I quote Publisher’s Weekly, “There is no new adult policy.” A lie? The key word there is “new.” Not providing a sales ranking for adult material, a policy explained to me by the customer service rep, is actually an old policy. Evidence: Here’s a report from April 2008 that hints at the policy www.businessinsider.com
“A glitch had occurred in its sales ranking system” Is that the truth? Oh, you betcha. Though the glitch was most likely human error in that while attempting to find a lazy way to conform to the “old” policy of not ranking adult material, a horrible miscalculation was made and many not-so-adult books fell into the trap.
So my guess is, yes Amazon has a policy in place not to display the sales rankings of adult material, but no, they never intended for gay and lesbian material, per se, to be classified as “adult.” It’s a major faux-pas which I’m sure they mean to correct.
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markprobst- Mark R. Probst
- Cheyenne Publishing
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Comments
Going on the comments in the glbt threads over the last few weeks, I think this was a concerted effort by christianist pressure groups. They are mounting an offensive to the recent gains in marriage equality, and since they consider glbt folk to be incapable of genuine relationships, gay romance seems the obvious target.
I think Amazon is trying to have it both ways... I don't think they realized how many glbt people buy online for reasons of privacy and personal safety.
How are they going to determine what's 'adult' or not without a staff of people reading the books - and I bet they couldn't afford that.
I'm very wary of their policy, whether it's new, old, or somewhere in between.
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And while there are many online booksellers that can offer as wide a selection of gay books as Amazon (Queerbooks.com, TLABooks.com), they lack all of the many bells and whistles that Amazon has - reviews, tags, blurbs, ranking, Look Inside, etc. And, too often, a person is not just buying gay books.
Yes, but when has that ever stopped an Internet-butthurt mob from raging a tantrum anyhow? It's the classic Internet-David-Goliath wish fulfillment fantasy: large corporation makes honest mistake, anti-corporate "little guys" rail against it from their living rooms and parents' basements using social networking, large corporation concedes error, and little guys engage in ample backpatting, thinking they've stuck it to the man.
If anything, it makes for great human drama and all purpose lulz. It's almost time to pull out the animated gif of Michael Jackson eating popcorn, from the "Thriller" video. ;)
Honest mistake? A real glitch, being about as specific as a heat-seeking missle, would have wiped out the rankings of all books in the group with target words "GLBT/homosexual/sex", say, at its most general, or simply "homosexual/lesbian/bisexual/transgender adult". It wouldn't take the sales rankings of two books and miss the next two beside them. An honest mistake would have taken every adult book and left the teen books alone, since teen books have no explicit sex. Instead this honest mistake computer glitch took Alex Sanchez's teen Rainbow trilogy, and the AM I BLUE? short story anthology edited by Marion Dane Bauer, but skipped the teen classics ANNIE ON MY MIND, KEEPING YOU A SECRET, LUNA, and THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER. The glitch took Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market's" sales rating as well as those of GLBT college guides and a book explaining gay kids' rights under the law, while letting the rank of Sheridan le Fanu's CARMILLA stand.
I've got a bi niece who's afraid to come out to her dad. She's the one who brought this to my attention yesterday. She wasn't laughing or breaking out the popcorn, and she sure doesn't think it's a glitch. Nor do I.
I would love to see this guy's questions answered as well: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/bo
Hey, hate groups are known to be short sighted and to not consider unintentional consequences. Someone with an anti-queer agenda may well have targeted like this (especially the YA and biography books).
Wow, a whole new branch of conspiracy theories with Amazon as a co-victim...this continues to fascinate me.
Whatever happened -- and how, and why it happened--is something Amazon may not choose to share with the world. But "conspiracy" is simply a group of people working together to do something, and it's very obvious that THIS DID HAPPEN.
And we stopped it.
Why are people complaining about this?
*mwah*
Charlie (who despairs of her fellow Christians at times. Often. Nearly always...)
I do, however, agree with you a hundred percent that Mark has been a figure to admire and cheer throughout the whole bru-ha. You've been wonderful, Mark. Thank you.
I demand an end to de-ranking books, period. If you can't trust search results at Amazon to be accurate, then what CAN you trust about them?
I'm extremely appreciative of your role in bringing this to light.
I can understand why Middle America might not want their kids exposed to Teh Gay - I don't agree with it or condone it, but I understand it since it sums up most of my relatives. I even understand that most of these people are Tech Illiterates, so offering them an "opt-in" filter might be as beyond their abilities as voluntary parental controls - since I am some of those same relatives' "Free IT Guy". But would building an "opt-out" filter for those of us who don't give a rap about "adult content" could get unfiltered sales rankings be all that hard, really? It's hardly a perfect solution - but it's a lot more equitable one than what Amazon has now.
Oh, yes - and second Charlie Cochrane's comments to Mark. Nicely done all around, Mark - and thank you.... :)
It's folks deciding that I shouldn't see what they don't want me to see that goes over the line.
Internet bloggers and other people with too much time on their hands began noticing on Saturday afternoon that references to French geography, history, culture, and food were disappearing from the website. Gay activists had already noted that specific authors had vanished, such as French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. However, it was unclear if this was due to the anti-French action or a simultaneous one targeting homosexuals over the weekend. "The Rimbaud/Verlaine phenom could just be a lucky two-fer from Amazon's perspective," noted a representative of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
It is unclear what the long-term effects of Amazon's actions will be, although unintended consequences from this policy shift were already propagating throughout the website's database. By Monday morning, searches for french fryers, french kissing, and Monty Python's Holy Grail (containing several French knights) were drawing a blank. Oddly enough, one could still readily locate and purchase french ticklers on the site.
When a French author demanded an explanation from Amazon, a member services representative responded: In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists, such as that associated with unwashed, ill-tempered peoples whose women-folk don't shave their pits.
Amazon informed stockholders on Monday that this was the first part of a planned business alliance with internet search giant Google.com. "Our joint venture, Ministry of Information, will be the one-stop shop for those looking to clarify history," said a statement released to the press.