I’ve been contemplating how to respond to the statement from the Amazon representative as reported by Publisher’s Weekly. Of course, the knee-jerk reaction was – They're lying. After some careful thought, I realized, no I don’t think they were. Amazon is undoubtedly embarrassed, and they are trying to set things right.

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.