The good people at Amazon have made a small change to the way you can search for books. It’s Easter Sunday, so you’re probably not supposed to notice. The target of their new approach is anything that they consider to have adult content, and especially anything that might involve GLBT issues. The writing community is already staring to blaze about this, but it needs much wider attention.
Basically, any title that Amazon consider "adult" will no longer be included in the "Best Sellers" lists – or ranked at all. These titles will not show up on all searches, even when the exact title of the book is entered. Who decides what books are "adult"? That’s not at all clear. But whoever’s making the choices is casting the net far and wide, and hauling in an awful lot of GLBT books.
From Mark Probst’s Live Journal:
On Amazon.com two days ago, mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: "Transgressions" by Erastes and "False Colors" by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book "The Filly." There was buzz, What’s going on? Does Amazon have some sort of campaign to suppress the visibility of gay books? Is it just a major glitch in the system? Many of us decided to write to Amazon questioning why our rankings had disappeared. Most received evasive replies from customer service reps not versed in what was happening. As I am a publisher and have an Amazon Advantage account through which I supply Amazon with my books, I had a special way to contact them. 24 hours later I had a response:
In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage
This is the ever-growing list of titles that have been scrubbed by this policy change from Meta Writer at Live Journal. Many are non-fiction works, such as Dr. Nathaniel Frank’s Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America and The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students.
Interestingly enough, of the titles that remain on the best-seller list, all of them are available in the Amazon-exclusive Kindle format. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
To contact Amazon: connect-help@amazon.com
Jeffrey Bezos, CEO 1200 12th Avenue South, Seattle, Washington 98144-2734, United States Phone: 206-266-1000 Fax: 206-622-2405
ETA: More useful links from the comments below:
Amazon Investor Relationships Contact (5+ / 0-)
If you own or if your 401K has amazon stocks there, please please consider contacting Investor Relations:
Investor Relations
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
Phone: (206) 266-2171
Fax: (206) 266-1355
E-mail: ir@amazon.com
They may pay more attention if a good number of investors start paying attention instead of just pesky bloggers. Hit them where it hurts.
The People's View. Yes, it's my blog. Any questions?
by deaniac83 on Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 02:20:05 PM PDT
better email address (9+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
jrooth, PinHole, goodasgold, Eryk, Cofcos, TerribleTom, tdub, DontTaseMeBro, Losty
According to Consumerist, this email escalates from the ones posted on the site
ecr@amazon.com
When do I get to vote on your marriage?
by tvb on Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 01:03:30 PM PDT
I started a "Boycott Amazon" group on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/...
I'm old. Leave me the hell alone.
by Turn VABlue on Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 01:23:54 PM PDT
#
Amazon Rank (0+ / 0-)
Time for a googlebomb:
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.c...
by MMinNY on Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 01:53:49 PM PDT
