Well, as of this morning, my book is back in the general searches and it has a sales ranking. I received two Amazon customer service replies, one to my censorship complaint on Sunday, which was the same as the "ham-fisted" official statement (and seems to be the one everyone is getting). The other is more personal, a reply to my complaint last Thursday. They said they checked my book page and reinstated in in general searches. So, everything's back to normal, right?
Not quite. As the "Humans at Work" blogger argued, feelings are a fact. Whatever the reason for my sudden de-ranking, it feels like some right-wing, anti-sex, anti-LGBT intelligence--well maybe "intelligence" isn't the right word, "human will" perhaps?--was at work. Authors who are challenging conservative sexual hang-ups in any way still are vulnerable to censorship and judgment and the Amazon mess has shown how vulnerable we still are--again whether it was intentional or not. My feelings are telling me Amazon should post a statement reassuring authors and readers that they support a non-judgmental open marketplace for books. Maybe then I'll start feeling a tad bit more trust. But for now, I'm afraid I can't do that....
5 comments:
I totally agree that a reassurance message from Amazon is called for. Look, if it had been baseball books or something else "uncontroversial" that this had happened with, there would have been no doubt that it was unintentional. The sad fact is that sexual and LGBT-positive content are targeted for suppression in our world ... and even by specific mechanisms (e.g., ideologically driven corporate policies, corporate responsiveness to fundamentalist bullying, etc.) that made the so-called "conspiracy theories" all too plausible.
And, again, the timing right now, with marriage equality under attack by powerful and well-organized hate groups, makes it especially important that Amazon credibly and concretely demonstrate that what happened had nothing to do with anti-LGBT discrimination, if we are expected to be convinced.
Donna, thanks for the "Feelings are a Fact" link - sending it on to my husband who has to deal with corporate [deleted] ;-)
Excellent points, Jeremy. If it were baseball books that were affected, then we could easily blame and dismiss a "glitch." But anyone with experience in the minority knows to be suspicious of these things!
And Robin, we've been known to have to deal with corporate deletions around here over the decades. It can be really tough. All the more reason to escape with food, sex and writing!
I hear you. Something seems "off" to me somehow. I do wonder why a company as large and prominent as Amazon would let a furor like the one that occurred go on for so long without responding to it non-vaguely. If it wasn't done deliberately, why wouldn't they say that immediately and assure the public they were working on it? I find their initial silence odd. And indeed, as Jeremy mentioned, to me the subject matter makes it seem a bit suspiciously coincidental.
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