Dee Savoy

It’s the end of March, the time when every young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of — did you really think I was going to say spring? Actually the advent of warmer weather usually tends to bring on a spate of contentiousness in the publishing world and elsewhere. Two recent developments make my point.

Amazon.com flexed it’s considerable muscle and decided that only those POD books published through the company’s BookSurge program will be sold on Amazon. Other books will be listed, but their Buy Now buttons will be deactivated to prevent direct purchase. You can read more about it here.

You may not have noticed it, but I removed my links to Amazon from this blog and will remove all links to Amazon from my website when that is redone in my own brand of protest. In my opinion, Amazon has acted like the 800-pound gorilla since its inception a few short years ago. Yes children there was a time before Amazon. All I can wonder is, what’s next? Now that they have that ebook capacity on their pages, will they only sell ebooks they put out, too?

The second bit of contentiousness comes from the state of Indiana that suddenly has a bee in its bonnet over sexual content in books.

From the Publisher’s Weekly article:

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) has blasted a new Indiana law that requires bookstores to register with the government if they sell what is considered “sexually explicit materials.” The new law, H.B. 1042, was signed by Governor Mitch Daniels on March 13, and calls for any bookseller that sells sexually explicit materials to register with the Secretary of State and provide a statement detailing the types of books to be sold. The Secretary of State must then identify those stores to local government officials and zoning boards. “Sexually explicit material” is defined as any product that is “harmful to minors” under existing law. There is a $250 registration fee. Failure to register is a misdemeanor.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is a bit extreme. If it is acknowledged that explicit material is not intended for minors and effort is made to keep it from minors, can’t the rest of us see it, please? For more information on this ridiculousness, you can go here.

According to IC 35-49-2-2, Indiana Code defines Matter or performance harmful to minors thusly:

Sec. 2. A matter or performance is harmful to minors for purposes of this article if:
(1) it describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse;
(2) considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors;
(3) it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for or performance before minors; and
(4) considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
As added by P.L.311-1983, SEC.33.

My real question about this stems from who will decide what is prurient and what isn’t? Who will decide what has merit and what doesn’t? What’s to distinguish the nudity in an art book or a book about the human body from a series of pornographic photos. Is everyone suspect a smut peddler until proven otherwise?

By far, my favorite take on this mess has come from Seressia Glass’s blog:

Given the current heat level of everything but inspirational romance, even the local drugstore will have to register on the sex offender bookseller list. (After all, it isn’t fair for the Borders to have to register and not Bob’s Drugstore.) Or perhaps the store buyer will offer a questionnaire to publisher reps and distributors asking if a title has the sex in it and having them sign a declaration stating that it doesn’t so that it could be sold.

Hhm, maybe this will finally get all those clinches off the covers.

That’s what I’ve been hoping for for years now.At any rate, with April only gearing up now, I can’t wait to see what other foolishness will crop up this spring.