UPDATE: Per the Publisher’s Weekly blog: “an Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy.” Hmm…my opinion–and many, many others–is glitch as in ‘we f*cked up*   If you’re wondering what I’m talking about? Keep reading my post…

Well. I wanted to have a happy wonderful Easter, but a big rain cloud appeared over my day. And not just the normal ones in Seattle. No, this was another one that came in the form Amazon.com. It makes me sad, because Amazon is in my neck of the woods and I’ve always been supportive of them. Too bad they can’t say the same about me.

In case you haven’t heard (and you may have been offline and haven’t!), Amazon made some pretty big changes recently. Here’s the scoop straight off of Mark R. Probst’s blog.  “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.”

So what does that mean exactly? It means you can go to Amazon, type in the search line my upcoming release Take Me from Kensington Aphrodisia…and you won’t find it. It will not come up. Unless you start searching in sub categories or have a direct link, my book and other erotica/erotic romances are almost impossible to find. And when you do find them? You won’t see any sales ranking. That’s a bit…sucky to say the least. I wonder if Amazon paused to consider how this will effect my career. Oh wait, but not just mine. Each Naughty and Spice girl here–including Feisty whose book is already shipping from Barnes and Noble. And you’ll have a hard time finding authors like Maya Banks, Larissa Ione, Jaci Burton…not to mention books on gay/lesbian/etc. I could go on.

But Amazon just wants to protect its shoppers….right? Wrong. This is straight up discrimination and censorship. It’s all over the internet and authors and readers are mad. And why wouldn’t they be? If Amazon thinks my books are so bad, then shouldn’t they be ‘hiding’ some other books?

Like…oh, say, type BDSM under the Amazon search and see how many books and items come up.

Or ‘Bomb Making’ in the Amazon search line.

Or hell just type in the word Porn and see how much comes up.

A bunch of stuff comes up under many other ‘controversial’ topics. But MY romance novel that happens to have hot sex has been hidden away. But of course they’re happy to take any money from any sales I might get if a reader can solve the puzzle of where my books are.
:wtf: