Comments on: Christopher Rice Loves His Kindle, But Fears Amazon’s Superpower

By: Landon Bryce

Landon Bryce — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:09:26 +0000

Silly video I made about the @amazonfail saga

Enjoy— http://tinyurl.com/dea69y

By: John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's)

John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:43:19 +0000

@HYHYBT:

Lol, so true!!

;)

By: hm

hm — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:05:23 +0000

Amazon’s story doesn’t hold up. The glitch only removed gay titles, not straight titles that fit. I have the misfortune of working with Amazon a lot. This sort of arrogant lying is typical of the culture there. I never can get a straight answer from them and it is almost impossible to speak to anyone there who can fix problems. No one takes repsonsibility and Amazon hides behind anonymous emails so you can’t reach the person you need to reach. If they don’t like a quesiton they simply ignore it. Our business is working to disassociate from Amazon as quickly as possible. Our last year of working with them has been one long nightmare. Until I started working with Amazon through our business I was an Amazon customer. Not anymore.

By: nobody

nobody — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:33:47 +0000

@GranDiva: Hilary Rosen is a member of the HRC board of directors, far more powerful than a mere spokesperson. Quite ironic since she’s one who’s done far more serious and lasting damage to freedemocracy than anyone in recent memory.

By: HYHYBT

HYHYBT — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:15:00 +0000

@Scott: “Of course the gay community can’t get together on anything besides “nice abs!”"

Taking a quick pass through the comments on almost any “Morning Goods” will show we can’t agree on that either.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:57:14 +0000

I totally agree with Slider. If we don’t use our “gay dollars” to force respect in the marketplace then we’re not much of a community, are we? Atwo month boycott on something besides a taco stand in calif. will show that we can be a force to be reconed with. Of course the gay community can’t get together on anything besides “nice abs!”
Barnes and Noble does just as good a job as anybody, I guess.

AND I agree with NAPREM. Horrible book. That first sentence is 66 words long! Isn’t that what editors are for?

By: Hannah

Hannah — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:22:17 +0000

This whole thing hit me hard as well. As a college student who is out at school, but not at home, I find my support through the internet and through reading books bought through Amazon. I don’t know about all the gay titles out there, so I generally search by keywords such as “homosexuality” or “lesbian” and follow the tags to go from there. If I had been looking for something on Sunday night, I would have seen books about preventing homosexuality and what the Bible says about homosexuality.

As a loyal customer to Amazon mostly for books on this subject, it really ticked me off to see hateful books pop up instead of support books. By not admitting the mistake, Amazon makes this situation worse.

By: alan brickman

alan brickman — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:02:29 +0000

this will
just sell more books…

By: MokoForever

MokoForever — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:04:52 +0000

@Landon Bryce: Of course, having a famous mom didn’t hurt, but I’ve read Christopher’s books and enjoyed them a lot. Besides, I won’t be reading his mom’s work ever again unless she makes Jesus into a vampire in one of her new books.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:36:29 +0000

During this debacle, when one entered the word ‘homosexuality’ on their ‘All Departments’ search page, the results were ONLY ANTI-HOMOSEXUAL books. Specifically ANTI homosexual books.

This was a deliberate and malicious act of censorship. Someone deliberately made sure that the word homo was to be seen in a negative context.

Clearly, this was a MALICIOUS ACT. How plain can it be? Amazon owes ME a apology, and a carefully worded one at that, since ALL of my novels were affected by this so-called glitch.

By: The Gay Numbers

The Gay Numbers — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:35:04 +0000

@Joe Kort: That’s a great response. I had not thought of it as you describe.

By: Joe Kort

Joe Kort — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:32:15 +0000

This whole thing on amazon.com really shook me up. As the author of three books on gay issues I worry that my books will not be found by my intended audience. With the closing of several gay and lesbian bookstores over the years, I rely on amazon.com for gay men and women looking for information who cannot go to an all gay bookstore and for those who would find the internet a more insultated place to get GLBT books without facing homophobia at Borders or B&N.

Also to (The Gay Numbers) who asks Why is it that on every issue that comes up there is always some other issue that people claim is important?

My answer is that it is because as GLBT’s we are so silenced that everyone uses these issues to bring their own issue into it not knowing how to start their own thread.

It happens to me all the time when I do a talk to gay audiences or with gays and lesbians in the audience. They always have something to say that either supports, contradicts, differs or is a separate related issue to talk about and they try to use my presentation as their place to talk about it.

I understand why and I usually have to ask them to wait for Q&A and inside I know it is because they are busting at the seams to get their point of view across too.

It would be better if everyone knew to say on topic and find healthier appropriate ways to express their other view points.

Warmly, Joe Kort

By: Landon Bryce

Landon Bryce — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:20:14 +0000

Rosen filled in briefly as co-HRC head after Cheryl Jacques was forced out and served as a spokesperson at that time. This was after her RIAA nonsense made her one of the most hated people in America (the most justly hated lesbian in American history?), and it marked the time I decided the HRC would never get another penny from me.

