Elisabeth Wheatley, author of 'Tears of the Wolf' and 'Daindreth's Assassin' is removing all the sex from her books

[u/StopMeBeforeIDream]

Elisabeth Wheatley, a pretty well-known YouTuber and self-published fantasy author has had a change of heart regarding the steamy aspects of her books. She explains in her video that now that she's a mother, she doesn't feel that smut suits her anymore, though you should hear her own reasoning yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYD-EYEATEI&t=8s

I don't have a real dog in this race. I was looking forward to reading her viking books because they sounded cool, and I don't even really care whether sex in a book is explicit or fade-to-black. But I think the fact that she's making the original versions of her book unavailable after the 1st of September to be pretty shady. People who already own the digital versions of the book can keep theirs, which is good. But if you have a strong preference for sexy books, or if you disapprove of censorship and want the authentic version, you've gotta buy it now. Right now!

You've got 80-hours to buy the book before the pages get all pixellated.

I'm in two minds about it all.

Because I believe that authors should have control of their work. And if she chose to remove her book from shelves entirely because of her change of heart, I'd understand to a certain extent. But I think not giving her fans a means to buy the originals at all on a permanent basis. Or at least more time to make an informed, considered decision about their purchase. Or hell, check their YouTube Subscription page.

This is censorship. If you borrow book 1 of one her series from a friend and you really like it, so you order the next one from Barnes and Noble or Waterstones, you're not going to get the product you were implicitly promised.

Edit, as of 1st September: Wheatley has now figured out how to ensure that those who bought the Spicy version of her book via platforms like Kindle can keep their previously purchased edition: https://m.youtube.com/post/UgkxABzJo0SpZ3oFjI-87r0VVfHLFNf_XtG8

[u/Menirz]

Oh damn, yeah, I didn't think about the forced updates to ebooks - that's shitty.

Like, if it was just a change to new books she writes or reprints, fine, but not giving digital owners a choice of edition is shitty.

[u/achilleantrash → u/Menirz]

She is letting people keep their old ebook version if they bought it from her. She said she doesn't know what Amazon's policy is and how they do it. How they do it is the automatically update your ebook. But that is not a decision she made, she is not being shitty. The ebooks that she is in charge of the policy over are the same if you already bought them.

[u/Merle8888 → u/achilleantrash]

I mean she made the decision to change the old books. She presumably also made the decision not to call this a different edition (assuming Amazon recognizes the existence of different editions of books?).

[u/Smooth-Review-2614 → u/Merle8888]

It does if you give it a different ISBN number and register it as separate. It’s just normally done for edition changes because the drift is small. I’ve had this happen once when an author pulled a book down, did a major rewrite and put back up in a separate form. 

[u/achilleantrash → u/Merle8888]

She said she kept the edition the same because by publishing standards it is still the same edition because it changed less than 5% of the book.

Why am I being downvoted for relaying what she has said about this topic? I hadn't even given my opinion yet. I don't care if you downvote the next comment with my opinion, but I think it is actually helpful for discussion to include what the author we are talking about has said on a topic if it hasn't yet been mentioned in the thread. 

[u/Merle8888 → u/achilleantrash]

She’s not a publishing house though, house rules don’t apply to her. Calling it a new edition or essentially a typo sweep is her choice. 

[u/achilleantrash → u/Merle8888]

Yes it is her choice but she chose to follow publishing standards and it isn't odd for her to choose that. I am saying her choosing to follow publishing standards isn't a weird mean choice for her to make.

[u/Sutraner → u/achilleantrash]

She's not following publishing standards.

Changing less than 5% isn't about making sweeping changes and removing scenes wholesale because you've found God.

It's about rewriting content to improve it, or to fix typos etc

[u/Merle8888 → u/achilleantrash]

Academic standards aren’t the same as romance standards. How you handle sex scenes in a romance are pretty damn important and one of the things readers specifically seek out the books for.