Amazon Claims 'Glitch' Caused Site To Strip Sales Rankings From Gay/Lesbian Books

NEW YORK — A "glitch" on Amazon.com has caused the sales rank to be removed from gay- and/or lesbian-themed books by James Baldwin, Gore Vidal and others.

"There was a glitch in our systems and it's being fixed," Amazon's director of corporate communications, Patty Smith, said in an e-mail Sunday.

As of Sunday night, books without rankings included Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room," Vidal's "The City and the Pillar" and Jeanette Winterson's "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit." The removals prompted furious remarks on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere online.

Craig Seymour, author of the gay memoir "All I Could Bare," wrote on his blog Sunday that his sales rank was dropped in February, then restored nearly four weeks later, after he was told by Amazon that his book had been "classified as an Adult product."

Comments

[canfemlib]

http://jmortonmusings.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-is-amazon-removing-sales-rankings.html

According to author Mark R. Probst, Amazon.com has begun pulling the sales rank numbers from several gay and lesbian books, claiming that the books are "adult" and should be excluded from some searches and lists.

Probst noticed the disappearing rankings after searching for a few high-profile gay romance novels; believing there was some sort of glitch in the system, he continued researching and discovered that "HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings," including his own book, The Filly. When Probst contacted Amazon regarding the situation, he was given this response by the company:

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 DMember ServicesAmazon.com Advantage

Consider the fact that Amazon has vibrators, clitoral stimulators and anal plugs available in their search system with sales ranks attached. One wonders why these items are allowed to remain in the system with sales ranks while books including gay and lesbian content, themes, and even, as a commenter points out, autobiographies of gay and lesbian authors such as Stephen Fry, are deemed too "adult" for such things.

[thisoldbroad]

Good point!

So good in fact, that I sent them an email to remind them of their "other" adult products that have ratings.

I also suggested if they were on a roll that I have a rather long list of things they sell that should be listed as "adult material" & marketed the same as the material in question. If they are going into the arena of " what is considered adult material" I'm thinking any movie or book that depicts a sex act of any kind. Teens kissing - outta there! Married couples in bed - outta there! Farm animals mating - outta there! That should keep them pretty busy.

If they don't want to sell the products, fine, don't sell them. But to suddenly decide a small % of their products are worse than other adult material they offer is not acceptable.

(With Amazon's free shipping lately on items over $25, it's been so much easier & cheaper than driving around shopping for some things. ) As a frequent Amazon customer I'm very unhappy with their new direction. If they keep this up.. I'll miss them!

[viragovenus]

O.M.G. That is too much. What is going on at Amazon?!?

[kps888]

I believe there is a good chance that this was a glitch. The people at Amazon know full well what sort of response they would receive by doing this sort of thing on purpose, and believe me when I tell you this: they don't need the grief.

By spending time dealing with the fallout on this mess, they aren't spending time selling things. They also don't need angry consumers returning things, etc. Nothing good came of it.

If this was intentional, then it was a poor business decision.

[BlackJAC]

Of course it's a glitch, 'cause it's cheaper and easier for them to simply not carry the books in the first place if the conspiracy theories are to be believed. And if it was intentional, it's also explained away by the simple fact that not every bookstore subdivides their inventory that specifically. I've been to one bookstore where it was simply Fiction and Nonfiction, and another whose greeting card section was bigger than their Fiction section.

[tokenconservative]

Jeez it was glitch and clearly they are trying to fix it; get over yourselves.

[TakingBackTheUSA]

Don't understand much about distributors like this do you?

A simple "glitch" would not be that specific on content. If it were a "glitch" then why was Amazon issuing a response explaining that all LBGT content had been moved to the "adult" section?

Hardly a glitch, but good try....

[JohnJames]

Learn the facts before you sound off. They released a statement a few days ago making clear it was intentional "in consideration of their entire customer base". So which is it?

[jbrantow]

I wonder if tokenconservative would be so quick to say "get over yourselves" if the glitch involved their precious bible and it's unproven myths and quotes ? If you didn't than you would be considered a hypocrit !

[jbrantow]

oops ...hypocri­te

[Alessia Brio]

As an author of diverse erotic fiction, I am understandably concerned for my bottom line. However, as an advocate for tolerance and acceptance, I am outraged! I hope that more publishers do as my primary publisher (Phaze Books) and offer deep discounts for direct sales.

[ExxonMcBushCo]

heh

you said bottom line

[jood42]

More new information about which books were targeted and why, and it's fascinating: http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-possibly-using-category-metadata-to-filter-rankings/#more-11485

This was no glitch.

[Budokan]

Can we have a glitch with the winger books?

http://kennethmarkhoover.com

[inorbit]

Yeah, Amazon is now the Walmart of the bookselling world.....

(Along with Walmart)

[OtayPanky]

I spent lots of years in the business, on the corporate side and as a consultant.

It looks to me like Amazon has a database admin who was busy asking himself WWJD, instead of masturbating during his coffee break like a normal techie.

[amdezurik]

yep, that "admin" looks like he/she was the "glitch"..­.

[Anie]

It was a targeted thing, whatever 'glitch' might have been (likely an employee was the glitch as said) and some theorize that an ultraconservative group planned a frenzy of "flagging" activity against the 'wrong' type of book on Easter and that tags for searches were a factor. Add that a bonus might have been the problems for Amazon, which carries these books.

Amazon either has lax standards for following through too easily on mass flagging on a holiday with no human review of that type of activity or they were enforcing a policy in place against certain types of books now, which has been admitted, with emails saying 'adult' content can lose its place in the ranking process. But causing them not to be findable through searches (there are examples linked to show this) would be the worst part of it, though late yesterday Amazon was apparently putting many removed books back into the searchable database, but the sales rankings were still missing for those books, and they are an important way to be found when people don't know the name of a book to even search for it.

Details, and updated links to much more for those interested are at http://kindleworld.blogspot.com

[klbrz]

The reason this is important, aside from the obvious discrimination issue, is that amazon has become so huge that authors' sales are directly affected by amazon's sales rankings.

You can find the same vendors on half.com for books, etc and the rest of the stuff they sell is readily available at any number of other vendors large and small.

[brandnewstuff]

Gore Vidal that is a man to admire-

[julietdelta]

What could be less democratic than trying to create a virtual ghetto, suppressing the expressions and very existence of a huge percentage of the human race?
Calls for a complete Amazon boycott are flooding the internet. If you have an account, send a complaint to customer service. I suggest, rather than punishing students and others trying to sell used books for pocket change, poke a stick at Amazon itself. If there is no firing of the person(s) responsible for this hate crime immediately, go to the Kindle section and tag all their best-sellers, particularly the ones promoting intolerance and discrimination, with gay-themed tags. Then let Amazon eat its young.

an example: Literary milestone "the Farewell Symphony" by Edmund White is no longer ranked, while another book with the same title is still ranked.

[reallymolly]

Yes, and a glitch is what happened when blogger Mark R. Probst got a response from Member Services to his questioning of the matter and was told that Amazon excludes "adult" material from appearing in search and best-seller lists.

Come on.

I think we all knew this should be a big deal. Good.

[JamezQ]

it would be nice if they apologized on their site and fixed the problem, I don't think that's too much to ask.

[JumpDownTurnAround]

I haven't and won't ever buy anything through "Amazon".

[raven119]

I don't buy from Amazon or the chains anymore. I support independent booksellers. If they don't have the book I want, I can wait a couple of days until they order a book for me. While I may be paying full price for it, I know that the profit is going back into our community.

If you want to make a real statement, order a book from a local independent store.