Amazon’s Adult Dungeon and Books You Want to Read.

In case you haven’t seen in my FB group/Page, my newest title, My Girlfriends are Pirate Elves! was placed in Amazon’s adult dungeon. This is the place where erotic content goes because its too risque to be seen in the general public searches within Amazon.

I understand that some books should not be in the public view due to sensitive eyes. Sensitive souls may come across them and clutch their pearls. This post is less about censorship and more about what is the Amazon Adult Dungeon and what it means to authors who write adult content. When my current book went live and readers couldn’t find it in a search, there was some confusion on why they couldn’t locate the book. I thought I try to clear up some of the confusion to help authors and readers alike.

Amazon Adult Dungeon

When an author writes a book and publishes it to Amazon, it is reviewed first by an Amazon employee or bot before it’s published to the public. If something trips the first review, it may be placed in the Adult Dungeon. Here, a book will not appear in general searches and an author cannot advertise the book through Amazon ads due to sensitive content.

There can be many things that may trip the Adult Dungeon tag. A revealing cover, descriptive sex in the first ten percent of the book, certain keywords, lewd images or just plain bad luck. The system can be so arbitrary, there is no clear cut way to 100% avoid the Adult tag unless you don’t write/show a drop of sex in your book.  Even then, if your cover is too sexy, it may still be thrown in the dungeon.

For authors like myself, that presents a challenge with being seen. My livelihood depends on you beautiful perverts but I digress.

How do I get my book out of the Adult Dungeon?

To clarify, Amazon will not tell you if the your book is in the adult dungeon or not. The only true way to know is to search for the book’s exact title. If it doesn’t come up on the first page, chances are it’s in the adult dungeon.

If you feel your book has been placed in the adult dungeon when it shouldn’t be, you can contact Amazon and have them do another review. For authors, scroll down on your Kindle Book Page, that holds all your titles, to the “Contact Us” link. There, you can pick which section you need and describe your problem.

Amazon will review it and tell you in an email what the problem is with the book. From there, it is up to you if you wish to change it so it may show up in general search. This will often mean removing all sexual content from the book before they allow it.

When you contact Amazon, be polite and courteous. No one likes an unhinged person mad at the world. Work with them to solve the problem. Customer service should come from both sides, the business and the client.

What if I want to see sensitive content on my Amazon searches?

This is an easy fix. Follow the steps below.

1. Click on “Your Amazon Profile”.

2. This will take you to your profile. Then click on the button “Edit Profile”.

3. Click on “Edit Profile Settings”.

4. Uncheck the box to “Hide sensitive activity”.

5. That’s it. You should be able to find sensitive content that normally wouldn’t appear during a search.

What can I do to ensure I see your books when they are published?

Join my newsletter!  Its helps tremendously having a direct line to the author. I often encourage others to join author newsletters because even if my latest book wasn’t in the adult dungeon, Amazon is terribly slow on notifying readers of new releases. Newsletters guarantee you will be notified first of a new book release.

Join my FB Page as well!

Personal Feelings

I could spend my time ranting about how unfair my latest book is being treated but I often find it counterproductive. I have a lot of love for My Girlfriends are Pirate Elves! and do plan to continue with the series. I’m actually hard at work on book two!

The best thing to do is put it behind you and move onto the next project.

Thank you for reading!

Eden