Amazon Rank
January 1, 1970
As many of you may have heard, Amazon.com has gone insane. They have stopped listing the sales rank for LGBT material (like Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander) because, as they explained to an author who asked why the sales ranking had disappeared from the listings for his books:"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."
This means that these titles often don't come up in searches at all. However, it's not really "adult" content that they're censoring: it's only, as I said, LGBT. Or, as the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books explain it: "To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies)."
Here's one interesting example: Joey Hill's novel, Nature of Desire - Natural Law, a BDSM (heterosexual) romance.
http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Desire-Joey-W-Hill/dp/1419951653/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
Now, this is a terrific book, in my opinion, well written and definitely unique. But compared to Phyllida, and I would imagine most LGBT romances, the level of "adult" content is off the charts. Yet Natural Law still has a sales ranking while Phyllida and other LGBT titles do not.
So, at the Smart Bitches' sugestion, I'm posting this link to their Google Bomb for "Amazon rank" and asking readers who reject censorship to tell Amazon what you think.
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank