Let's talk about my upcoming dark novella:
I've been MIA from social media lately. Partly because I underwent a major health procedure back in May, but that isn't the real reason I've stayed offline for the past couple of weeks.
You see, I hired an editor I thought was amazing. But a week after I sent her the manuscript, she suddenly refunded my money and sent an email stating she couldn't proceed with the project because the story includes a trans character.
With it being Pride Month and everything, that hit me incredibly hard. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it's really difficult—it felt like straight-up bigotry. I chose not to respond, and that will be end of it. I will never know the full extense of her reasons. And I'm okay with that.
On the bright side, I've already found an incredible new editor who is currently reading the book, and I have an amazing sensitivity reader (Ivory <3) helping me out.
The 'Zon is being an a$$
To top it all off, Amazon rejected this same book when I put it up for pre-order, citing "inappropriate or offensive content."
Essentially, they have banned this version of the book from being published on their platform. I'm still not sure if I'll be able to tweak the content enough to get it approved, though I certainly hope so.
As a small indie author, I just can't afford (right now) to not publish there. These past two weeks have been an uphill battle for Minor Incident. I always knew it was a boundary-pushing story, but given how many pitch-black stories are on Amazon, I thought it would be fine.
Speculating a bit and talking to other dark romance authors, we think it was due to the twin shenanigans, and not the borderline n*croph!l!c content. There is NO inc*st in this book—I want to be clear about that—BUT they do share a boyfriend.
Anyways, I messed around a bit and uploaded a new version (not the final one) and we'll see if it gets accepted. If not, you'll be able to get it directly from my website.
Depending on how this whole shitshow goes, I'll stick to writing dark-ish, taboo-ish short erotica that's safe for the 'Zon, and think about continuing my dark romance as a passion project under a new pen name on Smashwords or something.