Tuesday, April 14, 2009

To Amazon or Not to Amazon

Looks like Amazon is discriminating against GLBT material when it comes to their ranking lists.
Authors such as Jaci Burton, Maya Banks, Larissa Ione and Stephanie Tyler have reported that since being stripped of their sales rankings, their titles are no longer found in searches on Amazon.com. MetaWriter is also compiling a list of titles that have been stripped of their sales rank.

When pressed for a reason, Amazon.com’s customer service department told YA author Mark Probst:
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.

There's an ever growing list of books at Meta Writer of books not listed.

BeaukoupKevin wrote a letter to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, on his blog.

Me, I'm seriously disappointed in Amazon, but I'm sure the paltry amount of money I spend there wouldn't even be missed. Still, I won't be ordering from them for a while.

3 comments:

heels said...

But they're taking such a beating that this may not last long. I'm glad to see that there's such an outcry. Sticking this stuff in the category with porn is such bullshit.

ticknart said...

I read that Amazon is calling it a "glitch" in the system. Of course it's a "glitch" that's been around since February.

They had better fix it. I mean if Iowa's legislature overturned the governor's veto to legalize gay marriage, shouldn't Amazon be willing to stick gay themed books on their top sellers list?

heels said...

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on the glitch thing- a piece of software that did more than they anticipated- but only for a short time. I think that their real character will be shown in how quickly they fix it now that it's been brought to such public attention. That they should have fixed it BEFORE there was public outcry is another story. I'm happy enough if they fix it now.