When digging through Amazon’s book listings this weekend, Washington state author Mark Probst found that his gay romance novel, The Filly, had its “sales rank” data removed just days ago, meaning it would no longer show up on things like Amazon’s best-seller lists. A little sleuthing on his part revealed that many other gay-themed books had suffered the same recent editing, and in an effort to figure out if this was a mere glitch, Probst reached out to Amazon for a response. He got one:

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 D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Turns out the Gay & Lesbian bestseller list has become a wasteland as a result, listing only Kindle editions of books because every print edition has had its ranking stripped. Readers have taken to Twitter to raise a ruckus via the #amazonfail tag; there, I dug up a particularly interesting—and lonnnng—list of de-ranked books with gay themes. Hope you’re not curious which lesbian pregnancy book is the best-seller at Amazon right now, for example.

Probst is quick to point out in his initial report that heterosexual erotica has been similarly de-ranked, and assuming Amazon doesn’t disclose exactly which titles in their system were affected, there’s no telling how niche this edit was. But de-ranking non-erotica, gay-themed books (yep, even Heather Has Two Mommies), so that they no longer aggregate in legitimate best-seller lists, while allowing this book to top Amazon’s sitewide search for the term “homosexuality,” is telling enough.

UPDATE: As a commenter pointed out, some of Dan‘s books are no longer ranked, either. Interestingly, he artfully dodges a de-ranking with one release, so gay authors and experts, if you could make America more comfortable by using the “Civil Rights & Liberties” topic instead, we’d appreciate it.

89 replies on “Amazon Stripping Rank Data from Books for “Adult” Reasons, Customers and Authors Accuse Store of Anti-Gay Bias”

  4. Dan Savage’s books are deranked? That’s mental. Somebody at Amazon came down with a case of the Gay Panic, sounds like. Gay adoption & gay marriage are not exactly porn.

  5. I e-mailed this into the Stranger a little bit ago and posted it on my Facebook. They’re also de-ranking erotica, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Delta of Venus, and sex guides for people who are physically disabled. This is the nail in the coffin for Amazon and I– they also sell dogfighting magazines.

    Powell’s is also local and will be my online bookstore from now on. They certainly need my money more than Amazon.

  9. So, sure, this is news, esp. in The Stranger.

    But having nothing on hostage rescue ??

    V. odd indeed. Reinforces worst stereotypes of ultrahipsters as out of touch, not too interested in America, shrinking from violence with distate, etc.

    Here’s the funny thing — this is a big win for Obama’s patient, smart, targeted, limited use of force …. conjoined with criminal law enforcement ….everything we want the new administration to stand for and to teach the other Murkins how smart foreign policy can work.

    So not even props to the big O –?? V. Weird indeed.

    a further tidbit. Just skip over if this stuff bores you btw….

    from the Washington Post — “On Saturday, residents of the Somali town of Harardhare, known as a pirate haven, reported that U.S. military helicopters were buzzing overhead. A town elder, Salad Aden, said that one landed in the town and stayed for 10 minutes. Aden said a chopper was back overhead Sunday morning.”

    Those incursions would be clearly agin’ international law. Unless justified as part of self defense, a show of force towards someone with connections to these pirates……

    The pirate issue now lays open for Obama to create multilateral solution with various navies creating corridor, sharing costs, using targeted force against land bases/havens, and using int’l criminal law tools to take down finance and communications networks, virtually teach the world how fighting terrorism can be done in a smart way, etc. Why, this can be the mini war he wins, he can come out looking very, very good. And those incursions that have already happened clearly show there’s going to be something he does using force.

    Happy Easter.

  10. Hey PC,

    Blogger, Vox and Tumblr are free and easy to use. I guess what I’m saying is, get your own fucking blog if you care so much.

  11. Good for Amazon, in these days when kids freely search through the Internet to buy books online I think it’s a very prudent idea on their part if they want to remain a family friendly business and profit from it. Since all gay and lesbian themed books deal with a sexual issue in one way or another. And of course that includes “Heather Has Two Mommies” which I do believe is a book more geared to adults who seek more information or some form of tacit approval in this particular subject.

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  18. Note that on the Heather Has Two Mommies page, Amazon editor Regina Marler describes the book, amongst her other praise, as specifically being “age appropriate.” And now it’s headed for the the Adult section.

