The Epic Fail that is Amazon.com

[taerowyn]

Apparently, some idiot(s) at Amazon decided that any book dealing with GLBT issues should be dubbed "adult," stripped of sales ranking and invisible to search. You know...to protect the children, or something. That's ANY book.

Best-selling non-fiction book about Don't Ask Don't tell? "Adult"

Academic treatise on homophobia? "Adult"

But, as this petition site points out, still publicly searchable and with sales ranking we have:

--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)

Yeah, nothing "adult" there.

They're claiming it's a "glitch," but it's a glitch that has been going on since February and comes with its own "explanatory" email:

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

Anyway, news stories abound (LA Times blog seems to be doing good on updating.

You can:

Sign the petition.
Participate in the Amazon Rank Google bomb.
Contact Amazon directly and tell them they're morons.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Now that this is achieving critical mass, i think Jeff Bozos is going to come down on the appropriate people like a ton of bricks.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Also, i cannot refrain from snarking this: "I'm an author of erotic romance novels and this has also effected me as well as many of my friends." An author of erotic romance novels that makes a classic affect/effect error... the joke just writes itself.

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, snark like that is totally warranted. I feel that way about reviews that bitch out a writer's talent and are full of errors like that.