Remember what I said about assholes a few entries back?
As soon as my shipment for The Complete Deadwood and Curse of the Golden Flower come in, I'll be immediately sending them back. I only wish that they hadn't already been sent, so I could just cancel them.
Why? Because Amazon.com's being a total douchebag. Which, honestly, is surprising, considering who and where they are. I'm assuming this is a reaction to something, as opposed to Bezos waking up and deciding he hates Teh Gays, but it's still a fucking stupid reaction.
For the clicking averse: (taken from Dear Author)
For those who don’t know, Amazon has decided to derank and then remove from front page searches books labeled “erotic” and GLBT. For example, books that are about Lesbian parenting have been identified as “adult content” and deranked. Patti O’Shea’s book that is listed “erotic horror” despite having only one sex scene has been deranked and removed from front page search results. Amazon has deranked Annie Proulx, E.M. Forster, but not American Psycho. Mein Kampf and books about dog fighting are ranked and can be searched from the front page, but not books about gay love or books with erotic content.
Why is this is a big deal?
It’s not because customers put any stock into the Amazon Ranking number. It’s that the Amazon Rank affects a books’ visibility on the bestseller list, on the “If you Like ___, you might like __ feature” and so forth. It is akin to the bookstore removing the books from the shelves and requiring you to go to the Customer Service desk and ask for the book or author specifically. Visibility is a huge factor in sales and anyone who doesn’t believe that is kidding themselves.
Don't believe that sales rank can affect searches? Let me show you the screen cap of what comes up when you search for homosexuality on Amazon:
EDIT: It's been changed since I posted the pics. Now the kids' books are gone, too.
Mind you, not all books with adult and/or explicit content are affected. Here are some that escaped the purge:
--Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women)
--Rosemary Rogers' Sweet Savage Love" (explicit heterosexual romance);
--Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Wolf and the Dove (explicit heterosexual romance);
--Bertrice Smal's Skye o'Malley which are all explicit heterosexual romances
--and Alan Moore's Lost Girls (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel)
Check out this page. NSFW.
Ditto
Oh the children, the children! Won't anyone think of them?!?!!?
Yet the following books, which have a gay or lesbian focus, have been classed as "adult books" and stripped of their sales ratings:
--Radclyffe Hill's classic novel about lesbians in Victorian times, The Well of Loneliness, and which contains not one sentence of sexual description;
--Mark R Probst's YA novel The Filly about a young man in the wild West discovering that he's gay (gay romance, no sex);
--Charlie Cochrane's Lessons in Love (gay romance with no sex);
--The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience, edited by Louis-George Tin (non-fiction, history and social issues);
--and Homophobia: A History by Bryan Fone (non-fiction, focus on history and the forms prejudice against homosexuality has taken over the years).
--History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault
A full list of the purged books Funny how it keeps getting longer.
How nice.
Sign the Petition
Best response yet: Amazon Rank The explanation
And, if you wanna take the personal approach:
Jeffrey Bezos, CEO
AMAZON.COM
1200 12th Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98144-2734
United States
Phone: 206-266-1000
Fax: 206-622-2405
Right now, they're calling it a computer glitch. Pretty specific fuckin' glitch, I say. Also doesn't explain the letters (written by Amazon employees) received by writers asking about their books. Are we to believe that Amazon employees just make shit up when they don't know an answer?
The text of the reply to Mark Probst's email from Amazon's customer service center:
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
EDIT: This explanation does sound plausible. Not calling it right, but plausible. I hope so--I would like to keep ordering stuff from Amazon. However, except that amazon doesn't have a "complain about this book" button, as far as I can see. There's a "contact us" link at the bottom of book listing pages, but I don't think it even registers as a comment specifically about that book. So it's hard to see how an automatic filter like the one being talking about could be triggered.
EDIT II: medievalist says, "A living person at Amazon gets a list of books to check for questionable content.
That person gets to make a yes/no decision about whether or not to forward it to someone with live edit privs, and makes a written report with a reason and suggestion of what and how to edit, up to and including delist." She has no documented proof of this (she says she applied to Amazon and the policy was explained to her), so it's something to think about, but can't be considered fact until independently verified.
