Killing Me Softly...an Ode to Amazon Filters

I have penned a parody tribute to Amazon's "wonderful" filters, which are decimating indie authors' sales.  But first, an explanation...

For those of you not in the know, Amazon is now filtering out erotica titles that don't meet their approval.  If you type in certain keywords, such as "daddy", or titles of certain books, they will not show up in search results unless you are searching specifically in "Kindle store" and not just "All Departments."

Even if you type in a specific title, such as my story "Wet Revenge", you will NOT come up with my book in the results, if you searched "All Departments".  You also will get NO indication from Amazon that there are other results available, or that some results have been filtered out.

Of course, AMAZON IS DENYING THIS.  They are sending responses to authors (if they bother to respond at all) that are usually of a form letter variety, or else they say essentially that the author is imagining it. 

Oh really, Amazon?  Well, readers if you go to www.salesrankexpress.com and do a search for author Giselle London, you will see the word ADULT in red letters next to the following three titles:  Father Tom Takes a Virgin, Wet Revenge, and Lianna's Houseboy.  If you then do a search for those books by name on Amazon, in "All Departments", you will not come up with them.  If you type in my other books' titles, you will see those.

Why are those books being targeted?  Hell if I know!  I've heard the word "virgin" is a target...but I have four books with "virgin" in the title, and only one of them is targeted.  Lianna's Houseboy could be because of the "boy" in the title...but the blurb states the "boy" is 25 years old!  Wet Revenge...who knows what their problem is with that.  All my books are plain vanilla...one man, one woman, hot descriptive sex.  That's it. 

My rankings have dropped, my income has dropped, and Amazon is denying that anything is going on.  Like we're stupid, or crazy.  Like we can't type in our book titles and figure out that they're being filtered out.  To make it worse, any filtered book will NOT show up in the "also bought" section of any other book that isn't filtered.  Meaning one less way to bring traffic to your books.  The bad part is, customers don't even know that books are being removed from results!

The issue here is not that there is filtering going on, but rather, the stupid, hurtful, dishonest way Amazon is going about it.  Hey, I get that Amazon doesn't want a mom searching for picture books about "mommy and daddy" to come up with a bunch of erotica "daddy stories."  Amazon, I have a solution...an INTELLIGENT one.  Copy Smashwords!  They have a prude filter.  Filter out ALL erotica titles or adult-oriented titles as a default.  Have an OBVIOUS button near the search bar that says "TURN ADULT FILTER OFF".  Problem solved.  Oh, also...if you would finally get smart and create "child accounts" connected to parent accounts, where a parent can control what genres a kid can search for, block out adult content, and control whether or not a  kid can purchase book themselves, you'd sell more kindles.  I wouldn't buy kindles for children unless I could control what they see and buy...and not by some super-lame, 1990's style arbitrary filter. 

Geez, Amazon, you're so smart about so many things, why are you so stupid about this?  I've always loved you, Amazon, but you're kind of sucking more and more lately.  Small-time competitors outsmarting you?  Embarrassing!

And as promised, my Ode to Amazon Filters (sung to the tune of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly With His Song, but starting with the first verse, not the chorus).

Killing My Sales With Its Filters

I heard I could make money

I heard that sex can't fail.

And so I wrote a few books

To put them up for sale.

And there it was, this giant,

So I trusted Amazon…

Mocking my pain with its replies

Pasting in form letter words.

Killing my sales with its filters,

Filtering out my tag words,

Telling me lies, like I'm crazy

Killing my sales…with its filters.

I was so happy at first,

So thrilled with every sale.

I felt I'd found a retailer

Who cared about us all.

I prayed it would go on

But Amazon started to

Mock my pain with its replies,

Pasting in form letter words.

Killing my sales with its filters,

Filtering out my tag words,

Telling me lies, like I'm crazy

Killing my sales…with its filters.

Customer service screwed me

And left me in despair

They didn't respond to me…

As if I wasn't there.

And Amazon kept on selling

While the filters dropped my ratings

Mocking my pain with its replies

Pasting in form letter words.

Killing my sales with its filters,

Filtering out my tag words,

Telling me lies, like I'm crazy

Killing my sales…with its filters.

 p.s.  If my books suddenly disappear from Amazon search results entirely, you'll know why.  ;-)