With the advent of e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the ability of individuals to ‘self-publish’, many people have been talking about a ‘revolution’ in publishing. Supposedly, independent authors with difficulties getting published by traditional publishers can now use Amazon Kindle to self-publish their stories or books and sell them directly to the people, without the middleman of a publisher.
Unfortunately, this is not a real revolution because of Amazon Kindle’s policies regarding what they will publish. While they publish a lot of fetish pornography, including incest porn, and even have e-books containing scanned pornographic images. they recently told author David L Tamarin that they would not publish his horror short story, “What Did You Do To The Children?” due to content violations- namely that the story is pornographic and/or contains inappropriate content.
Tamarin is a successful non-fiction author, a regular contributor to Girls and Corpses and the website www.severed-cinema.com/uglyworld. He has been published in Rue Morgue magazine, Scars, Verbicide, NewEnglandFilm.com, The Independent, Serial Killer magazine, Six Word Memoirs of Love and Heartbreak anthology, Butcher Knives and Body Counts (essays on slasher films), horrornews.net, Red Scream, and dozens of other magazines, websites and anthologies.
But his fiction, which he acknowledges to be potentially offensive, has caused the writer problems throughout his career. He is been at the center of multiple controversies surrounding the content of his writing. Because of frustration with traditional publishers, Tamarin decided to release his stories on Amazon Kindle, but immediately encountered a problem when three consecutive companies that format books for Kindle for a fee decided they would not format Tamarin’s first Kindle book because of the extreme and offensive content. Since then, that particular story was accepted into an anthology, and published, and Tamarin learned to format stories for himself. Now he faces his newest adversary to being published: Kindle has stated it will not publish the author’s story, nor will it provide the specifics of why it made its opinion. Tamarin appealed to Amazon, asking them to reconsider their decision, and on December 30, 2012, they affirmed their decision that they would not publish the story.
Tamarin is exploring other publishing opportunities.
As an author and a horror enthusiast, I’m aware that there are some unwritten laws in the industry, pertaining especially to children. If by some chance the story is graphic in nature (sexual exploitation, graphic murder scenes etc.) no publisher would pick it up, because it is offensive and wouldn’t appeal to a mass audience. The same goes for animals. Any horror author worth their salt knows that (no offence). My advice – even though you may not have asked it – is to rewrite the story or just crate it. Who knows, maybe in 10 years the market would be different.
So silly and irrelevant
No publisher would publish graphic murder scenes? Even the newspapers publish that. Your comment does not deserve a serious response if you don’t like goree then stay from my stories. Who are you to tell me what I can write about. If you want some advice of your own don’t try to talk to adults you aren’t ready just like you are not ready to write something without pictures. You lose. You fail.
I don’t appreciate the sarcasm. I never said that publishers won’t publish graphic murder scenes, I said that they won’t publish it if it involves CHILDREN. Who am I? A published horror author who knows the industry and someone who actually promotes Girls and Corpses. Don’t talk to me like I’m a child when you are the one acting like one.
your words: no publisher would pick it up, because it is offensive and wouldn’t appeal to a mass audience.
You have nothing to do with Girls and Corpses don’t mention their name . I don’t give a shit if you appreciate the sarcasm! In what world does your unwanted opinion mean shit to anyone. You just stick your face in where it wasn’t noticed, contradict and whine and complain that you don’t appreciate the sarcasm. I am being sarcastic because that is the only way I would talk to filth like you. Shut up, don’t buy the book, buy it, drive your car off a cliff, I don’t care!
You know what? I don’t need to stoop to your level of ignorance, incompetence and illiteracy. At least my books sell and at least there are people who take my advice to heart. I do stuff for Girls and Corpses, they send PR material to me and I put it on my site… it’s called marketing and public relations, something which you have not mastered yet, apparently. Don’t worry though, I won’t be talking to the likes of you in the future – oh, and just so you know, people think you’re crazy and they have very little respect for your work – yeah, I actually did get warned against you. You give writers a bad name and I support Amazon from censoring your work. That is all.