BannedFiction Press

No indication on their website of who's behind the company, what experience they have, what books they've published, etc. I'm also not keen on the standard contract signing rights over for six years. I'll pass.

I was kind of bemused by the fact that they specifically won't take some stuff that other publishers don't explicitly disallow--i.e nuns/priests in sexual relationships. If The Thorn Birds could do it in a mainstream publication, I wouldn't expect a publisher calling themselves "Banned Fiction" to ban such a thing...and I've only came across one other erotica publisher that made a point of excluding religious authorities from possible submissions. Some of the stuff I can understand from a legalistic/paypal concern view, but if Paypal was kicking up its heels over *that*, you'd think a lot more publishers would be explicitly excluding it.

I find it weird that a publisher that's marketing themselves as more racy/taboo than other publishers is for the most part only accepting the same kinks that other publishers do, and excluding a lot they don't.

Their website is rife with questionable assumptions including that the only erotica literature that is not "porn" is erotic romance.

Their blog is weird!! What is a "Billionaire" fetish? Their description of kink/taboo is very different from mine.

Fifty Shades of Grey started the sub-genre. In the book, he's a billionaire so now there's an influx of BDSM fiction where one of the participants is a billionaire. Srsly.

BenPanced said:

Fifty Shades of Grey started the sub-genre. In the book, he's a billionaire so now there's an influx of BDSM fiction where one of the participants is a billionaire. Srsly.

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AFAIK, billionaire stories have been a Thing in category romance for a bazillionty years. Secretary falls in love with the CEO type stuff.

Ah, I understand now. Thank you for the correction I guess I did not know because Fifty Shades of Grey is too vanilla for me.

BenPanced said:

Fifty Shades of Grey started the sub-genre. In the book, he's a billionaire so now there's an influx of BDSM fiction where one of the participants is a billionaire. Srsly.

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Okay. Wasn't awares. (More familiar with lonely billionaires on TV soaps.)

Moldy said:

I find it weird that a publisher that's marketing themselves as more racy/taboo than other publishers is for the most part only accepting the same kinks that other publishers do, and excluding a lot they don't.

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That struck me as odd too. Also that they found out about a lot of the fetishes from searching online to prepare the site. I didn't see anything very surprising on the list, and I'm not an erotica reader or a fetish expert. So that makes me wonder about how familiar they are with it all.

The point is 'billionaires' is not a kink. A kink is where something not innately bonkable becomes sexualized. Rich guys are widely regarded as innately bonkable.

Polenth said:

That struck me as odd too. Also that they found out about a lot of the fetishes from searching online to prepare the site. I didn't see anything very surprising on the list, and I'm not an erotica reader or a fetish expert. So that makes me wonder about how familiar they are with it all.

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The only thing that popped out as unusual to me was "Milk/Milking/Human Dairy Farm" which I'm guessing is a subset of lactation kink? But I've never seen it listed on a publisher's page. Everything else seems pretty standard. I also put the exact wording in quotes into Google that they used to exclude priests/nuns and it's used verbatim on submission guidelines by two other erotica publishers (Phaze and Syn Erotica; Phaze is the older one so I would guess the other two copied it verbatim from it).

Actually, you know what? It looks like BannedFiction's entire submission No-No's list is the exact same as Phaze's. (Phaze's can be seen here) I'm not familiar with the ethics regarding that, but I'm curious.

veinglory said:

The point is 'billionaires' is not a kink. A kink is where something not innately bonkable becomes sexualized. Rich guys are widely regarded as innately bonkable.

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I've seen it explained as a subset of power dynamic kink. The kink is the overwhelming disproportion in power and wealth; the guy can dangle almost anything the woman wants over her head.

Maybe they specialize in works of plagiarism and that's where the "banned" comes from?

veinglory said:

Their website is rife with questionable assumptions including that the only erotica literature that is not "porn" is erotic romance.

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I got that impression, too. I found the insistence that submissions contain romance a bit baffling since one, romance certainly isn't necessary for plot or character development to exist in erotica and two, it seems to go against their intended focus a bit.

I mean, not that lactation fetish stories can't be romantic. But in my experience, kink/fetish stories can go either way, and it's pretty easy to find kinky erotica that isn't erotic romance. And I find their claim that their audience expects romance questionable.

I don't understand the insistence in 'romance' for the kinks either. And...pregnancy sex is a 'kink'? Blimey. You learn something every day. I think a six year contract is too long, but I have a lot of 1-2K erotic shorts collecting dust so I may send them one or two and see how it goes.

EvolvingK said:

AFAIK, billionaire stories have been a Thing in category romance for a bazillionty years. Secretary falls in love with the CEO type stuff.

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The catch is that they're almost entirely written by people who seem to have zero clue what being that wealthy would actually be like. I had a friend who was a deci-billionaire; she flew coach.

She had a couple of hobbies that were stunningly expensive, but her handbag collection consisted of about a half dozen Coach bags and some artisan-made bags, none of which were spectacularly expensive.

Deirdre said:

The catch is that they're almost entirely written by people who seem to have zero clue what being that wealthy would actually be like. I had a friend who was a deci-billionaire; she flew coach.

She had a couple of hobbies that were stunningly expensive, but her handbag collection consisted of about a half dozen Coach bags and some artisan-made bags, none of which were spectacularly expensive.

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Utterly granted. I've often thought that if billionaires spent their money the way they do in category romances, they wouldn't be billionaires for very long.

