SmashWords has added a new wrinkle to authors who publish erotica, requiring that they classify their smut as to whether it contains certain topics that some consider taboo. While we know that SmashWords is pretty forgiving and will pretty much publish anything, they also distribute to a number of publishers who are not so forgiving.

The nice thing about SmashWords is that when you publish a book, it gets automatically republished by a number of other publishers such as B&N, Kobo, iBooks (Apple), and others if the book is classified as Premium.

A book is automatically classified as Premium if it contains a number of features such as a Table of Contents; technical details that have nothing to do with smut.

The problem comes in when a porn book is sent out to one of the down market distributors and they find that it contains one of the taboo topics they prohibit. The classification system utilized internationally only has a handful of erotica categories, which makes it a problem to determine if a book is acceptable or not.

As a writer of erotica and erotic romance, I don’t generally dabble in those taboo topics and naturally, I want all my smut available for purchase. Now when I pen a new masterpiece, I have to certify that it does or does not contain one of these topics.

Hopefully, this will result in books not being rejected if the publisher misinterprets your blurb (description) or cover image. After all, when the cheerleaders got locked in the locker room with the football team overnight, they just played checkers. LOL

While I have been guilty of publishing one story involving a mother-daughter team, I have stayed away to avoid all of the pitfalls and other problems with future stories.

I enjoy writing erotica as it gives me the opportunity to let my imagination soar and put together characters and situations that most people may never experience. I’m in the Lifestyle and as such may see or do things 90% of the people never have the opportunity to try. Writing gives me the ability to share some of our adventures, with the names changed to protect the guilty naturally.

One thing this new rating system might help are authors who write in the forbidden genres. Now you can mark your story as such and it will not be distributed to publishers, who turn their nose up at such antics.

As smut will sometimes bring out the worst in uptight individuals, we don’t want to rile up the neighborhood prudes. After all, what you do in the privacy of your bathroom is your business and not your neighbors. By preventing the straights of the world from finding out what really goes on around them, we can live in peace.

If we keep the straights of the world from finding out what really goes on around them, we can live in peace. They think getting some strange stuff means using your left hand!

To read SmashWords new rating system, click the following link:

http://blog.smashwords.com/2017/09/smashwords-erotica.html