  21. For what it’s worth…I just sent the following email on their Customer Service page…

    —
    I read online today that Amazon has stopped ranking gay themed titles. This is having the effect, intended or not, of pushing a whole genre of publishing off your lists, and into the closet. Even the children’s book “Heather Has Two Mommies” has been de-ranked and thereby de-listed. Or, put another way, closeted. Only Kindle editions are listed now when you search Gay and Lesbian bestsellers, because the print editions have had their rankings stripped.

    What were you thinking when you did this? As a gay man, and a frequent customer here, I am more unhappy to read about this then I can express. It’s one thing to keep sexually graphic content out of sight of minors, but another thing entirely to push anything having to do with the lives of gay people into the closet. That, simply put, is bigotry. A kind of bigotry I thought Amazon wasn’t really interested in trading in.

    And here I was, just about to purchase another lawn and garden tool…something I need and can’t seem to find locally. Like the lawn mower blade I bought some time ago. Oh…and all the mp3s I’ve been buying lately…I have some more titles I was going to search for. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t buy a song, or a book, or some other product, from Amazon. But not now. You need to seriously re-think this policy, and quickly, or I will not be buying a single thing more from Amazon. And considering the stink I’m seeing about this online already…I doubt I’ll be the only customer you loose over this. Get a little more common sense into your ranking policy, and the prejudice out of it. My thanks in advance.

  22. I write erotic hetero romance novels, and have also been de-ranked, as well as excluded from “front page search results”. I found this out via my editor today.

    I won’t be buying from amazon any longer, or directing readers to buy my books there.

    Hannah

  23. 16 I think you’re being a little naive if you believe that book is not used for the mere purpose of reinforcement of a sexual alternative behavior on the part of those who promote homosexuality as a lifestyle. And in the worst of cases to introduce fragile minds into acceptance of homosexual (emphasis on the sexual part) behavior. There would be no other way of explaining to a kid why ‘heather’ would have two mommies when they and their friends have a mommy and a daddy.

  24. Anyone know where we can complain about this to amazon? I found a customer service complaint area, but I’m not sure that would be the best way to voice complaint.

    Also, people really need to just start ignoring loveschild, as that will probably be more effective at getting him/her/hir to be less obnoxious, if only in that him/her/hir will stop responding back multiple times in a post and inciting people further.

  25. Nice how one really big bookseller can just suddenly decide to change the whole landscape for gay people isn’t it. I just have to note here that the Lambda Rising in Baltimore closed last year, due to declining sales. They’re not the only small booksellers who have had to close by any means, and I can appreciate how a place like Amazon was good for all the gay folk who didn’t have a local gay bookstore to go to, but I can’t blame the folks who were raising the alarm about the decline of the independent book sellers for having a round of “I Told You So”s right about now.

  26. Just posted this out to Twitter and FB, too. Amazon’s lack of corporate giving made them look like douchebags. This makes them bigots. I’ll be boycotting them until they change this policy. Maybe even after.

  28. Powell’s has always been the better bookstore. And in celebration of getting my tax return, I think I’ll spend some of it there right now. In protest of Amazon’s bigotry, a lot of it will be pornographic and gay. The rest SyFy.

  31. The real difficulty in boycotting Amazon is that they have their tentacles in a million different businesses that run off of the S3 array of computers. Amazon’s cloud services have changed the way many companies do business over the last couple of years, and my inclination is to write to those companies as well and tell them that I will be forced to boycott *their* services, too until Amazon changes its policies.

  33. There’s an amazing amount of things with adult content that just happen to still be ranked…

    http://www.amazon.com/Naughty-Girls-Rock…
    http://www.amazon.com/Sizzlin-Latinas-2-…
    http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Gone-Wild/dp…
    http://www.amazon.com/Lie-Me-Lauren-Lee-…
    (some of which include things in the product description things like… “extremely sexually explicit” and, its not adult content, unlike Heather has two Mommies)

  35. Although, as of 30 seconds ago when I looked, the straight romance novel _Burning Wild_ is currently at the top of the New and Notable list for its pre-order sales. So apparently not all “adult” material was stripped, so long as it was straight.

  36. I’ve already written to them thanking them on the care they’re now taking with their store and informing them of the remaining issues they have to work with as 13 pointed out. I let them know that they now have a loyal customer in me and that I would inform my family and friends of the safeguards they’re initiating so that they can too support their business. I have read other comments here lamenting the closing of gay themed bookstores and in that sense I agree with them because I do agree that those types of material need to be in such places instead of bookstores for the general public if they’re going to become legally available.

