It has come to my attention that there is no longer a sale ranking for any of my books on your site, as there has been in the past. In addition, when I search for my name, “Tristan Taormino,” in the homepage’s search box, none of my books—except those that are currently out of print and unavailable—come up in the results; ironically, perhaps, an explicit sex ed video of mine does. According to the buzz on the internet today, this same thing has happened to many other authors, who all have something in common: our books are on sexuality, erotica, and gender, as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues.
In response to one author who brought this to your attention already, a representative wrote the following email which is being circulated on the web:
“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.”
As the largest bookseller on the Web and a company which has profited nicely from my writing according to the now-disappeared sales ranks, you set an example for others. Your willingness to drop certain titles and authors from your search engine and ranking based on so-called adult content while you freely sell (and, again, profit from) pornography, sex toys, and other “adult” material is incredibly problematic and smacks of double standards.
I hope this issue will be resolved and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Tristan Taormino
To my readers:
Want background on what’s happened?
http://melissagira.com/sexerati/2009/04/12/amazon-removes-sales-rank-from-sexuality-queer-titles/
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-rank/
Or log on to Twitter and search for #amazonfail
Want to complain to Amazon about this debacle? Here’s a great resource: http://tinyurl.com/cbst9c. Please make your voice heard!
