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Monday, April 13, 2009
Over the weekend, "hundreds of gay and lesbian books" written by authors from James Baldwin to E. Lynn Harris "simultaneously lost their sales rankings" as Amazon.com arbitrarily re-classified the titles as "adult", reports Rod McCollum of Rod 2.0.
The discovery was made when author Mark P. Probst attempted to use the Amazon search engine to locate his novel The Filly. After contacting Amazon, he received this response:
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.
Since when did LGBT themed books such as The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students become adult material?
The reaction from the gay blogosphere was swift spreading the word via Twitter and through online petitions. An Amazon spokesperson tells Publishers Weekly "a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed."
Uhmmm, sure. Well this little unfortunate homophobic incident brought on by Amazon provides the perfect opportunity for me to share one of the "internets" best kept secrets, because one thing is for sure, if Amazon doesn't want our gay dollars Black Gay Books Online does.
Billed as the Black LGBT Merchandise Source. Black Gay Books Online has everything you need from classics to contemporary works. There's also an adult store, non-adult gay themed DVD's, calendars, and a commitment ceremony section.
Black Gay Books Online is a perfect resource for those of you who are interested in black gay literature but may not have access to a gay or gay friendly bookstore in your area. Let's support those who support us. Who needs Amazon? I sure don't.
3 Comments:
I recently spent almost $200 at amazon.com buying LGBT movies such as Brother to Brother, Noahs Arc series and DVD, Too Wong Foo, and a couple of books by James Baldwin. I can tell you that if they don't respect me as a customer and tries to tacitly censor their merchandise so that LGBT teens or anyone who is looking for LGBT literature has to find stuff like "How to prevent homosexuality" when they type in "Gay" they can kiss my dollars good bye. Also to note that they are removing books related to disability and sexuality. Because god knows those conservative christians don't want no disabled people getting freaky.
April 13, 2009 12:31 PM
YESSS! I LOVE IT! I WAS looking for E. Patrick Johnson's book Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology and it took me a minute to find it! It wasnt like that before. Yeah they are trippin. I'm definitely checking out this new site!
April 13, 2009 1:18 PM
Oh, thanks for this site!
Dang, and I liked Amazon. Let me find out I am going to have to start giving them the side-eye.
April 13, 2009 9:17 PM
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