“Censorship and the Publisher”, a guest post from Storm Moon Press

Censorship is an issue that we’ve talked about before here at the blog, at least once before when this anthology was originally published, as an ebook. But it bears repeating, in light of certain new developments that SL Armstrong will explain. And as someone who really enjoyed this anthology, I am definitely glad they asked me to be one of the blogger’s to help spread the word:

Picture this. You want to open a restaurant. The food’s not exactly on the healthy end of things, but it’s perfectly good food if you’re looking for that sort of thing. You jump through all the hoops the city throws at you, get your permits, your licenses, everything you possibly need to get the business going. And then, the night before your opening day, some officials show up at your door and tell you that it’s been decided that for the good of people’s health, you can’t be allowed to open. And more than that, you aren’t even allowed to use the space to make the food for yourself.

You wouldn’t tolerate that, right? It’s not for some nameless official to decide what’s best for other people. That’s a choice that people should be allowed to make for themselves. If they want to eat at your restaurant, that’s their decision. And if they don’t, then you’ll go out of business or run it as a labor of love to the few people who do want to. And you’d have that right.

But this is precisely the situation that Storm Moon Press encountered when we attempted to create the print edition of our anthology, Fraternal Devotion, a collection of short stories focusing on consensual incest between adult brothers. After working with Amazon/CreateSpace for months to get the files correctly formatted, after fighting with them over their printing errors through 5 rounds of proofs, and finally getting everything settled and approved… we were told that they wouldn’t print it. Not for distribution, not even for our personal consumption.

Let’s be clear here. There was nothing illegal about the content of this book. Even in the states where incest is considered illegal, the fictional depiction of a crime is not a crime. So the only thing preventing them from producing our book is their own sense of moral superiority. They have decided that they have the right to decide what people are allowed to read from them, rather than letting the market decide whether the book has value.

Don’t get me wrong, ultimately, they still have the legal right to refuse service to anyone they choose. But what bothers me is the inconsistent application of these standards. To wit, a book that contains violent torture, rape, and non-consensual incest is allowed to be sold, but a book that contains loving, consensual incest is banned. In other words, as long as the incest is portrayed as a bad thing, it’s allowed.

This is a level of censorship that I find disturbing. There is a difference between “no incest is allowed” and “incest is allowed so long as it’s evil“. The first is a blanket statement; the second is a moral judgment. And I don’t believe that a company like Amazon/CreateSpace should be in the business of making such judgments. No one should hold a moral right over anyone else. And, yes, while Storm Moon Press can sell the book on its own site, direct sales are small. Many readers prefer purchasing from their favorite retailers, not creating new accounts all over the place. Their right to enjoy the fiction they prefer is hindered by various corporations’ moral opinion.

For now, Fraternal Devotion–which receives wonderful reviews–is only available on the Storm Moon Press website, Rainbow eBooks, and Barnes and Noble. Amazon, BookStrand, Smashwords, and All Romance eBooks don’t allow the loving incestuous relationships found in the anthology, and so it (and any other books with these themes) will not be found there. And that’s hit the bottom line for this anthology. Without the largest retailers willing to let adults choose for themselves what they should and shouldn’t read, the book’s reach is intensely limited. It’s not the only book that has suffered because of these ridiculous moral restrictions, but it’s the one that has impacted us directly. And the real salt in the wound is that those retailers would rather carry the incestuous abuse, torture, and rape rather than a consensual relationship that is, more of less, healthy.

Fraternal Devotion isn’t the only book with incest we plan to publish. It’s something we believe in, and it’s a niche portion of the market we know is craving quality fiction. We hope that those who enjoyed Fraternal Devotion will review it, talk about, and support future titles like it so that, maybe one day, the moral bullies will accept that adults are capable of making their own decisions regarding the entertainment they consume.

S.L. Armstrong is the managing editor for Storm Moon Press and the co-author of the novel Making Ends Meet and the short story On the Edge found in the Fraternal Devotion anthology. She can be found at S.L. Armstrong.net and on Twitter @_slarmstrong.