The Adult Filter Problem

After a whole series of erotic stories from our pen, the Amazon adult filter has struck again with the new story “Selfies”. Porn alert. In other words: restricted display in Amazon search results. In other words: limited sales. Not a death blow, as the titles are displayed in the Kindle search, but irritating, especially if you’re not familiar with Amazon’s search practices.

The suggestion that a story in the “erotica” category is not suitable for minors is actually a tautology. Because as soon as I select the genre “erotic” when entering the title in the KDP program, the age indication “18+” automatically appears in the field for the appropriate reading age. I cannot change this setting.

This makes it all the more irritating that the vast majority of titles in the erotic category are not affected by the so-called adult filter. We ourselves gave all our erotic titles a “Safe” rating before “Selfies” got stuck in the filter.

Precisely because so many books are displayed in the “erotic” category, many readers of this genre don’t even think to search for filtered texts and deactivate the adult filter. As a result, the texts stuck in the filter are not displayed and therefore cannot be purchased. This is why the “Adult” rating is usually associated with considerable financial losses.

How can I recognize the adult filter?

If a book is not displayed in Amazon’s search results, this is a very bad sign. I discovered by chance that there were problems with my new book. After receiving an email from KDP yesterday that “Selfies” was now available in the Kindle store, I wanted to check the results this morning. Without further ado, I went to the Amazon.de homepage and entered “manther selfies” in the search field. No result.

So I expanded my search by deleting the word “selfies” and just searching for “manther”. Now at least the majority of our previous publications appeared. “Selfies” remained missing.

So how does the filter work? I simply asked Amazon and received the following answer:
“Books with adult content will not show up in the general product search, but will show up in the general Kindle search.” In other words, books that are internally listed as “adult” simply no longer appear in the general search. However, they will still be displayed in a search in the Kindle Shop – and that is, after all, the place where most people look for interesting Kindle eBooks.

It used to be possible to set in the settings whether you wanted to be spared adult content. However, I no longer found this setting in 2024. And I also had the impression in the relevant forums that anyone who buys erotic texts from Amazon today will have to live with the fact that they will also be bombarded with porn ads in the future.

Now, erotic authors who are relatively well connected via forums agree that Amazon doesn’t particularly care about the content of a story as long as the external framework is maintained. This means that there are two main points that trigger the Adult Filter: The cover and the blurb.

Trigger for the Adult Filter 1: The Cover

There is no official list of things that must not be shown on a cover! The content guidelines that Amazon refers to in its standard email are highly vague in this context. Naturally, I wrote to the KDP service to ask what the problem is and whether I can change anything to get rid of this stupid adult filter.

I’ve just discovered that my short story “Selfies”, which has been available since today, has been given an adult rating and is only very hesitantly appearing in the search results.

Since I’m not sure what I did to get the rating, I just wanted to ask:
Would it help to position the lady a little lower on the cover so that the base of her butt is no longer visible?

Or is the crux more in the blurb, in the short description of the content? If certain irritating words appear there that I should avoid in future, I would also appreciate a brief notification so that I can correct the error and avoid it in future.

In any case, I will endeavor to remove the reasons that led to the adult rating in the shortest possible time so that I can resubmit the book.

However, as Amazon’s response shows, my request got stuck in the first-level support of the KDP and was not forwarded to the responsible employees in the “quality department”. The result was a kit letter that didn’t address any of the questions and merely confirmed what I already knew:

As determined by our quality department, your book “Selfies” contains adult content. Books with adult content are not displayed in our general product search, as you have probably already seen. However, they will be displayed in the search within the Kindle category if the display of adult content has been enabled.
We reserve the right to judge the appropriateness of content ourselves. This may relate to cover images, book details (metadata) or the content of the book.

The penultimate sentence in particular shows how vague the situation often is. As there is no list of things to adhere to, the game with the Amazon censorship authorities is an eternal trial and error. Worse still, what works for one author doesn’t necessarily work for the next.

Authors write online from time to time about their own experiences with the filter. At least some cover problems are now known. In the following, I refer to a list compiled by Selena Kitt in her blog.

