amazonfail in context: amazon.com’s long history of suppressing voices that matter
Charles Flowers, Executive Director of the Lambda Literary Foundation (lgbtq literary advocate and creator of the Lambda Awards), issued two emails last week about amazonfail and, with a nod to the numbers of bloggers and twitterers keeping the glitch in discussion, Lambda issued a statement including the following call: “In their commitment to creating and sustaining technological advances in the publishing industry, they have laid claim to the future of book distribution. As such, they have a pressing responsibility to create an unfettered exchange of stories and ideas.”
Nope. No such luck. Let’s look at a little bit of amazon.com history to get a sense of their focus on commerce so that we can figure out how to advocate for our literature and not leave it to amazon.com.
Really, amazon.com isn’t an exhaustive list of all the literature that’s available (or a business dedicated to “an unfettered exchange of stories and ideas”) anymore than it is a river or a lesbian warrior wielding a labyris.
That last one, of course, was what Minneapolis women had in mind in 1970 when they founded Amazon Bookstore, one of the first feminist bookstores in the U.S. – or anywhere, really. amazon.com started up 24 years later, in ’94. By the time I became aware of it, I was working at BookWoman, the feminist bookstore in Austin, Texas, and I figured amazon.com must be a new project of the Minnesota feminists. Glancing up at the rose-colored ceramic labyris clock (I know, it’s cliché, but it’s part of the archive!) on BookWoman’s wall, I didn’t know what was coming.
A lawsuit in 1999, for one thing, that foreshadowed the recent debacle. The American Booksellers Association and Amazon Bookstore sued amazon.com for use of the bookstore’s name. Publisher’s Weekly’s Claire Kirch reported the basis for the lawsuit: “Customers flooded the bookstore’s phone lines, thinking they were speaking to amazon.com representatives. Patrons ordered books from amazon.com, thinking they were supporting the feminist bookseller.” That October amazon.com lawyer Paul Weller interrogated Amazon Bookstore workers about their sexuality, asking “Are you gay?” and “Have you had any interest in promoting lesbian ideals in the community?” For amazon.com, according to Weller, it was important to the case (again, about use of name) that “the jury to know, for example, whether the people who work in this bookstore have a particular sexual orientation.”
Carol Seajay gave a fabulous overview of the reporting on the case in the Spring 2000 issue of the Feminist Bookstore News. She interpreted this line of questioning as maintaining that “lesbians could only sell books to other lesbians, and therefore Amazon.com isn’t in the same business because it sells to a ‘general interest market.’” That is, while Amazon Bookstore and other radical booksellers focused on nurturing and maintaining a diverse literature, amazon.com willfully misinterpreted this in the courtroom, for the jury, as “promoting lesbian ideals.” In doing so, amazon.com demonstrated their preference for the bottom line. Because of high legal fees, Amazon Bookstore agreed to a settlement with amazon.com that included an undisclosed (though not that big – Amazon Bookstore is still struggling) amount of money and the requirement that the bookstore always use its full legal name, Amazon Bookstore Cooperative.
And the history doesn’t end there. In 1998, just before the lawsuit hit, Carol Seajay typed up a story for FBN readers from her desk in San Francisco. “Is anyone else watching amazon.com’s Advantage program?” This was the first whisper that amazon.com was strategically suppressing small publishers. The Advantage program requested small presses “to provide books at 55% discount, postage paid, and on consignment.” Seajay noted that “every independent bookstore” would love these terms “but can’t get” them because of the cost to small publishers. (Standard publisher discounts to booksellers is 40%.) amazon.com, however, threatened inaccessibility to ensure dream terms. If the publishers agree to the terms, they get a “slightly better listing in the database—‘usually ships in 1-2 days’ instead of the dreaded categorization ‘hard to get, usually ships in 4-6 weeks’ (even if the title is available at amazon’s major supplier).” That is, the shipping designation depends on amazon.com’s profits rather on the real-time accessibility of the book on order.
Six years later, Jim Milliot reported in Publishers Weekly in 2004 that amazon.com was threatening even large publishers like Random House with similar discount requirements. If they didn’t comply, Milliot explained, amazon.com might not have “their titles ‘surface’ in various merchandising and advertising programs. amazon also may turn off the search options to publishers’ books, making it possible to find a title only when the correct name of the book or the ISBN is entered.” While Random House and other big publishers classified this as “blackmail,” it hits the smallest publishers hardest.
You know, publishers, even South End Press, decide what manuscripts to accept in part by looking to amazon.com to find out if similar books are selling. So, what happens when Black queer books published by RedBone Press, American Indian feminist books published by Aunt Lute, your books, don’t show up in an amazon.com search? And the blog Angry Black Woman offers an insightful post that points out how amazon.com’s current threat suppresses only to lgbtq writers but also books for rape survivors, books about women’s sexuality, books on disability and sexuality.
bloggers, twitterers, bookstore workers, librarians, let’s keep the momentum going. it’s our work to keep our literatures visible, so don’t assume if it’s not on amazon.com it doesn’t exist. They don’t respect (or even understand) our amazing and ongoing literary histories. Ask a friend to tell you about a book or a publisher you haven’t heard of yet and pass on that information. Look at Indie Books to find independent bookstores near you and request books at your local libraries. (And you can still sign the petition.)
