Amazon.com blames a “glitch” for gay-themed titles being tagged ‘adult’ and removed from sales lists

This sounds like a complete fiasco.

Either Amazon.com thought they could remove hundreds of LGBT books from its sales rankings (making them much harder to find) and that no one would care or they are telling the truth that some kind of “glitch” is responsible for the entire mess.

Twitter and Facebook have been abuzz today with the titles that had been removed and with people saying they are not going to be buying anything from the online retailer until they get an explanation. Some authors are calling into question whether the online retailer is attempting to suppress LGBT titles including Brokeback Mountain, Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, Paul Monette’s Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story Randy Shilts‘ The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.

(Earlier story HERE)

The company initially sent out this form response to outraged authors: “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.”

LGBT = Adult?

Ridiculous.

The backlash, of course, has already begun and, I sense, Amazon now realizes tbey have a real mess on their hands – a PR nightmare.The LA Tines book blog Jacket Copy got this response from Amazon Sunday evening following the flood of news reports:

“There was a glitch with our sales rank feature that is in the process of being fixed,” Amazon Director of Corporate Communications Patty Smith wrote in an email. “We’re working to correct the problem as quickly as possible. … Unfortunately, I’m not able to comment further.  We’re working to resolve the issue, but I don’t have any further information.

I do not know if that “glitch” affected any non-LGBT titles but good luck explaining this away.

Good grief, we gay folks buy a lot of books, a lot of DVDs, a lot of everything. You do not really want to piss us off.