Hi, Readers! I had hoped to share the preorder for my upcoming sapphic horrormance novella, Swim With Me, Darling, with you all today, but it’s been delayed by censorship issues.
You may have heard that Steam and Itchio were recently forced to remove and de-index a ton of games by payment processors Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Stripe at the behest of a small anti-porn lobbying group from Australia.
What does this have to do with my book? You might not know that in addition to games, Itchio is host to a huge author community. With its ability to offer co-op bundles with other authors and pay-what-you-want pricing, it had become a go to platform for indie queer books like mine. Along with games, all books with nsfw or lgbtq tags were de-indexed and some outright purged in the middle of the night with no warning.
My queer monster romance books and my entire author page are still de-indexed as of this post. Some fellow authors had their books flat out removed, even sfw content with lgbtq subject matter was de-indexed in some cases. Itchio updated their terms on adult content based on the requirement that payment processors foisted upon them and the restrictions are so stringent that Game of Thrones could not be sold on the site now. Nearly everything on the prohibited content list appears in the popular book/tv series.
The day this all went down was the day I had scheduled to begin pre-orders for Swim With Me, Darling, so needless to say those plans were promptly scrapped. I’m working on an alternate pre-order option, so please stay tuned for that. And my current books are still available on Amazon, most ebook retailers, and directly from me in my shop.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Join the coordinated mass call, email, and physical mail campaign to #SAVESPEECH!
If you enjoy spicy romance books or books in general, I strongly encourage you to get involved. The group behind this wave of censorship and others like them don’t plan to stop at getting adult games and books banned and if this push with smaller platforms is allowed to stand, you can assume they’ll target larger ones next.
GUIDES WITH SCRIPTS, CONTACTS, AND INFO:
https://stop-paypros.neocities.org/
https://yellat.money/
https://cartoonist.coop/censorship-pay-discrimination/
PETITIONS TO SIGN:
(US) ACLU’s Mastercard Policy Petition
(Int) Tell Mastercard, Visa & Activist Groups: Stop Controlling What We Watch, Read, or Play
(UK) Repeal the Online Safety Act
SHARE WITH YOUR FELLOW READERS AND BOOK LOVERS!
GOOD NEWS!
Huge thank you to all the readers who purchased Lust and Found in July, we were able to raise $151 for LGBTQ+ charity even despite being de-indexed for part of that time!
The proceeds were split evenly between The Trevor Project, which provides suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ young people, and Point of Pride, which provides financial aid and direct support to trans folks in need of health and wellness care.
One of the themes of Lust and Found is queer community and it brings me a lot of joy to be able to use the proceeds from this book to support these amazing organizations.
NEW NOVELLA
Stay tuned for the release of my new sapphic horrormance novella, Swim With Me, Darling about a woman who discovers the beguiling truth behind the legend of her local cursed lake.
Smitten with the siren who saved her from drowning, Lana can’t stay away from the forbidden waters despite their deadly reputation. When she manages to make contact again, Lana must confront just how far she’s willing to go to win the heart of her beloved creature.
Swim with Me, Darling is a polyamorous sapphic horrormance novella about the depths of desire and the lengths we go to for love. For fans of folk tales and the “good for her” genre of horror.
Jennifer’s Body meets The Little Mermaid, but make it gay.
A story of yearning, obsession, and the lengths we go to for love.
More info here.
As always, Happy Reading!
-Sylvie
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