lol human sexuality ohhhh nooooo…
As Barnes & Noble dies, it seems that they’re just going to become bigger and bigger dill weeds.
An example of their ridiculous behavior has surfaced today…
Barnes & Noble has apparently taken it upon itself to delete numerous author’s accounts because they do or have at some point published erotica.
This author received an email stating that her account had been closed…
Dear Publisher,
We have determined that many of your titles available for sale are in violation of our Content Policy. Accordingly, the offending titles have been removed from sale and your account is being terminated. We will pay out any and all outstanding royalties during the next payment period. If you attempt to publish similar content under a different account, we will terminate that account as well and withhold royalties from those sales.
The NOOK Press TeamUmm…okay…please explain which of my titles currently for sale are in violation of their content policy. I would love for them to answer that question for me. Unfortunately, NookPress doesn’t have a contact phone number, and they keep sending me form letters in response to my email inquiries.
While I have published erotica in the past, I unpublished my erotica TWO YEARS ago. And even if it was still for sale at Barnes & Noble (which it isn’t) I don’t see how they would have violated any of the terms at the time. After all, they did allow erotica back then, and I tend to play by the rules. (I am a bit of a compulsive rule follower.)
Source: http://bobbiholmes.com/nookpress/
*sigh* Now there’s some good customer service.
Barnes & Noble is really doing it’s best to piss people off destroy itself. That kind of disrespectful, uncaring, behavior is exactly why people leave one company for another. I’ve moved my business elsewhere on numerous occasions because after contacting the company they made it abundantly clear that they had absolutely no respect for their customers (example: I left 1&1 because they are complete turds and went to DreamHost, who genuinely cares).
And then there’s this…
…on August 22, 2017 we received a second email from Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press. It said:
Dear Publisher,
We have determined that many of your titles available for sale are in violation of our Content Policy. Accordingly, the offending titles have been removed from sale and your account is being terminated. We will pay out any and all outstanding royalties during the next payment period. If you attempt to publish similar content under a different account, we will terminate that account as well and withhold royalties from those sales.
The NOOK Press Team
Within hours, our books began disappearing off Barnes & Noble, and they failed to offer an additional explanation as to the problem on our account.
Their last email claimed: many of your titles available for sale are in violation of our Content Policy.
This was untrue.
Source: http://robeth.net/nookpress/
L O L
Barnes & Noble is out here destroying business relationships left and right.
Ohhhhh… but there’s even more!
Nook Press/Barnes & Noble – suspended my account, now it’s back
UPDATE TO POST BELOW – AFTER BEING SUSPENDED FOR 2 DAYS FOR NO REASON, THEY APOLOGIZED AND GAVE ME MY ACCOUNT BACK. I’M STILL MIGHTY CHEESED OFF. BUT I HAVE MY ACCOUNT BACK.
So, Barnes and Noble just suspended my ENTIRE ACCOUNT for no reason…and they have terminated the accounts of multiple other authors.This means there is a good chance that I will no longer be able to sell my books on the Nook.
About 5 years ago I had published a few erotic romance books with a higher heat level than my shifter books, and B&N was one of the places that I published those books. These were published under a different pen name. I have never gotten a single warning or complaint from B&N about any of these titles; if I had, I would have taken it down immediately.
Source: http://georgettewrites.com/2017/08/22/nook-pressbarnes-noble-just-suspended-my-author-account-for-no-reason/
She did get her account back… but do you think she’s going to forget how she was treated by Barnes & Noble? Fat chance… I bet she’s rethinking having her titles at Barnes & Noble this very second.
And you know what…
None of these people have written terrible or shocking things, none of them published illegal things, nothing wrong was done here. They were all just instances of human sexuality.
So yes, B&N is apparently now purging erotica titles that they were happy to publish last month.
Second Edit: They claim that they changed their policies on 16 August, but from what I can see Nook Press has nearly the same content policy today is it did in February 2017 (Wayback Machine).
The only real change that I can see is that a few words were added here:
but not limited to works portraying or encouraging incest, rape, bestiality, necrophilia, paedophilia or content that encourages hate or violence.
That’s all the new stuff, which is kinda weird. I was under the impression that content was already banned from most bookstores.
Source: https://the-digital-reader.com/2017/08/23/bn-terminating-nook-press-accounts-publishing-erotica/
Sexuality is not a sin.
Writing cheesy romance or erotic novels is not some kind of terrible thing.
The only thing wrong that’s been done is Barnes & Noble’s sad attempt to remove instances of human sexuality from its store.
Honestly, Barnes & Noble has now sabotaged itself. They were already struggling to stay alive… and they have now pissed off the people who supply what they sell.
None of these authors is going to forget how they were treated. Customer service / support, whether its literal customers or suppliers, is not a joke. It is one of the most important things for any and all businesses.
Take this as a warning… a little respect can go a long way and being an arbitrary dill weed to people is not in fact a good way to go about life.