Positive results of Amazonfail

1. Huge amounts of inadvertent publicity for False Colors, Transgressions, and The Filly, in particular, and the existence of gay romance as a genre in general.  Ironically enough, in trying to keep it invisible, they’ve managed to publicise it all over the world.

2. We’ve become aware that censorship on Amazon is an ongoing problem:

Additional Reasons to Not Forget #amazonfail

and hopefully we’ve become aware that while one huge company retains control over the visibility of books in general, there is always going to be a threat that the thought police could disappear entire segments of writing, thoughts and information, just by de-ranking them and taking them off the search facility.

What can we do?

1. Make an effort to buy from somewhere else.  Currently I’m all for supporting Barnes and Noble with my buck, because they have been brave enough to begin shelving m/m romances in the ‘Romance’ section as well as the gblt section.  Pretty much the opposite of what Amazon was doing.

But, rather than buy on the internet from the USA, I’m also going to make the effort to go into my local town, where there is a little, independent bookshop, and I will be ordering most of my new books through them in future.  Not only will this help them survive, but once they’ve seen the level of my demand for gay books, maybe they’ll actually start stocking them as a regular thing!

If you’re in the USA, this website will help you find your local independent book shop.

2. If you’d like to return something to the GBLT community in lieu of the total lack of any kind of apology from Amazon, consider buying

I Do: An Anthology in Support of Marriage Equality

(Dear Author’s review here)

all the proceeds of which go to helping Lambda Legal fight the legal battle for equal marriage rights for gblt people in the States.

Why did Amazonfail grow so big so fast?

*g*  Well, they banned Stephen Fry’s autobiography, ‘Moab is my Washpot’.  That on its own would have been enough to piss off the entire UK, where he’s considered something of a national treasure.

Stephen Fry on the relationship of the British to their language here:

(Beverage alert 😉 )

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Saurooon
15 years ago

Greatings, Interesting, I`ll quote it on my site later.

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