Amazon glitch stirs concern

The literary community was up in arms over the weekend after discovering what was perceived to be a new policy implemented by online retailer Amazon.com to remove books with “adult” content from its rankings.

On Saturday, author Mark R. Probst noticed that his young adult novel, “The Filly,” which includes gay characters, had lost its ranking, so he made inquiries. The response he received from Amazon’s customer service explained:

“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.”

Probst was concerned that gay-friendly books were being targeted. Most of the titles that lost their ranking on Sunday were books with gay themes, including “Running With Scissors” by Augusten Burroughs, “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown, and “Becoming a Man” by Paul Monette.

In some cases, being de-ranked also means being removed from Amazon’s search results.

Late Sunday afternoon, an Amazon representative said the situation was a result of a “glitch” with the sales-rank feature and that Amazon “was working to correct the problem as quickly as possible.” She was not able to comment on why the problem appeared to affect only certain types of books.

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carolyn.kellogg@latimes.com