Smashwords - Censored.

But the problem is how it's done. No, wait, the problem is that it is done.

Publishing is a lot of things. You can call it the part where a manuscript is sent through the traditional houses. You can call it the part where a writer uses a service to put their words in a form for others to read, be it through Smashwords or CreateSpace or through their own site. You can call it the form where we write words on a wall.

At least on my wall nobody will censor what I say. And it isn't even about my opinion of the words - it's that I want the right to say what I think ought to be said. I'm afraid once they say no to one thing it will be a slippery slope until we can't say much at all.

I know it's always up to the particular site about what can and cannot be expressed. I definitely want it all labeled properly so the unwary won't stumble across things accidentally. Whether it is erotica or slash fiction or even complete nonsense - we should all have the option to say what we want. Free speech, right?

Then again, no one gives backlash to sites who do not wish to cater to certain kinds of messages. The problem here is that someone else is saying what can and can't be done at another site. [A little like SOPA, except here it isn't the government involved but the bank.]

If PayPal is going to try to throw its weight around this way, is the next step to stop allowing purchases through its services for sites that put questionable (by their standards) up for free? I saw a follow-up that says that content might be allowed but not as the main theme because of all the uproar on Twitter.

Twitter is powerful. Do not mess with the Twitter machine.

I'm still waiting to see the next step. It bothers me as an erotica writer that I cannot publish everything I write because of moral objections, whether it be to telling stories through sex that some religious types object to completely or the specific niche not being allowed through censorship.

What do you think?

Do you ever wonder?

All right. I'll admit I peruse random sites when they offer free books. Lately I caught some from B&N, and one of them - seriously - was amateurish. No punctuation in the proper places, plus the narrator told me what was going on through 80% of the story. I skimmed it, deleted it, then started thinking.

I know I write better than that. I have a decent grasp of showing versus telling. Punctuation is not a problem unless it gets fancy, and I can reword a couple sentences if I have to get around it. I have a few stories I could take out there to Smashwords (where they originated) and see what happens.

My reluctance stems from time commitments. I have several things pressing, and I'm not sure how much time I have to market the things. The other question is length. Since many of my stories are very short, I'm not sure how I'd put them together - in collections or by themselves or what.

So I'm curious - for those of you who read erotica - how do you buy it? Do you buy it? Do you look at it only if it's free? Do you want good descriptions in order to grab your interest? Do you want a certain length for $0.99, or per dollar spent? What makes that worth the investment? Where do you look for it? And, last question, would you buy, read, rate my stories if I got them out there?