EDIT III: A timeline from February when the "adult=no sales rank" was first used as an excuse.
Why? Because Amazon.com's being a total douchebag. Which, honestly, is surprising, considering who and where they are. I'm assuming this is a reaction to something, as opposed to Bezos waking up and deciding he hates Teh Gays, but it's still a fucking stupid reaction.
For the clicking averse: (taken from Dear Author)
For those who don’t know, Amazon has decided to derank and then remove from front page searches books labeled “erotic” and GLBT. For example, books that are about Lesbian parenting have been identified as “adult content” and deranked. Patti O’Shea’s book that is listed “erotic horror” despite having only one sex scene has been deranked and removed from front page search results. Amazon has deranked Annie Proulx, E.M. Forster, but not American Psycho. Mein Kampf and books about dog fighting are ranked and can be searched from the front page, but not books about gay love or books with erotic content.
Why is this is a big deal?
It’s not because customers put any stock into the Amazon Ranking number. It’s that the Amazon Rank affects a books’ visibility on the bestseller list, on the “If you Like ___, you might like __ feature” and so forth. It is akin to the bookstore removing the books from the shelves and requiring you to go to the Customer Service desk and ask for the book or author specifically. Visibility is a huge factor in sales and anyone who doesn’t believe that is kidding themselves.
Don't believe that sales rank can affect searches? Let me show you the screen cap of what comes up when you search for homosexuality on Amazon:
EDIT: It's been changed since I posted the pics. Now the kids' books are gone, too.
Mind you, not all books with adult and/or explicit content are affected. Here are some that escaped the purge:
--Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women)
--Rosemary Rogers' Sweet Savage Love" (explicit heterosexual romance);
--Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Wolf and the Dove (explicit heterosexual romance);
--Bertrice Smal's Skye o'Malley which are all explicit heterosexual romances
--and Alan Moore's Lost Girls (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel)
Check out this page. NSFW.
Ditto
Oh the children, the children! Won't anyone think of them?!?!!?
Yet the following books, which have a gay or lesbian focus, have been classed as "adult books" and stripped of their sales ratings:
--Radclyffe Hill's classic novel about lesbians in Victorian times, The Well of Loneliness, and which contains not one sentence of sexual description;
--Mark R Probst's YA novel The Filly about a young man in the wild West discovering that he's gay (gay romance, no sex);
--Charlie Cochrane's Lessons in Love (gay romance with no sex);
--The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience, edited by Louis-George Tin (non-fiction, history and social issues);
--and Homophobia: A History by Bryan Fone (non-fiction, focus on history and the forms prejudice against homosexuality has taken over the years).
--History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault
A full list of the purged books Funny how it keeps getting longer.
How nice.
Sign the Petition
Best response yet: Amazon Rank The explanation
And, if you wanna take the personal approach:
Jeffrey Bezos, CEO
AMAZON.COM
1200 12th Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98144-2734
United States
Phone: 206-266-1000
Fax: 206-622-2405
Right now, they're calling it a computer glitch. Pretty specific fuckin' glitch, I say. Also doesn't explain the letters (written by Amazon employees) received by writers asking about their books. Are we to believe that Amazon employees just make shit up when they don't know an answer?
The text of the reply to Mark Probst's email from Amazon's customer service center:
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
EDIT: This explanation does sound plausible. Not calling it right, but plausible. I hope so--I would like to keep ordering stuff from Amazon. However, except that amazon doesn't have a "complain about this book" button, as far as I can see. There's a "contact us" link at the bottom of book listing pages, but I don't think it even registers as a comment specifically about that book. So it's hard to see how an automatic filter like the one being talking about could be triggered.
EDIT II: medievalist says, "A living person at Amazon gets a list of books to check for questionable content.
That person gets to make a yes/no decision about whether or not to forward it to someone with live edit privs, and makes a written report with a reason and suggestion of what and how to edit, up to and including delist." She has no documented proof of this (she says she applied to Amazon and the policy was explained to her), so it's something to think about, but can't be considered fact until independently verified.
EDIT III: A timeline from February when the "adult=no sales rank" was first used as an excuse.