By: Slider

Slider — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:42:37 +0000

Landon, Hillary Rosen was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for HRC while her then wife, Elizabeth Birch was the CEO of HRC. Why no one ever screamed conflict of interest is beyond me. But that’s another topic and another time. In any event, Amazon is a huge issue and having our community shut out reeks of fascism and not capitalism and down right pure censorship. There is no way we should once again sit down and shut up. Once again, bigger is not better and a huge multibillion dollar corporate conglomerate cares about one thing..the bottom line..so unless we stand up, scream, protest and vote with our dollars we will be kicked out the door and no where to go…so time to stand up and say hell no and vote with our dollars.

I still say time to find our own Kindle and find a way for GLBT authors to band together, get GLBT publishers (didn’t The Advocate used to have its own online bookstore (the problem was it was extremely pricey as I recall) to get to someone like the Gill Foundation or say Mr. Geffen and create our own Kindle and always make sure we support it..but make it affordable…there has to be a way in the 21st century to do that.

By: naprem

naprem — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:14:21 +0000

I would like to say that I absolutely hated “Light Before Dark.” A horrible, horrible book.

By: GranDiva

GranDiva — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:39:04 +0000

@Landon Bryce:
But Hilary Rosen wasn’t the spokesperson for the HRC; her partner, Elizabeth Birch, was. Hilary Rosen was the chief speaker at RIAA.

By: HayYall

HayYall — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:32:45 +0000

@Norman: You don’t need a doctorate in zoology to recognize a pile of dog crap.

By: ducdebrabant

ducdebrabant — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:03:03 +0000

Why won’t Amazon just be honest? I would like to know why the “flip” affected only gay & lesbian subject matter or – in the words of Amazon – “a broad number of categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive and Sexual Medicine, and Erotica.” Amazon emphasized the latter to suggest that gay content wasn’t targeted, but what do all those areas have in common? Definitely the likelihood that they would touch on homosexuality. Knitting, woodworking, mathematics, the American Revolution, the cavalier poets, scholastic philosophy, the Arian Heresy and the history of baseball seem to have come through unscathed. The works that were affected were obviously tagged in some way that targeted them. Not every book in Reproductive and Sexual Medicine was de-ranked. Books fall into more than one category. What painted the target on a particular book was evidently some identification with gay and lesbian subject matter. When will Amazon stop denying this?

By: The Gay Numbers

The Gay Numbers — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:44:51 +0000

@alex: Why is it that on every issue that comes up there is always some other issue that people claim is important? How about let’s just say gay issues together are important, each when they are actually on stage, rather than prioritizing according to which one’s we think are sexy to us personally? For the record, the reason this is important is all those pesky issues like gays in the military are shaped through books and popular culture.

By: The Gay Numbers

The Gay Numbers — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:42:56 +0000

The central problem with a company like Amazon becoming the go-to place for gay works is that when covering so many subjects it’s hard for an organization like Amazon to specialize to one niche audience. We should not depend on them for covering the wide variety of works that maybe out there.

By: alex

alex — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:34:32 +0000

In the greater scheme of things, is this really what we should be protesting? An e-commerce site got screwed up (either intentionally or not) for a few days. It sounds like things will be back to “normal” soon on Amazon.

Personally, I have greater concerns than Amazon: the economy, the elimination of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and the fact that both gay marriage and civil unions are now illegal in Florida.

By: Landon Bryce

Landon Bryce — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:24:22 +0000

I still think Christopher Rice is mostly famous because of his mom, and I find him as effective a representative of Lambda Literary as I found Hilary Rosen for the HRC.

Much wiser words come from Richard Eoin Nash, a self-identified “straight white male publisher”:

http://rnash.com/article/amazo.....ted-error/

He explains very clearly why this matters, and why Amazon is guilty, even if their censorship was not deliberate.

Please don’t buy anything from Amazon until they come out with an apology targeted to the GLBT population (others specific to other censored minorities.) It is truly the very least they can do and I don’t think anyone, straight or gay, should let them off the hook for that.

By: Norman

Norman — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:20:42 +0000

@Gregoire: I suppose you are a distinguished Literary Theory professor.

By: Slider

Slider — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:14:21 +0000

How about Lambda Literary creating its own Kindle? This way we can get GLBT Literature without having to worry about censorship and/or corporate stupidity the likes of which was shown by Amazon. In a bad economy this is no time to shun authors of any genre and to encourage all consumers to want to buy books not boycott corporate monsters for their stupidity. My guess is that this was a ham fisted way to ban GLBT books and I wouldn’t be surprised if under neath it all is something like Focus on the Family or other anti GLBT groups pushing a ban.

So, how about Lambda Literary connecting with its own company to create a Kindle (I bet Apple would love to do that as part of its own “Ibook” (Unless they are connected to Amazon with Kindle already)

Just a thought….if Christopher Rice reads this….by all means use it…and I do love all your books……I can’t wait for the next one!! I love your style of writing….thanks for all you do in your writing and for our community:)

By: Gregoire

Gregoire — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:19:01 +0000

Ugh, is this hack the new go-to for gay writers?