http://www.gucciusaoutlet.net/.....8cd2a23ef2

I want erotic menstruation stories, dammit!

Well, not really…

RETHINK and REGROUP!!

It’s been used on over a thousand books affected by this already. Please add more when you see them, or tag your favourite books.

It’s important to realize that they’re not just ghettoizing gay books, but also gay authors whether a book has much gay content or not.

Here are amazon reader tags for “My Germany,” one of my books that’s been de-ranked:

holocaust(7)
lev raphael(7)
memoir(7)
germany(6)
jewish(6)
judaica(5)
gay and lesbian(4)
gay(1)

The tags accurately reflect the book’s themes and subjects (though it’s also a travelogue and I don’t know if that’s an amazon tag or not).

http://www.levraphael.com/mygermany.html

I think this shows the pitfalls of giving all our business to online retailers that may not really respect our community.

Amazon is the online Wal Mart, using their pricing structure to effectively close local stores.

I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.

http://gayworldreport.blogspot.....s-how.html

An interesting theory about how this happened where Amazon was not actually involved at all:
http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html

A list of books that have been removed:
http://community.livejournal.c.....11992.html

Corporate homophobia at its worst.

Don’t these Amazon bozos know that the Bush era is over? That brand of religious fascism is in the past.

Or maybe it isn’t.

I’m cancelling my order immediately and will never buy from them again!

Apparently it’s not a nationwide. I was just on freerepublic and one of them had this to say on the Amazon post there:

“At a nearby Barnes & Noble, there is an entire gay & lesbian section, yet I have to go somewhere else to find one measly copy of Louis Hunter’s “Steamboats on the Western Rivers” (which is a definitive study). Can I file a lawsuit?”

Cue eye-rolling.

Yeah, way to redefine the word “glitch”, Amazon. Last I checked, glitches don’t produce messages like this:

“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”

Amazon Says Glitch to Blame for “New” Adult Policy
By Rachel Deahl & Jim Milliot — Publishers Weekly, 4/12/2009 5:49:00 PM

A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up over the weekend, largely via Twitter, in response to what authors and others believed was a decision by Amazon to remove adult titles from its sales ranking. On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy.

Jeffrey Bezos
1200 12th Avenue South,
Seattle, Washington 98144-2734
United States Phone: 206-266-1000
Fax: 206-622-2405

And written letter with a stamp gets more attention than an email. A phone call will do it too. Let’s get on his ass.

It seems that anything that might be deemd LGBTQ positive has been de-ranked. Who owns Amazon and what are their political and religious affiliations? How do we find out

However, the search word gay only brought up erotica all of which were de-ranked books.

And lastly, Brokeback Mountain came up and was not de-ranked. Could this just be in America?

:P

In other words, it should say in the product details “Amazon.com Sales Rank: #____ in Books” From what I understand, this means it won’t appear in recommendations or on the best seller list and in some cases will be further down on the search list.

Dear Author, a romance reader blog has a good run down of what happened and when here:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpres.....azon-rank/

Including a link to Amazon’s response to Publisher’s Weekly. Apparently it was a “glitch.” Uh…yeah….

http://www.publishersweekly.co.....51080.html

Mmhm. And when you search for “homosexuality” the first three books that pop up are:

“A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality”
“You Don’t Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is”
“Can Homosexuality Be Healed?”

But they do have the documentary “For the Bible Told Me So” and “King & King & Family” on that page, to be fair.

So apparently, while Amazon is being operated by gutless, cowardly, trolls — they are at least gutless, cowardly, capitalist trolls who are willing to compromise for books that make them a lot of money.

Screw ‘em, I’ll buy my Pampers someplace else…and all the other crap I buy for my kids there too.

@ Brianna: “Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies?” sails through just fine but “Heather Has Two Mommies” does not. WTF is up with that? It isn’t even remotely pornographic or even adult lit!

changing the definition of “amazon rank”

http://www.bookweb.org/aba/members/search.do

Check here to find ypur local independent book store & support the booksellers that support our community.