Hi, everybody! As the title states, I want to talk about the tragic mess in the trending section. This will mainly be about the romance section, but I’m not opposed to talking about the others as well.
Some of the questions I have that I’m sure you have as well.
Why does episode approve these oversexualized covers? Especially when it contradicts the guidelines.
Are authors using these type of covers to get reads?
What message are these covers trying to send?
How can we fix this tragedy?
How can we limit it?
What are your thoughts on this matter?
The guidelines states:
No nudity on cover art.
Although there isn’t any nudity on these cover arts. The covers are still rather subjective for a kids app.
I’m going, to be frank, I stopped looking for stories in the romance section because I’m tired of seeing these sexualized covers. I don’t think they’re necessary. You can have a good story and still get reads without having sex plastered on your cover.
The following content is not allowed: Depiction of any and all sexual acts (or anything that is suggesting that sex is occurring at that moment) in any form.
When you look at the cover art… You can tell that sex is happening or is about to happen. If I’m not mistaken, that goes against the guidelines, yeah?
Feel free to come up ideas. Feel free to discuss.
Please do not name any authors. If you want to show examples. Cross out the name. Those are my only rules.
I actually do believe covers with nudity will get u more reads. There’s “horny” teens on the app, that the minute they see they a hot epy boy shirtless they go crazy. They’ll want to read more because they’ll read about typical cliche romance stories with sex in it.
I don’t think we can see any change UNLESS if episode themselves decides to change their advertising strategy and advertise to a more mature and diverse audience beyond the realm of h*rny 13 year olds. The stories we see in the trending section are a reflection of episodes message and its main audience. Why else are the featured stories trashy copy and pastes of one another? People will say these cliches “sell” but look at other apps they don’t market their whole app on cliche stories and they are still profitable with a more mature audience and higher quality stories. Unfortunately I don’t see things changing unless if episode changes their marketing strategy which they probably won’t. I always value quality over quantity though.
I was literally about to post a topic about this. At the moment, the first two covers in the trending section present sex. The second one literally shows borderline BDSM. It has over a million reads and I’m wondering how it is STILL up? This is a 13+ app, not a 17/18+ app!
Omg! I was just going through the trending section and all the covers are insanely oversexualized! They all look the same but I really think that it’s just a ploy to get reads. Most of the community are horny 13 year olds and they’re intrigued by the covers of the stories. I don’ think theres any real way around it unless Episode changes their policies.
I understand these covers are a ploy to get more reads, however, it’s not necessary. I know plenty of stories that have tons of reads and they don’t have sexualized covers.
I feel like if enough of us say something then maybe episode will take notice and do something about it.
I have a thread on this. Not only does it show partial nudity, but it sexualized being “sold.”
I’ve always wondered this, too. Why are stories that are sexualized getting more reads than stories that have no sexual tendencies at all? The guidelines clearly state that any story depicting sexual acts is not allowed, but why are those types of stories the so-called “trending” ones? It really makes me wonder if Episode is really serious about their guidelines or not .
I don’t get it either. My theory/thoughts are episode overlooks these covers and hit approves or they just don’t care because these stories are trending in the top 100.
It’s getting ridiculous at this point. The worse part of it all. Most of these stories that have explicit covers isn’t even good.
Sex sells and I don’t think we can fix it, as long as episode is getting profits they don’t care. I just let the trending section stop bothering me. I thought 13+ meant 13 and above. So there will be rated R stuff. It’s all about the money and popularity. P.S, stop treating these 13 years olds as a infant baby, they know a lot of stuff already, this is nothing new to them.
Ok… Been thinking about this a lot.
To answer your original question How Can We Fix The Mess That Is The Trending Section? I have a really extreme idea that I reckon people would laugh at.
Clearly, a lot of the problem is that while so many of these covers are technically okay, they send the wrong message. They basically prove that sex sells and make us think their story is nothing more than porn.
So the solution: everyone uploads the exact same sexy cover of two half naked people making out for their story. The review team will be like “WTF” at all these covers being submitted, then when they’re all reviewed and approved, all our stories will get a shit ton of reads, trending authors who take advantage of the fact that sex sells will be crying and I will be laughing my ass off from the other side of my computer screen. Thoughts?
I don’t really have ideas how to fix it, but I just wanted to say I’ve ranted about this quite a few times, but I never really called it by its name, tragedy, I love that. I’m really disappointed that since this trend started, more and more authors are following it, and yes, only because they want to get more reads. I don’t understand how the readers don’t get tired of seeing this. Like seriously… Aren’t they interested to see something different? I have no idea why Episode approves these covers, but I can imagine that some of them are even worse, we just don’t know, because they get rejected.
As much as I love a good “Let’s make a sucky trashy story” plan, it would have to be existing… Episode would platform ban me if I convinced 100 or so people to create more spammy junk stories to waste space on their app
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