Complain. Loudly and Often.
Amazon has removed from its sales ranking books of an erotic nature. This is annoying and pedantic, but whatever. Fine. Unfortunately, they have somehow also decided that many, many books expressing homosexuality are, by default, erotic. These include actual erotica books, but also include Young Adult fiction novels and non-fiction books. The biography of Harvey Milk has been removed. Kate Bornstein's A Gender Workbook has been stripped of its ranking. A book called Biological Exhuberance, which details homosexuality in animals wild and domestic has been removed. These are NOT EROTICA. However, heterosexual novels that include scenes of anal sex, incest, and rape are okay. As well as books about how to "keep your kids from becoming homosexuals" which are hateful, harmful, and perpetuate ideas that lead many young homosexual people to suicide. Also, and here's my favorite, Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds is not erotic enough to get stripped of its sales ranking, but Heather Has Two Mommies, A CHILDREN's BOOK is. Many of these books have been censored to the point of not even appearing via search.
Here's a growing list of de-ranked books. Many of them are NOT in any way, whatsoever, erotic in nature. At all. Take a good, long, look at this list and see how many non-fiction and children's books have been removed just because someone in those books is gay and it's not in the context of trying to "save" them from thier gayness: http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html
This isn't just about the marginalization of GLBT people in society, this is seriously going to hurt a lot of writers. Sales rankings are used by writers and publishers to increase advertising for thier books. The rank of sales they achieve is used by advertisers and book sellers to decide just how much money they want to invest in the book/writer. By stripping these books of thier sales ranks on such a humongous site, Amazon is really screwing over a lot of writers. This is unconscionable. Especially since so many of these titles do not in ANY WAY count as "erotic."
Feel free to complain to Amazon frequently and vehemently. Justin and I already have complained and are refusing to spend any money on their site until this is resolved and explained. Here's where you can complain:
ecr@amazon.com
connect-help@amazon.com
Customer service phone: 1-800-201-7575
CEO contacts: Jeffrey Bezos.
1200 12th Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98144-2734
United States
Phone: 206-266-1000
Fax: 206-622-2405
Links about the latest change:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10217715-93.html
http://consumerist.com/5209209/gay-and-lesbian-books-lose-amazon-sales-rank-for-some-reason
(Cross-posted to Facebook)
Here's a growing list of de-ranked books. Many of them are NOT in any way, whatsoever, erotic in nature. At all. Take a good, long, look at this list and see how many non-fiction and children's books have been removed just because someone in those books is gay and it's not in the context of trying to "save" them from thier gayness: http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html
This isn't just about the marginalization of GLBT people in society, this is seriously going to hurt a lot of writers. Sales rankings are used by writers and publishers to increase advertising for thier books. The rank of sales they achieve is used by advertisers and book sellers to decide just how much money they want to invest in the book/writer. By stripping these books of thier sales ranks on such a humongous site, Amazon is really screwing over a lot of writers. This is unconscionable. Especially since so many of these titles do not in ANY WAY count as "erotic."
Feel free to complain to Amazon frequently and vehemently. Justin and I already have complained and are refusing to spend any money on their site until this is resolved and explained. Here's where you can complain:
ecr@amazon.com
connect-help@amazon.com
Customer service phone: 1-800-201-7575
CEO contacts: Jeffrey Bezos.
1200 12th Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98144-2734
United States
Phone: 206-266-1000
Fax: 206-622-2405
Links about the latest change:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10217715-93.html
http://consumerist.com/5209209/gay-and-lesbian-books-lose-amazon-sales-rank-for-some-reason
(Cross-posted to Facebook)