plus you have to pay for highly skilled labor, while any amateur idiot can carry through the old-fashioned way.

[voracious71]

I've said it before,I'll say it again. Erotica is porn with words instead of pictures. I do like that that they called 50 shades and others of that ilk "porn". Badly written porn,IMO.

[Andrew H.]

Porn may have helped make the Kindle successful....

It may have, but there's not really any evidence of this, and I'm not buying it. The only evidence we do have is a porn writer's blog in which she claims that porn drove "sales of the Kindle to astronomical numbers".

I'm not buying it; all I see is a disgruntled author making stuff up for marketing purposes.

[HappyMartin]

If Amazon hates this so much why was there an Amazon ad campaign based on reading 50 Shades safe in the anonymity of a Kindle?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

If Amazon hates this so much why was there an Amazon ad campaign based on reading 50 Shades safe in the anonymity of a Kindle?

You mean Mommy porn? 50 Shades was the book that taught thousands of parents that sharing an Amazon account with their kids isn't such a good thing after all.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

It may have, but there's not really any evidence of this, and I'm not buying it. The only evidence we do have is a porn writer's blog in which she claims that porn drove "sales of the Kindle to astronomical numbers".

I'm not buying it; all I see is a disgruntled author making stuff up for marketing purposes.

Agreed. There really isn't any solid evidence to back up the bloggers claim.

[jineapple]

I doubt the Kindle sells so much better because of Erotica - it is at most another advantage, but few people will spend somewhere around a 100 bucks just for that - but the other way around I definitely believe in. The threshold to buying an erotica book is surely lower when you can be sure nobody is going to look at you funny.

I know I've been happy about my Kindle a few times when I was reading the Bible out of interest - Could do it on the train or the subway without making other people think I'm some kind of religious nutjob :P

[frahse]

Originally Posted by gmw

I can see it now, the next Kindle edition will come with a brown paper bag style finish.

Aha, the package wrapped in brown paper, and neatly tied with a brown cord, from beneath the counter!