25 of my 28 Amazon sales rankings are back

What's so bizarre, and I have an email in to Amazon (click here for my profile linking to all my books) about this, is that these three books, He's on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission, She's on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission, and Yes, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission haven't had Amazon sales rankings since...June 2008, according to my email records (I stupidly never took a screenshot). I have an email in to my publisher, Cleis Press, dated June 13, 2008 about this issue. Amazon never really gave them a good answer, is the answer I got, and certainly never fixed it. I hadn't directly contacted Amazon about this until just now. Waiting to hear back.

So right now, I'm back to where I was before last Friday. I'm glad they fixed it so quickly. I don't totally understand the reasoning they're giving, but I also am ready to go back as a customer. I like Amazon. I use the site every single day to track my books, look up upcoming books and trends in erotica and other fields, update my wish lists, leave reviews, search lists, etc. I'm a good customer, and a prolific reviewer, hence I was invited to be part of their Amazon Vine program. I don't hate Amazon, I just wanted them to, if they are going to sell my books, give them a ranking so they can make it onto the erotica bestseller lists. What I couldn't comprehend about Amazonfail was why Amazon would deliberately do something like this, when they have multiple erotica bestseller lists, sex instruction bestseller lists, etc. They have such minute category bestseller lists, and it would seem in their best interests to boost sales of all their products, not just some.


Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica is #11 on Amazon's Erotica Anthologies bestseller list!

Amazon.com finally responds to me

I actually sent another email, to community-help@amazon.com so I'm not sure which one they're replying to. This was received on Monday at 7:45 pm. Same response they gave the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Great and all, but my books' rankings still aren't back. Keep working, Amazon.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Amazon.com.

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.


Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com

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.