Amazon’s terms of service are very, very vague when it comes to what they consider “obscene.” When the Kindle ebook phenomenon started, erotica authors walked into it blindly, trusting that Amazon would let them know if they crossed some invisible line.

For the last few years, Amazon has allowed incest erotica that depicts consensual relations between adults. It is one of the most popular types of erotica on that service, in fact, along with BDSM and paranormal erotica.

Suddenly, out of the blue, Amazon jumped in and removed a number of incest erotica fiction ebooks overnight. They also (initially) disappeared from the Kindles of people who had purchased them but were storing them in Amazon’s cloud. There was no explanation from Amazon, though a few days later they did restore the ebooks to those who had already purchased them, again with virtually no explanation.

A few days later, the same thing was done to a handful of male/male erotica titles that had the word “rape” in the title. At least one of these titles didn’t even focus on rape, and didn’t present it in an erotic context at all. Again, no explanation to the writers, customers, or e-publishers.

Earlier in the year, Amazon had stripped sales rankings of hundreds of gay and lesbian books (not necessarily erotica), with no explanation. When things exploded in the press, they restored the rankings, claiming that it was a “glitch.”

Amazon can sell what it wants, and set the terms of service to whatever it likes. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that they won’t define what is and is not acceptable, and have developed a habit of suddenly removing (or stripping sales rankings) of books en masse in unannounced overnight sweeps, with no explanation ever given to anyone. LGBT and erotica authors literally have no idea of how to stay within the guidelines, because there really don’t appear to be any.

Ms. Kitt (and others) have stated publicly that their main issue is not being told why their specific books were pulled, particularly when many others with similar themes (including some that are far more explicit) were not touched.

Ms. Kitt is one of the most successful authors in independent erotic ebooks, with very good sales over a period of years and a definite following. Most of her erotic fiction doesn’t deal with incest at all. She (and other authors) simply want to know where the boundaries are, and why the invisible rules are being applied in a haphazard fashion.

When the federal government destroys all copies of a text/video/audio creation and prevents all access to it, that is censorship. When a private company says ‘piss off’ to an ‘alternative erotic literature purveyor’, that is a business decision.