My heart so poor that I could wait for your hands in my pockets

I posted here about Amazon behaving oddly with my KDP account. I have since got wind of more information about Amazon and some recent choices it's been making.

Firstly, I subscribe to the I Heart SapphFic newsletter. They spotlight sapphic fiction and queer authors, and keep the lights on through user donations, author ads, but mostly Amazon Affiliate links. Well, turns out that Amazon has recently taken to removing queer books and books they guess are steamy from their Affiliate Program.

Amazon has also "suppressed their findability" as I found out via a newsletter from Lissette Marshall, a romantasy author. Lissette and several other romantasy authors made a charity anthology to fight book bans (the proceeds go to PEN America) in response to these changes at the Zon and other tech giants. The anthology, Romantasy Rebels, was banned twice by the Zon, and the second time, they terminated the KDP account of the author uploading it.

Not only was Romantasy Rebels unavailable a second time, but my good friend Vela Roth, who had volunteered to host the anthology on her account, lost her entire livelihood between one moment and the next.

Between you and me -- I don't think I've ever been so angry in my life.

The upside is that, as always, the bookish community stands up for each other! Thanks to friends with helpful connections, from Amazon reps to legal advice, we've managed to reverse the (unfounded) decision on their end and get Vela's books and our anthology back 🔥 (But my goodness, it was a long, long 24 hours that I hope to never experience again.)

Reading that and imagining myself in Vela's shoes, I feel indescribable. Anger, terror, and I don't know the words for what else. Vela Roth is in Kindle Unlimited, and she's a full-time romantasy author, which means her entire livelihood was on Amazon. And Amazon just deleted it all, just like that. I'm so relieved that the bookish community was able to help her and that her books and livelihood are reinstated now. Quoting Lissette again:

Amazon fuckery took down our charity anthology twice, and almost ended a wonderful author's career in the process. In addition to all else, the experience has been a frightening reminder of just how dependent indie authors are on a very small number of tech companies who don't particularly like spice, or marginalised people, or, you know, democracy.

So, yeah. That's what's going on. I feel better about having to unpublish Bloodhunt Academy now, because it was a queer book and Amazon is clearly not a home for it.

As for Romantasy Rebels, it's being sold wide (so it's on all the major ebook retailers, not just Amazon) and will be available until the end of the month. Proceeds will go to PEN America. There's also a charity auction organised by romantasy authors, called The Books They Can't Burn, and its proceeds will also go to PEN America. The charity auction has a variety of items that one can bid on, including ebook omnibuses, signed special editions, Zoom chats with authors, etc. I even saw a fight scene consult with a martial artist, how fun. It looks like several people are bidding on everything so I'm glad it's going well!