Two Writerly Things that have annoyed me this morning

[erastes]

1. Facebook have changed their rules regarding promotions. http://www.ashleymarch.com/blog/?p=1439

NOT for the better.  Here's one of the rules

You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.

So just HOW do you let them know then? There's no way I want hundreds of people to email me their email addy, nor would I expect anyone to do it, apart from the winner.

God, I've just about had it with Facebook.

2. From Breathless Books:

http://www.breathlesspress.com/erotic/submissions/

• 1. Monogamous couples. Infrequent loves scenes with no graphic language.
• 2. Explicit love scenes with graphic or strong language.
• 3. Frequent and explicit loves scenes/graphic depictions of sexual situations. May include BDSM, D/s, homoerotic sex acts.
• Diablo Delight: No holds barred high frequency of sexual interactions with strong erotic content. Extreme BDSM, group sex. No HEA required.
• Sweet Confection: Unconsummated sensual scenes, or love scenes that contain no description of actions

I KNOW the publisher is inclusive of gender, and I am pretty sure they don't mean to offend, but this casual thoughtlessness does need sometimes to be pointed out. First they say they accept m/m stories, and then gay romantic encounters—because "homoerotic acts" can span from a man looking sexy to the beholder to fisting and much further beyond—are automatically lumped in with the highest end of erotica.

Not good, Breathless Books. not good.

Comments

Absolutely

[suemont.livejournal.com]

I don't understand FB's attitude either - it's like they're trying to drive people away. Maybe that's just what they want for reasons only they know.

I've found that if you say your novel's m/m it's always lumped with erotica. There was a romance reviews site that refused to put my book or my advertisement anywhere except in that section, and I'm non-explicit!

(I love that little cat, by the way)

Re: Absolutely

[erastes.livejournal.com]

nod nod--I've seen that too, and my books are shelved in erotica and labelled erotica by the publishers (not all, but some) even though they are getting less so all the time. I'm sure there are many Mills and Boons that have more graphic sex and are sold on supermarket shelves as romance.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Grr at Breathless Books. Not that I entirely understand their categories anyway. Why the numbering followed by a change to descriptive names, and why have the no sex category after the lots of sex category instead of first on the list? Blatantly I need to write more sweet poly stories about people having adventures while they just happen to be in a relationship with each other.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I think it's thoughtless rather than pointed, but it's absolutely stupid. smash smash smash.

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

*bangs head on desk* WTF is it with gay and lesbian sex automatically earning a harsher rating than hetero sex? Puritanical culture can bite me.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. The BBC are considering taking gay kisses off screen unless after the watershed. I mean.. why? That's simply saying that gay love is wrong. I'm all right with it - IF they take ALL kissing off.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Someone on a yahoo group posted this as a possible alternative to Facetwit. I've registered there and it looks good -- anyone know anything about it?

http://www.friendika.net

[aishabintjamil.livejournal.com]

I suspect the facebook change may be on account of them worrying about legal issues in some US jurisdictions. There are places which regulate contests, lotteries, and so forth very strictly because they are forms of gambling. My guess is that FB is big enough to be on the radar of things like the Federal Trade Commission, and they're worried that someone might charge them with violating something.

It would seem that authors don't do anything big enough to matter, but there are some big commercial entities on Facebook who might, and enforcement of the law in the US is not always exactly sensible. Every so often you read a news story about local authorities shutting down some church bingo fundraiser because it was technically in violation of a gambling ordinance.