• Too much skin
• Breasts (also from the side, diagonally from behind or covered with hands)
• implied or actual sexual intercourse (even if the models are not naked)
• intimate touching (even if the models are dressed)
• Suffering or even crying models
• Handcuffs and/or bondage
• Dirty words in the title

Trigger for the Adult Filter 2: The Blurb

The surest way to get the adult filter thrown in is certainly still the “Warning: Adults Only” or similar. Even if it is not meant as a publicity stunt, it remains counterproductive.

Certain topics have no place in the blurb and are better only hinted at if you don’t intend to bring up the adult filter. These include

• Sex with family members
• Sex with minors
• Virginity and defloration
• Breastfeeding and lactation
• Dubcon – sex where it is not clear whether everyone involved is in agreement
• Rape

If I’ve forgotten something important, please leave a comment below this post.

In her book “The Six-Figure Erotica Author: How I Make Six Figures Self-Publishing Erotica”, Jade K. Scott has developed a system to creatively work around these terms. This allows fans to recognize what a story is about without the adult filter being called into action. In her blurb, for example, she simply refers to the “man of the house” instead of “daddy” or the stepfather. Obviously, the Amazon spiders do not yet pick up on this expression when hunting for possible filter-worthy texts. Anyone interested in this kind of slalom will find some useful ideas in her book.

The problem with such paraphrases, however, is that readers first have to decipher what you mean by them. So it makes sense to start by looking at similar books to see how the topic is described in the blurb.

This is tedious at first. But since you should stay true to a subgenre anyway as long as you are working with a specific author’s name, you only have to do the work once. Then you’ll know which expressions to use to trick the filter and find your target audience.

Incidentally, Amazon now asks whether new titles contain “sexually explicit images or titles” before uploading them: “Does the cover or content of the book contain sexually explicit images or does the book title contain sexually explicit language?” And in the FAQ you will find on the subject:

Sexually explicit images or titles: you must answer “Yes” or “No” to this question in order to proceed with setting up titles and selecting categories. Select Yes if your book contains one or both of the following:
Sexually explicit images on the cover or inside. For example, images that contain nudity or sexual poses.
Sexually explicit language in the title or subtitle of the book. For example, words or phrases that refer to sexual acts, devices, fluids or genitalia.
If you select Yes, your book is automatically not suitable for children’s categories in order to provide an appropriate shopping experience for all customers.

kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201097560#primaryaudience

What to do?

I’ve run afoul of the adult filter before. Somehow my original cover of the short story “The Hunting Lodge” was too vulgar for the clerks. Since Amazon itself didn’t give any reasons for the adult rating, I had no choice but to revise the cover and blurb in the hope of deleting anything too offensive from the sections.

Here is the cover in the before and after version:

      

You can see that the young lady’s bottom is now demurely covered, if only because I enlarged the image section.

In the second step, I removed all specific references to sex practices and orgasms from the blurb. I assume that this will reduce the target audience’s desire to buy the book a little. But by making this concession, the book will be listed again in all search results and not only if readers deactivate the well-hidden search filter beforehand.

I then drafted an email to kdp-support@amazon.de:

Dear KDP staff,
I would like to ask you to review the title “Das Jagdschloss” by Marc Manther (ASIN B01IDZYCEI). I have toned down the cover image and also cleaned up the blurb. Therefore, I hope there is no longer a reason for an “Adult” rating that excludes the title from searches on Amazon’s home page.
I would appreciate it if you would mark the title “Not adult”.
Yours sincerely,
Marc Manther

I more or less copied the text from Selena. She has released it for this purpose. Accordingly, you are free to use my German version if you wish.

Incidentally, it didn’t take 24 hours before I had the following reply from kdp-publizieren@amazon.de in my mailbox:

… After further review, we have decided to lift the restrictions on these books. They will now be displayed in the general product search. This may take up to 24 hours.
Thank you for your feedback and we apologize for any inconvenience caused by this temporary restriction.

From the wording “for these books” you can see that there are already block modules for this process at Amazon. Because I have definitely only requested for one book. I conclude from this that it is more common for authors to revise a whole series of titles in order to resubmit them. Otherwise the standard formulation “for your book” would have been saved in the mail set box.

This article was originally published in 2018. Since a lot has changed at Amazon and Kindle since then, I took our latest clash with the Adult Filter as an opportunity to completely revise the article.