Why I’m Bothering With #amazonfail
There are reports coming in about sales rankings reappearing (I see Beecroft’s book is back up) and a few people tweeting “We WON!”. I am reserving judgment–there is no “winning” when we don’t know what happened (though Mike Daisey has some scoop from an Amazon employee) and Amazon thinks people can be fobbed off. Not to mention that the #1 book in “Homosexuality” is, as of this writing, the odious “Guide” to “preventing” it.
Now. Why am I bothering with AmazonFail when I’ve got work to do? For a number of reasons. Here’s an incomplete list of them:
1. It’s hard enough to make rent as a writer. The income lost from this might cause other GLBT, disability, feminine sexuality, or feminist books not to be written, simply because the writer can’t afford to–because they can’t get their books sold through the biggest online retailer.
2. To order from Amazon, you have to be over 18 and have credit card information. (You CAN send in a check, but banks check ID too, you know.) Classifying some material as “adult” and therefore unsearchable on a site that caters exclusively to people over a reasonable age of consent…um, does not compute. Amazon setting itself up as moral guardian of everyone who shops their site will lose them a lot of business. Because it is infuriating, nannyish, and stupid. Powell’s doesn’t talk down to me, and neither does BN.
3. Amazon’s handling of this whole thing expresses (whether they intend it to or not) complete and utter disdain for the people paying for their services.
4. When Heather Has Two Mommies is made unsearchable and unbuyable and Playboy Centerfolds are not, we get a clear message about priorities and double standards. We also get a clear message when the company in question does not respond for days, and offers only faint and transparent-pale excuses when they DO respond.
5. This follows a pattern we’ve seen before from Amazon–”first test picking off the little people, then present to big customers/publishers as a fait accompli. Corporations will try this, if they can get away with it. It is up to consumers and content producers to stop them in their tracks.
6. I will be blunt: self-interest. What if it was my books that got deranked? Amazon.com isn’t the be all and end all of my book sales, but it does represent a chunk. I am vigilant about this sort of nasty dealing because sooner or later, if I said nothing, it would affect my ability to feed my kids as a writer. And I’m not standing for that.
This is only an incomplete list. I’m curious: what are your reasons for following/reasons this is important? I know I’ve missed a few.
1. Amazon Censors Search Rankings To “Protect” Us
2. This Is Not A Glitch
3. Still Not A Glitch, But A Policy
4. (Update) Idiosyncratic Code?
5. Why I’m Bothering With AmazonFail
6. (Update) Seattle PI releases Amazon statement
7. Glitch, Ranking, & Porn
8. Days Later, Still AmazonFail
9. Glitch, Monoculture, Profit (AmazonFail Recap)
Related posts:
- Seattle PI has new #amazonfail statement
- Days Later, Still #amazonfail
- This Is Not A Glitch, #amazonfail
Tags: amazonfail, books, we are not amused
April 13th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Because I’m planning to release my books via CreateSpace, an Amazon-owned company (best POD rates for indies), and they have teh gay in them. Online is very likely the only venue my books will ever be available in, and online means Amazon, as much as I like my hometown bookseller (Powells, as it happens).
That’s the self-interest.
The greater issue is that it’s not Amazon’s business to be shielding all of their customers from books that offend probably a very small minority, and are obviously cherry-picked to not offend straight people who think stuff like homosexuality and feminism are icky. Why they would do this is anyone’s guess.
If they’re really worried about offending people, they should implement a “safe search” option like Google’s, and then set the algorithm to include items like Playboy, Ron Jeremy and sex toys rather than just GLBTQ and related stuff.
And lookie! “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality” is back at the top of the “homosexuality” all depts search. sigh.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
because they are bullies, and that is wrong.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
We have less freedom than we allow ourselves to think, and to loose even that will be unpardonable. And people are loosing to big corporations of white straight conservatives every day. It’s scary as it is. People fought for our freedom of choice, and now we’re gonna sleep through it taken from us step by step?.. It’s just sad, and I don’t agree with that.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
This issue matters to me (and thank you for your reporting on it–I’ve started following you on my Google Reader & found you through this issue) because after a year of getting myself ready, I’m balancing on the decision of whether to try and publish my work through traditional means or go via Lulu or (not anymore) Createspace. Everything I write has at least some LGBT content, and I would absolutely have been delisted by this “glitch” or “hamfistedness” or whatever it is at this point. It’s upset me a great deal, because it made me realize how vulnerable I am to amazon.com’s whims & policies as a potential small press or POD author, and I’m not sure how to resolve this.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Why am I on top of #amazonfail? Because I am a bisexual woman for one, and I am highly offended that a large, mainstream business like Amazon.com would do something so disgustingly discriminatory. For another, I detest censorship of ANY kind, and this was some serious censorship masquerading as an attempt to protect innocent children from themes deemed ‘inappropriate’ *snort* (even though it was OBVIOUSLY poorly done, considering the fact Playboy and Penthouse were left out of their delisting). I am an avid reader, and I DETEST being told what I can and can’t read by anyone. I love my authors, and, thanks to the internet, I’m being able to get to know them, and am getting to understand that writing is NOT a high-paying profession, and fully understand now that losing even 12 hours of income from a retailer like Amazon could mean the difference between making the rent and having their meds this month. Next, I’m a feminist. Not a feminazi, but a feminist, and they delisted feminist books, as well.
And, well, on top of all of this, I’d like to think that I’m an intelligent woman, and this whole fiasco, and their reaction to it (considering I believe those who say it’s been going on for MONTHS, *AND* that is *is* a new policy) totally and completely insults my intelligence. And I don’t take too kindly to things that insult my intelligence.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
A couple reasons from an information junkie perspective:
Censorship scares me more than terrorism.
Amazon isn’t just a retailer; it’s an information heavyweight. People use Amazon to check release dates, to look up author bios, and to find similar books. Removing a specific item from the search doesn’t just reduce the number of sales, it denies the book’s, the author’s, and the subject’s very existences.
Our view of the world and of ourselves is shaped through exposure to information. Everything we encounter has the potential to affect us: a textbook, a conversation, a mystery novel, a song, the back of a cereal box. When we allow someone to limit our information, we allow them to limit our perspective – taking away not only our knowledge of how the world currently is, but also our ability to imagine how the world might be.
Amazon isn’t the first to try something like this, and sadly it won’t be the last.
(My community chose Farhenheit 451 for the NEA’s Big Read this month. I’m usually not quite this paranoid.)
April 14th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I’m already behind in my homework — yet, I’ve still been more involved in this than is good for my homework load for reasons I give in my blog post on the subject:
http://reunifygally.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/amazonfail-hurts-both-disability-and-glbt-communities/