  37. Yes, we must respond immediately.

    Aside to Sam: I was unaware a bias could have a sexual orientation.
    I believe you mean an “anti-gay” or “anti-homosexual” bias.

  39. Andrew Sullivan just posted that all his books have been de-ranked too. Kinda puts it into perspective since if he’s writing erotica then so is George Will.

    Seems like someone at Amazon must have had a homosexual panic moment…

  40. Fnarf, I don’t believe you care much about what the Bible says and you probably have other reasons for asking but in the spirit of the resurrected Christ we are celebrating today may all be used for his glory even when others have twisted intentions in their hearts. From the word of Life:

    Romans 1:26-27

  42. Okay Loveschild. Lets examine that passage a little bit, shall we?

    26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

    27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

    Okay. First, lets go back 2,000 years. Paul is writing this letter to Rome, after his missionary tour ot the Mediterranean. On his journey, Paul had seen great temples built to honor fertility gods and godesses of sex and passion like Aphrodite, Diana, etc, instead of the one true God. Some of those priests and priestesses were said to engage in odd sexual behaviors (castrating themselves, drunken sexul orgies, having sex with young temple prostitutes of both genders) to honor the Gods.

    The bible shows clearly that sexuality is a gift from God, and God celebrates passion, but he emphasizes that when passion controls our lives, that’s a bad thing.
    Living for pleasure means that we’re forgetting that we’re God’s children, and we may end up serving false gods of sex and passion, just as the priests and priestesses in Paul’s time. Its saying that with an obsession of pleasure, we may end up walking away from the God that created us, which causes God to abandon the dreams he had for our lives.

    Its most probable that the priests and priestesses were not in these behaviors because they were gay or lesbian either, so God didn’t abandon them because they were practicing homosexuality, but because they were worshiping other Gods. It is not the homosexuality that God is condemning, it is the worshiping of the other gods and the practices of passion that consume all aspects of the life.

    Also note, that Romans 2 begins with “Therefore, [referring to Romans 1], you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself…” Even after Paul described the disturbing practices he has seen, he warns us that it is God who judges others, not us.

  44. Loveschild, you stupid fucking scum puddle, now: explain to me why your Romans has anything to do with how Amazon should be operated. Is Amazon a Christian organization?

  45. Fnarf, I think that was in response to your statement, “Loveschild, please feel free to point us to the Bible passages that condemn lesbian relationships.”

  50. Re: “And in the worst of cases to introduce fragile minds into acceptance of homosexual (emphasis on the sexual part) behavior. There would be no other way of explaining to a kid why ‘heather’ would have two mommies when they and their friends have a mommy and a daddy.”

    And I call bullshit on you, Loveschild. This policy isn’t about “protecting fragile minds.” Please. I love how conservatives always hide behind “protecting children.” This policy and others like it are for squeamish adults. Unless your kid has your credit card, they can’t order the damn book anyway, and they can’t even read more than 2 pages in their excerpts. So again. This isn’t about protecting children; it’s about promoting the feelings of ADULTS.

    Adults who are too scared that their kids are gonna (gasp) ASK QUESTIONS. Isn’t that what kids do? Ask questions? “How am I going to tell them that Heather has two mommies?” you ask. You’re going to tell them that there are gay people in the world and some of them have families. Why, Loveschild? Because they *exist.* Whether or not you agree with homosexuality, whether or not you think it’s sinful and an abomination, doesn’t change the fact that there are gay people in this world. Just like there are people of different races, different cultures, and different religions (different religions, by the way, are also an abomination to the Christian Lord). You can tell your child that you believe it’s wrong. You can even tell your child that all gay people are full of rainbows and candy. I don’t really care cuz it’s your kid. But sheltering your child (and yourself, while we’re at it) from reality does not change the reality.

    As for your “emphasis on the sexual” part of your comment, ALL non-platonic relationships are sexual, not just homosexual ones, sweetie. I doubt our parents initially got together to play a weekly night of bridge and NEVER had any desire to see each other naked. With your own logic, you couldn’t explain to kids why Heather would have a mother and a father, because in order for poor old Heather to have appeared, the mother and the father would have had SEX.

    Sorry, Lovechild. Use better logic next time.

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