EvolvingK said:

Utterly granted. I've often thought that if billionaires spent their money the way they do in category romances, they wouldn't be billionaires for very long.

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Not all billionaires are the same. You have the Warren Buffett types with more modest lifestyles and then you have, say, the Larry Ellison types who live lavishly.

I consider wealth stories to be more fantasies than anything else, like "if I won the lottery" daydreams.

I just checked their blog again and the standard contract for new books seems to have changed from 6 years to 3 years. Good, IMHO, and I'd be more inclined to submit. I'm still confused as to some of their kinks, though. E.g., they don't explain what 'forbidden' or 'taboo' means. These are usually incest but they state they don't publish that...Anyhoo, they've also added/changed a few kinks. . Anybody else looked at this publisher yet? I think I might e-mail their 'contacts' and ask a few questions.

BenPanced said:

Fifty Shades of Grey started the sub-genre. In the book, he's a billionaire so now there's an influx of BDSM fiction where one of the participants is a billionaire. Srsly.

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Harlequin was doing this very profitably long long before 50 Shades although the main line doing it was dialed back a few notches from erotic romance.

Bubastes said:

I consider wealth stories to be more fantasies than anything else, like "if I won the lottery" daydreams.

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Exactly. All fictional billionaires are male, young, hot, willing to spend lavishly on the right woman, monogamous once they've met that woman, and able to spend lots of time in bed with her.

And while I don't enjoy this trope, if I had to choose between it and an unattractive billionaire who'd been married more than once already and spent most of his time working or meeting with boards of directors... well, that would make it more women's fiction or contemporary fiction.

Pisco Sour said:

I just checked their blog again and the standard contract for new books seems to have changed from 6 years to 3 years. Good, IMHO, and I'd be more inclined to submit. I'm still confused as to some of their kinks, though. E.g., they don't explain what 'forbidden' or 'taboo' means. These are usually incest but they state they don't publish that...Anyhoo, they've also added/changed a few kinks. . Anybody else looked at this publisher yet? I think I might e-mail their 'contacts' and ask a few questions.

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They got rid of MILF for some reason (seems like a relatively tame category...strange) and cut down the religion section--took out the bits specifying no-priests and no-nuns. I wonder if someone brought that to their attention? I've seen a fair bit of m/m that contains a priest.

For a better idea of their "taboo kinks", try looking at their "Keywords for Story Ideas" section. It has loads of stuff--including things that contradict their No-No-list. Like "Mind Control" and "Dubcon" are on their keywords list, and seem to contradict the "no rape portrayed in a positive light".

And they've added a bunch of stuff (or at least I don't remember it) that just...doesn't...really seem professional I guess.

Like their entire section 2 ("Did we miss something?") on the Call for Submissions page is about how they've added kinks they found out about through research and how people should send them emails if there's any kinks they missed. And that just wouldn't inspire confidence in a publisher to me. They're willing to publish every kink (except the ones on the no-no list they copied from another erotica site) including ones they've never heard of.

If you do not know that “kink”,,, if you have not read and researched it well ,,, the reader will most likely be disappointed. Please know your subject matter well!

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This goes without saying, and that's the thing: it goes without saying. A publisher should know their genre/subject matter well enough to tell if the author knows what they're writing about; how else can they tell if it's a good example of the genre? And how can they ask authors to only write what they know about when they're willing to publish subjects they know nothing about?

Also, please make sure that the manuscript you are submitting is of the highest quality possible. We want our readers to be happy with their purchases, and keep our refund/return rate low.
If a reader is not satisfied with your writing, i.e. they find a lot of grammar or spelling mistakes, or if the plot simply does not “flow” correctly, or if the the story is just all sex and no “romance”, then they most likely will reject it and request a refund or return for us. That is not good. Our name, “BannedFiction Press”, is important. We want readers to know that when they purchase a “BannedFiction Press” title, they will be receiving a quality purchase … although that purchase might be of a story a bit “kinky”.

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You would think that a publisher would do their best to select quality stories and edit them well to avoid refunds. This explanation really doesn't need to be there and seems like airing the personal problems of their business model as a publisher. A "please only send polished, final draft manuscripts" would probably suffice. If a publisher doesn't want refunds, the onus is on them to select stories that match well with their intended customer base/audience.


I also find it a bit ironic to go on that much about the authors' responsibility to self-edit, when almost every paragraph on the page is filled with ",,,," at some point...but I wonder if that's a display error on my side because there's no way someone could think four commas are needed.

Moldy said:

I was kind of bemused by the fact that they specifically won't take some stuff that other publishers don't explicitly disallow--i.e nuns/priests in sexual relationships. If The Thorn Birds could do it in a mainstream publication, I wouldn't expect a publisher calling themselves "Banned Fiction" to ban such a thing.

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The Thorn Birds was hardly racy, or even mildly explicit!

aruna said:

The Thorn Birds was hardly racy, or even mildly explicit!

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It's been a long time since I've read it, but there was at least one sex scene between the priest and the main character. While racy/explicit is somewhat subjective, it certainly wasn't of fade-to-black level, at the very least.

Bannedfiction says they publish all heat levels (including works with non-graphic sex scenes); so their blanket ban on priests and nuns wasn't apparently based on an objection to incredibly graphic nun/nun BDSM. It read as a complete blanket ban; no priests or nuns in sex scenes, period. Which would rule out The Thorn Birds by their standards, because it has a priest in a sex scene.

They've since removed the blanket ban, a choice I approve of.