Where I work for the first 3+ years it was pretty loose. If you needed time off you just asked. If you wanted to come in a little early, you could. If you wanted to work a little late, you could. If you wanted to work through lunch to leave a little early, you could.
But then all the sudden they started forcing a bunch of rules on us. Like you HAD to take a 30-minute lunch. And you HAD to start at a certain time. And if you wanted to take time off you had to fill out a form to be signed by someone. Then they brought in an "office manager" to enforce this shit and add even more useless rules. Like you HAVE to take your lunch between 11am and 2pm, which is really inconvenient for our department when the mail comes at that same time. One day I had my phone on my desk and she tells me to put it away and asks, "Do you have work to do?" And then later I wanted to take off the last week of March/first week of April because I wanted to take some time off since there are no holidays until Memorial Day and my lease would be up that week so in case I moved, I'd want that off. But, oh, no, I can't take off the last week of the month! Unless maybe I was having surgery or something. Fine, whatever. I just took the week before off, so basically starting tomorrow I'm off until the end of the month.
Her generous response to the coronavirus thing was to say that you could stay home sick and be paid--if you use your PTO time. Otherwise you can stay home sick--or to care for someone who is sick--and not be paid. Gee, thanks. Making people use their vacation time or not paying them will really keep people from coming in sick with a potentially deadly disease. Great thinking. [eye roll]
It's stuff that makes a miserable job more miserable and there's really nothing you can do about it. I mean it's not like we have a union to go on strike or anything.
At pretty much the same time, Amazon pulled some of my books for the 3rd or maybe even fourth time. And suspended my KDP account. Why? Who the fuck knows? All they ever say is "violating Content Guidelines." Which their Content Guidelines are so broad as to be completely useless.
I spent a couple hours that night putting all those books on Draft2Digital. I thought, Man, it's going to be so annoying to get like 10 emails for each book...except I only got 1 email. An email saying my account was on "permanent probation." I guess that's what comes after "double secret probation" like Animal House.
Unlike Amazon, I'd never had any problems with Draft2Digital. I really liked their website and when I could, I recommended it to people on Facebook and message boards over Smashwords. And just like that, because I violated some rule they never told me about, my account was locked. Not only locked, but they threatened legal action or informing the "proper authorities" if I tried in any way to circumvent it. Holy shit, what a bunch of assholes!
Though the one thing they did clear up was the reason they and Amazon were putting the corporate boot on my neck. It seems booksellers have decided they don't want to carry age regression stories anymore. I mean, age regression stories by indie authors. I'm sure all the traditionally published authors who have published stories like that won't have their books pulled, their accounts locked, and threatened with legal action. Nope, just the poor, defenseless people like me.
I get the reason they're doing it. It's like why so many stopped carrying erotica: there could be a few bad apples in the barrel so let's just throw out the barrel and light the fucking thing on fire because that's easier than actually looking through it to pick out the bad ones. It's fucking ridiculous that I have to lose a good chunk of my second income because of some completely arbitrary rule made because companies are too fucking lazy to actually check the stories being sold on their websites. It's going to finish ruining me financially and there's nothing I can do about it. At least not that I can think of. Because not only do I lose the money from sales on Amazon, but also all those KDP pages read. That was like an extra 50%. Short of getting a second job or some other "side hustle," which isn't really plausible, there's no way to make that up.
But again, what can you do? Nothing. When corporate Authoritarianism stomps on your neck, there's nothing you can do. Not when you're poor. You're fucked. Especially a huge company like Amazon. I can boycott them, but so what? That's a drop in the bucket. That's why they can be assholes and literally turn away money. It seems odd that Barnes & Noble, which is being
I'm still trying to think of what to do. Maybe I could sell the books on my own. Or just give them away. Most of them are pretty old and not necessarily making a lot of money anyway. Going forward, as long as I can go forward, it means I can't write what was the most successful genre for me. Amazon and Draft2Digital and these other booksellers are literally telling me what I can and can't write--if I want to get paid anyway. Imagine if dealerships told Ford, "We aren't selling pick-up trucks anymore." There goes 90% of their business.
Not to be alarmist, but we've seen in real Authoritarian governments how that works. First they come for the Gypsies. Then they come for homosexuals. Then they come for Jews. And so on...
In this case, first they come for erotica, then they come for age regression books, and then...? By virtue of market power, Amazon especially can instantly snap thousands of books out of existence. So if some asshole at Amazon decides tomorrow they don't want to sell vampire books or werewolf books or gay books or lesbian books or books featuring black people, they can do it. Who's going to stop them?
Now if they tried to get rid of something more popular there might be enough of an outcry to make them back down...maybe. Or not. They don't have to unless they want to because it's a private business and especially in America a private business can do what it wants. Most businesses like restaurants or banks or pharmacies if they're assholes to you, you just go somewhere else. (I started switching my prescriptions from CVS for that reason.) You can't really do that with publishing because there are so few options available. When that Authoritarian boot comes down, it comes down hard, crippling you.
And don't give me any schadenfreude bullshit about how I shouldn't have done what I done or anything. Like Amazon and Draft2Digital, none of my Phantom Readers have read any of these stories to actually know what's in them. So fuck you if you think I'm getting what I deserve or anything along those lines. I wrote something, people bought it, so I wrote more of it. Isn't that how the fucking industry is supposed to work? At least until they decide to change the rules on you. Some of the stories aren't all that great, but others I thought were really solid stories. The Comeback especially is one I'd like to make available somewhere because I think it's a great story. Why should I have to delete it just because someone, somewhere, MAY have written a bad story?
And if the justification is, "There are children in these books and people might jack off to it," well, people will jack off to any goddamned thing. I mean, name something and someone, somewhere will find it erotic. People are fucked up. Should we ban everything just because some asshole might find it erotic? Are we that fucking Puritanical? Should we get out the red robes and white bonnets now? When American Pie came out, did we ban all apple pies just because someone might put his dick in one? It's just an overreaction and a massive overreach that unfortunately I can't really do anything about.
Finally, if you think I'm joking about any of this, go fuck yourself. That clear enough?
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