WHSmith and Kobo Stab Indies in the Back
WHSmiths and Kobo have messed up and indie authors are paying the price. They are quite clear that they disapprove of erotica concerning rape, incest and bestiality, yet allowed such books onto their site. As soon as they came under fire for their abuse themed titles, Kobo pulled all self-published books. They plan to reinstate them after they've conducted an investigation.
Why this is very wrong
- Kobo should have had an effective vetting system in place to begin with, if they want to practise censorship.
- Kobo should have the resources to isolate problem books on some axes other than how the book was published.
- Authors who haven't embarrassed Kobo are paying the price for the minority who have, and for Kobo's lack of foresight.
- Authors schedule promotions, sometimes investing hundreds of pounds in advertising, in the faith that vendors will deliver their books on the chosen day. Often investments are huge relative to the amount an auhor earns. This decision could set hardworking indies back by months.
- Targeting indie books sends a negative message about self-publishing to the world, propagating a stereotype that we're fighting to rebuke.
For goodness sake Kobo, I took a risk publishing some of my titles with a relatively small eBook vendor. It took days to jump through your formatting hoops and I lost my bonuses for being exclusive to Amazon. I did this because I wanted to support an alternative to the market leader. You reward me by stabbing small publishing companies in the back. I'll think twice about publishing with you in the future because you clearly aren't ready to earn a larger share of the market.
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