Saturday, April 11, 2009

Amazon mysteries and Bible story blogs

A curious and rather worrying fact that's surfaced over the last couple of days is the way that a large percentage of gay novels commercially produced by the small press in the US appear to have vanished entirely from Amazon US and Amazon UK or at the very least have lost their rankings. This means that when I search for, for instance, "Maloney's Law Anne Brooke", nothing comes up. On the whole - though it appears that some people can find it (though without any sales rankings), depending on the time of day they are searching. In similar fashion, other fellow authors who write gay novels have found that their books have vanished or are no longer in the Amazon charts. So at the moment anyone who wants to buy Maloney's Law via Amazon directly simply can't, and will have to go elsewhere. Or give it a miss entirely. Though I see that the links from my site do still work, so the plot thickens indeed. Hell, no wonder my sales figures are minimal. Really, I am not amused. One can only hope that this is not a permanent feature of the site - although of course there's little hope of finding out as Amazon are - as ever - a law unto themselves. In the meantime, I will keep an eye on it, and on my site links to see if the rot continues. Deep deep sigh.

Thank goodness then for the much-needed good news that the Real Bible Stories Anthology now has its own blog which can be found here. This is definitely the one to be following in the run-up to the August publication date. And it's a first for me too - as the anthology as a whole is deemed to be suitable for children 10 years old and upwards, and believe me - I've never been in that category before! Always nice to experience something different ...

I've flopped for the rest of the day, really. At the moment I seem to be in a state of semi-permanent exhaustion, probably the fall-out from two weeks of illness, I suppose. Mind you, I have written a poem, which is the first piece of creative writing I've done in a fortnight. Feel quite pleased with it too. Not sure I'm up to thinking about the novel yet though. At the moment, small is beautiful.

Tonight, some TV scheduling idiot has put Primeval on opposite Doctor Who. What a stupid thing to do!! We've decided to video Primeval and watch the good doctor, but really we shouldn't have to be so proactive on a bank holiday weekend. It's beyond the call of duty.

And here's this week's haiku (early, but it is Easter tomorrow, my dears):

Shadow girl
The night is my day.
I'm living, unwillingly,
only half a life.

I hope you all have a lovely and restful Easter Day.

Today's nice things:

1. The Bible stories blog
2. Writing a poem
3. TV
4. Haikus.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - flummoxed by Amazon

6 comments:

Erastes said...

Not just small presses either - Trasngressions has lost it, and some of Sarah Water's books too. Grr.

Anne Brooke said...

Grrr indeed!!!

:((

Axxx

Stella said...

Just asked Amazon why I can't find Maloney's Law. Don't expect much of an answer but if enough people ask it might make a small difference.

Anne Brooke said...

Ooh, thanks, Stella - that's most kind of you!

Axxx

Jilly said...

I've just found Maloney's Law on the UK site just from the title - haven't looked on the US one though. I have had this happen before with very well known books and I suspect it's a glitch in their search engine rather than anything more sinister. Though if it's all gay lit on the US site I would suspect a right wing move against anything that isn't 'normal'

Anne Brooke said...

Ooh, thanks, Jilly - he's out there somewhere then. Odd how it keeps appearing and disappearing though - come the revolution, I suppose we'll all be up against the wall!!

==:O

Hugs galore

Axxx