Amazon & Co are at it again. Time to STAND UP and do something!

We've heard/seen it before...Amazon and other book sites are removing books that they don't like. Well, Kobo has gone so far to remove all indie books just for being published with a certain program/site. They claim that they're just going through for inappropriate books but it remains to be see if they'll actually put back the non-inappropriate books.

(for more on that, check out this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24491723 and this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24519179)

Well, there's now a petition going around to get Amazon to stop removing erotica from it's site. And I'm all for the petition. I love self published authors because I know it can be hard for writers to get published through standard publishers. They're taking less and less books and even if they do get lucky enough to be published, they don't always make money at it.

As a reader, I love self published books. I love being able to find AWESOME authors that I probably would have no knowledge of without my kindle. I've found some awesome books  because of my kindle. And I've made some great friends because of those book. And it really galls me to think that when I hear about a great book on Goodreads, BookLikes or the numerous blogs I follow, I may not be able to purchase it for the simple fact that it's considered "Erotica" and the book store sites are against selling erotica.

And don't even get me started on censoring and freedom of speech. As a historian, I could go on forever and bore you. But I'll be nice and not do that. I'll simply say that Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble are biting the hands that feed them. Either they don't care or haven't figured it out yet, but by removing the erotic books, they'll lose money. And last time I checked, they liked making money.

But anyway, my reason for this post is to share the petition link. I think this is a worthwile petition to sign and even though there's no guarantee that the idiots at Amazon I mean the people that run Amazon, B&N and Kobo will listen, the least we can do is fight for out authors and our books.

http://www.change.org/petitions/amazon-barnes-and-noble-kobo-drop-the-clause-of-removing-erotica-and-self-published-indie-authors