My deranked books; waiting for a reply from Amazon

I sent this email to ecr@amazon.com on Sunday at 4:50 pm EST. Still waiting for a reply. All my books on Amazon can be found with this one handy URL.

Dear Amazon,

I'm writing to inquire as to why the following book titles of mine (I'm the editor or co-editor) no longer have sales rankings attached to them, while others of mine do.

I know that most of these are very recent decisions while He's on Top and Yes, Sir and Yes, Ma'am have not had sales rankings for several months.

Thank you very much.

The books without rankings in question are:

Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories
The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories
Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories
Best Sex Writing 2009
Bedding Down: A Collection of Winter Erotica
Tasting Him: Oral Sex Stories
Tasting Her: Oral Sex Stories
Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica
Rubber Sex
Yes, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission
Best Sex Writing 2008
Hide and Seek: Erotic Stories
Crossdressing: Erotic Stories
He's on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission
She's on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission
Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists
Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories about Underwear and Lingerie
Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories About Feet and Shoes
Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage
Glamour Girls: Femme/femme Erotica
First-Timers: True Stories of Lesbian Awakening
Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z
Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex

best,
Rachel Kramer Bussel, book editor, Amazon Vine member

The Amazon.com plot thickens

The Amazon (or #amazonfail - click to see what's happening all over Twitter on this issue) issue gets more complex. While Amazon openly admits they are removing "adult" material from searches and bestseller lists, they have no problem selling many versions of the Hitachi Magic Wand.

Rona commented on my last post and clued me in that mine wasn't an isolated incident. Their exact language, according to Ashlyn D. of Amazon.com Associate Member Services:

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.

There is a petition online, which I'm not signing because in light of my heterosexual erotica books like Yes, Ma'am and He's on Top also losing their Amazon sales rankings, I can't agree with this line:

Please tell us, Amazon, why the explicit books with a heterosexual focus are allowed to keep their sales ratings while the non-explicit romances, the histories and the biographies that deal with LGBTQ issues are not.

Although the petition raises some very good points about treatment of GLBTQ topics/issues versus heterosexual ones.

My take: It's not "censorship" ("the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors ; especially : censorial control exercised repressively" according to Mirriam-Webster). I don't use that word lightly. Amazon is not preventing anyone from purchasing my books, and buying a product is not the same as "free speech." They are just making it harder for their own customers to find products they carry; that's what I don't get. It seems like it'd be better for them to just not sell them in the first place than sell them but try to keep them from doing as well as they could.

This is an Amazon business decision, one I happen to see as an extremely poor decision, and one I don't understand from a business perspective. Then again, I'm constantly told Barnes & Noble hates erotica, so maybe it's time for erotica publishers to look into direct sales and alternative distribution?

Amazon.com doesn't want me to know how my books are doing

Wow, thanks Amazon! Now I will not keep checking your site because you've decided most of my books aren't worthy of getting a ranking, or maybe just that the ones that are are the ones nobody's buying. Ha ha ha. Funny because Donna George Storey was just posting about her Amazon woes (obviously take any advice I give with a giant shaker of salt, cause if I really knew what I was taking about, I'd have written a book myself by now!). Maybe it's a good thing in disguise, so I don't keep checking my rankings, especially when they fluctuate so wildly and don't have any true meaning to me in terms of predicting sales.

I just found out that Dirty Girls continues to treat me well. I think there's a part of me that doesn't expect anyone to buy my books, so when they do, it feels good. Also tells me how to approach a new book I'm editing, that I'm really excited about, especially since it gives me the chance to approach authors who are not usually erotica writers. I have my little wishlist, and if even one of those people sends me a story, I'll be a happy editor.

So there, Amazon. Instead of focusing on your bizarre systems, I'm gonna focus on making some good books. Fancy that.