Well, golly. I didn’t expect this. PayPal has--for the most part--reversed itself on the erotica-censoring policy it announced just a few weeks ago.

As a result, all my beast-y and incest-y stories are available again on Smashwords, and will continue to be available through the many outlets that get content from Smashwords.

I say “for the most part” above because under PayPal’s new policy they still reserve the option of banning individual e-books with “potentially illegal images”--and of course they themselves will decide what is “potentially illegal.” (Um, excuse me PayPal, but what isn’t “potentially illegal”?) This remaining bit of corporate arrogance and stupidity won’t effect my e-books, but it’s still arrogant and stupid.

So hurray. I would like to call out some of the heroes of this victory for free speech and rationality:

“Remittance Girl”: An erotica author, RG wrote open letters to Visa and MasterCard, received responses that showed that PayPal’s claim that they were being forced into their new policy by the credit card companies was simply untrue, and successfully publicized those responses.

No Boundaries Press: An erotica e-book publisher that moved quickly and boldly to provide banned authors with an alternative to Smashwords. I’m going to continue to sell my books through these fine people, along with Smashwords and other outlets.

Suw Charman-Anderson: A contributor to Forbes who wrote some high-profile articles about this issue, always coming down squarely against PayPal’s actions and in favor of free speech. See the final paragraph of the article that her name links to for a great example.

And of course, any and all of you folks who took the time to sign a petition or write to PayPal to protest their shenanigans.

Usually, I only use this blog to announce new stories and collections. Hopefully now we can all get back to the business-as-usual of writing and reading naughty stories. I’m looking forward to it!