Now they are screwing with romance writers/gay writers:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-censors-its-rankings-search-results-to-protect-us-against-glbt-books/

I was wondering if I should post a link about this.  It's really a horrible precedent.  I may have to take my business elsewhere if they don't fix it.

ETA: I decided to test it.  I typed in Samantha Kane, whom I know has MMF books (bought one during that EC sale).  She wasn't even on the top page of results.  I typed in the name of the book I got (The Courage to Love).  Nothing.  It did pop up when I typed in the ISBN number, but for someone just doing a casual search for new books to read, yeah, it's not happening.

I canceled all my open orders with them. They suck.

I quit ordering from them with the book review manipulation thing last fall.  I tell everyone that mentions Amazon to me exactly why I won't order from them again.

I'm glad I'd already decided never to buy a Kindle. Not that I buy new books often, but I just did get an order from Amazon. I wonder of Barnes & Noble is just as good for frugal-minded buyers?

Here is a petition you can sign

Amazon petition

I buy used books from Half.com.  If you have an Ebay account, you can also use that on Half.com.  For new, I buy in BN.com.  If you have a Barnes & Noble member card, you get a great price on new books.  Oh, and their clearance section is good too.  Free shipping on orders over $25.

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have decided to "google bomb"  Amazon.  If you search google for "Amazon rank", you get their page telling of the issue rather than Amazon.  Hit them in their PR.  It is not good to target romance readers.  We are a threat to behold. 

I use Amazon's database to search for books & ISBN#s - which may or may not be as effective a means of finding them as I once thought:P - but I have not done ANY business with them since the MaGillivray mess last year, and I have no intentions of doing so ever again.  They don't have to make the same point with me more than once; they're self-serving A-holes and their customers & their opinions mean exactly dick to them.  It's your money they're interested in, and the only way to make a point with that type of mentality is to take your business elsewhere - preferably in large numbers.

I'm going to put you in my sig Emily, if you don't mind. :-)

Here's another Dear Author post that summarizes the problem and why sales rankings are so important: http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-rank/

It has hit the news.  Oh my. 

I won't be buying from Amazon anymore- and not just books.

I'm going to wait and see how this plays out.   There's nothing wrong with hearing both sides.  LINK

So this morning when I was looking around the internet and found this article http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=403641 on MSN.com.  It says that the taking out the sales ranks was a "glitch" in the system and that everything is back to normal now.  I haven't seen any other news on this but I guess it would be wise to wait and see what is really going on.

This one is from the UK, very good article. I really hope that they will come up with a better explanation then "glitch".

I havn't bought anything off Amazon since that MacGIllivray thing (not like I actually need any more books in my house anyways) but I did see that they changed how they do reviewer ranking - which really pissed off a lot of the "professional" reviewers because it now benefits the average customer reviewer more. For example, my ranking shot up (even though I rarely review any books on amazon) while the people at the top shot down (these, of course, are the people who are mad about this).

ETA: I checked and my new reviwer rank is 35,743 where my old one was 97,967. Pretty big difference.

I finally purchased a B & N membership, and quickly found it to be cost effective...good prices on books and shipping is better than Ami.

Like Kim, I pretty much left Amazon after the MacGillivray kerfluffle (cyber stalking)...Amazon allows manipulation of book review ratings and refuses to establish a reasonable troll (or advertising) policy for their discussion forums.  Print on demand, censorship...just another Amazon drama.  If I wanted soap opera, I'd watch TV instead of reading!

There's a lot of detailed info over at "Dear Author" that makes the glitch explanation look pretty weak: http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-possibly-using-category-metadata-to-filter-rankings/