If you write romance of any sort, but especially erotica and erotic romance, or you write horror, and I would argue anything that might get an R rating in a movie theater (or even a PG-13) then you need to be aware of whether your state is passing age verification laws for websites. (You can check here if your state has an age verification law.) If your state has one of these laws, what does it mean?
You are responsible for securing your website
The laws very, and I can’t give legal advice. What I can tell you is that if there is anything on your website that someone couldn’t get on Amazon (without buying your book) or another main bookstore website, then you probably should secure it some way. (And I’m not sure this will protect anyone the regime and its supporters wishes to go after.) A transactional verification is a paywall, pure and simple. It means obtaining a credit card number and charging it as proof that someone is a legal adult. There are also goverment id verification services out there, but they are costly and may not integrate with your website.
It is important for authors to be aware of what legislation may be impacting them. And, the fact that their state may not have the laws may not keep them off the hook. And let’s be honest, this regime’s push toward anything that deviates from their narrow view of what America is and what should be shown on television or in the media, means that if you write anything that doesn’t conform to this view, then you probably should be keeping aware of these laws. There are oganizations involved in book bans, but they seem disinclined to deal with issues of censorship at vendors that are currently happening, the ongoing issues with Stripe/Mastercard/Visa/Kickstarter/Itch.io seeming to randomly decide something is “adult” content just for having queer people depicted in the story, for example. The later two, Kickstarter and itch.io, blame their policies on Stripe. But we cannot let the companies off the hook for taking the easy way out.
The fines for violating age verification laws would be enough to bankrupt any author who isn’t pulling in six figures a year (and possibly even then), and honestly, it’s a stress and frustration none of us need to deal with. We each need to think about what we can handle and what we want to do to protect our work. I will be reviewing some of the popular age verification plugins in the next blog.