Did you hear about this #amazonfail nonsense? Amazon’s arbitrarily decided to pull certain books from its sales ranking.
Those books are the ones it’s determined are, ahem, “adult.”
The problem is that some of the books they’ve determined are “adult” are romances, along with books with gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender themes (even if those GLBT books are by no means explicit) — and what’s more, they’re being two-faced about this because other books with themes such as incest and dogfighting aren’t considered “adult” for the purposes of the Amazon rank system.
You know, it’s possible that this is a coding failure, but it should bother all of us which books do get caught in Amazon’s “adult” filter and which ones don’t.
Like, seriously, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room is too adult to be listed in the sales rankings, but collections of Playboy nudes aren’t?
Petition/protest is mounting here.
Amazon, get it together.
Now.
In the meantime, the Smart Bitches are on the case, with a plan that may well turn the phrase “amazon ranking” into the new “santorum.”
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13 Responses for "What in the blue heck are they thinking at Amazon?"
Hey Anika I hear about it and it totally makes no sense…and James Baldwin’s book definitely should NOT be caught up in that madness…hmmm I wonder if they’re showing E. Lynn’s books…I like him but hmm I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE James Baldwin…that brotha could write his butt off.
Yeah, this is really disturbing. But did you read this piece about what may have happened? It offers one possible explanation: http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html
Of course, the issue of rankings and Amazon’s policy toward “adult” content is, in itself, a bit problematic. I wish they had a better system.
Yikes this definitely takes me back, do you twitter?
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