If you’re buying your ebooks at Barnes & Noble, you might’ve noticed that the selection of erotica and high-heat romance has seemingly dwindled there. Or, maybe you’ve clicked on a link for a B&N Nook ebook, only to get an error message that no other books by that author can be found.
The frustrating news is that B&N has apparently taken a more draconian approach to “18+” ebooks in recent months. While authors can still upload them – assuming they follow all the usual content restrictions – readers won’t necessarily see them, at least not by default. Instead, you get the message “Sorry, we couldn’t find what you’re looking for. Please try another search or check your content settings.”
The good news is that there’s a simple way to change those content settings, and overrule Barnes & Noble’s filters.
You’ll need a (free) B&N account first – just like you do in order to actually purchase and download an ebook. Once you’ve registered, head here to access your My Account page, and then choose the “Manage Account Settings” button in the Account Settings section.
Scroll down, and there’s a Content Settings section, and in there you’ll see an “Allow Erotica Content” option. Choose the “Allow” checkbox, click save, and now you should get the full, unfiltered search results.
I write books intended for an adult audience: they’re not meant for underage readers. And people are certainly right to choose how they filter their own content, in line with their preferences about things like sex (though it’s notable B&N doesn’t have an “Allow Violent Content” checkbox, isn’t it).
However, B&N making this change with no announcement – to either readers or authors – seems like a pretty unfair decision. After all, if this is about empowering people to select the books they, personally, want to read, why hide that process? It’s one of the reasons I’m still so excited about itch.io, where I can sell DRM-free ePub and PDF files of my stories that you can actually download!