Online booksellers and the Amazon furore

I woke up this morning to the news that amazon.com and amazon.co.uk have stripped a very large number of books of their sales rank, with the result that they no longer feature prominently, if at all, in searches on these sites. The connection between most of these books seems to be words like 'lesbian', 'gay', 'homosexuality', 'sexualities', etc in the title and/or the product description. It transpires that after first defending it as policy to a concerned publisher who inquired what was happening, the company then backtracked rapidly and within hours was telling industry journalists that what was going on was due to a glitch.

A list of titles affected is being compiled here. It is biased towards fiction. A quick check on amazon.co.uk has shown me that a number of serious historical studies have also been caught in the net, including at least two works by oursin.

One of the most interesting takes on what is going on is by tehdely, in this post. tehdely points out the parallel to the infamous LiveJournal 'Strikethrough' incident of 2007. She/he suggests that the episode might be due either to a well-synchronized use by some fundie group of the Amazon complaints system to flag up a large number of titles as objectionable, with the result that they have been automatically deranked by the software or that a group of that kind has brought covert pressure to bear on Amazon, with the result that the company has ordered a sweeping purge of its database.

If the latter, then it is a disgrace; if the former, then Amazon may be something of a victim in the affair. I have to say, though, that I find it fairly unlikely that any fundie group, however big and well-organised, could flag up enough complaints about such a large number of titles in a very limited space of time. And there is also the question of the company representative's highly unsatisfactory response to the enquiry by the publisher Mark Probst.

[UPDATE: This post on the Dear Author blog shows that Amazon appears to be filtering on metadata categories. This explains some of the oddities and inconsistencies. It also puts the company very firmly in the frame.]

Someone or other, in a comment (apologies for not linking, but I can't find it again) pointed out that so far as the UK is concerned, Amazon has probably put itself on the wrong side of the equality laws. I hope this is true, and that legal pressure will be brought to bear.

I thought my most useful contribution would be to list some alternative book sites to Amazon. But when I went to my favourite alternative site, The Book Depository, I found that if you enter 'homosexuality' in their search box the list of titles that comes up is almost (not exactly) the same as the list on amazon.co.uk. At present, the first two are anti-gay fundie titles. I think this is probably because The Book Depository have some deal with Amazon to use some form of their search engine; they sell extensively through Amazon Marketplace as well as from their own website, and they offer links on their site to buy from Amazon. Nevertheless, they are, I believe, a separate company, and I have had very good service from them in the past. They are based in the UK, but offer free worldwide delivery.

I am sticking here to sites I have used myself. So:

1) The Book Depository (UK-based, free shipping worldwide)

2) Blackwells, for academic books and serious non-fiction. They offer a reliable service. And they aren't using the Amazon search engine to find titles. (UK; free shipping in the UK for orders over £20)

3) To find secondhand/used books, the best starting points are the two meta-sites Bookfinder and Addall. These search through the inventory of a large number of online booksellers. Bookfinder lists new books in a separate column alongside the secondhand copies; Addall has a separate form to search for books in print.

4) The secondhand book site I have used most is Abebooks: in the past I have used both its North American site and the UK site. Unfortunately, the company now belongs to Amazon. However, many dealers list the same book on more than one site. Alibris, which also has a UK site, is an annoying company to deal with, as they charge your card soon after you place your order, and dispatch the book some time later - sometimes quite a long time later. However, the book usually comes in the end, and they do refund if it doesn't - though I once had to wrangle with them when the exchange rate changed. They did pay up the difference, after an exchange of views. I have also bought books through http://www.biblio.com/, with no problems.

In future, I shall be likely to buy directly through Abebooks only if it is my only option and I am absolutely desperate to obtain the book. Usually if a book turns up on Abebooks it is possible to contact the dealer separately about it, by phone or email. Some dealers also have separate websites of their own, in addition to their pages on Abebooks.

[UPDATE: I have just discovered that Bookfinder now belongs to Amazon, having been purchased along with Abebooks, its previous owner. The site blog claims that Abebooks was a hands-off owner, and anticipates that Amazon will show the same restraint. I wish I believed that was true, but Amazon have clearly shown that they manipulate their own search results in what they conceive to be their interest. (See also their fairly similar behaviour over print-on-demand titles not published using their service.) In future, though I expect I shall continue using Bookfinder for the moment (its value to Amazon is not financial; I imagine it lies in the information it provides them about what book buyers are looking for) I shall check its results very carefully against those provided by other sites.]

5) In the past I have had good dealings with Powells Books of Portland, Oregon. The books I have bought from them have all been secondhand, but if I were a North American customer looking for an alternative place to buy new books, I think I'd check them out first. I understand they are an independent company.

6) A very good UK remainder book site is PostScript Books. They mostly stock quality non-fiction, at good prices. They will send books worldwide, I believe.

7) Many publishers now sell direct to customers through the web. Smaller publishers I have bought books from recently include the poetry publisher Carcanet Press and the folklore/Celtic interest publisher Llanerch Press. In the future I shall be more likely to check online to see if I can buy direct from the publisher; especially if the publisher is a small or specialist one.

I may say that I am not happy that the main alternative UK bookseller I have listed here has close links with Amazon, and I expect to check out other online sellers of new books in the future.

I'd welcome any other suggestions of good online booksellers.

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For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.

We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre; whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather than a life.

John Milton (1608–1674)

from Areopagitica (1644)

Thanks to Renascence Editions, at the University of Oregon. Full text here.


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