What do you do when Amazon buries your book under an 'Adult' filter?

My first erotica short released yesterday and then...poof! It disappeared from Amazon. It's not self-published, and nobody seems to know why Amazon buried it under the 'adult' filter. It's only been out for a day or so, has nothing like the usual 'no-nos' (ie incest, yellow/brown stuff, dead people...). Explicit content? Sure, lots of it, and some nookie with a married dude. But there's plenty of that on Amazon. I am stumped and don't know what will happen now.

Is there life after the 'Adult' filter or is this the kiss of death for my first erotica short? Feeling

Thanks c.m.n. and Filigree! I am gutted about it. My publisher has said this happened with another one of their books a while back and Amazon did not budge bc they thought the book contained incest--and it didn't! They are not willing to contact Amazon bc they say it's pointless. I disagree...and here we are. I've suggested changing cover/blurb/tags...and we'll see what they say when they get back to me. Their suggestion is to write more erotica and get my name out there, and then they think peeps will search for my backlist. I tend to think 'how'? if they cannot find it on the zon! Frustrated, and annoyed. The book was only out for one day before it disappeared, so somebody must have complained, but why? Grrrr. Sorry, i've venting, and I'll stop now.

Sorry for not popping in sooner. I've been in a flurry of activity all day dealing with this and e-mails popping back and forth since lunch time, when my publisher woke up. I think they don't want to talk to amazon cause they've done that in the past and it hasn't worked for them. Their filtered books were deleted entirely from the book store and they don't want that to happen to mine. Now the partners have had a chance to talk about it they are going to change the cover and remove certain 'trigger' words from the blurb. I've been crazy-doozy back and forth talking about the new artwork for cover and doing everything they suggest.

The story has not been removed entirely; you can still find it under 'books'. I think I panicked because I could no longer find it. But it just goes to show that a lot of people do not know to search for a book under 'books' (duh...I am one of these people!) if it does not come up when you punch the title and/or author into that black 'all' space!

Sheryl Nantus said:

This is a job for your publisher - they've got the connections and the clout.

If they're telling you that it's YOUR issue and that YOU need to complain to Amazon then I'd question their competency...

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Thanks for the support! But just to clarify, they haven't said that it's MY issue, or urged ME to complain, just that from their experience with Amazon, talking to them does not work and could even prove detrimental. I kinda still sorta maybe think they *could* contact them, but since they are happy to sort this out with a different cover and blurb, I'm calming down. Other covers of theirs have been fine, but I guess the zon decided to take issue with mine, plus some of the word pairings in the blurb. Go figure. Hopefully, this will be sorted and the book will come out of 'filter'.

Ann_Mayburn said:

Cry, a lot. Then contact them and plead your case. I'm in the middle of doing that with my audio books that they all flagged as adult even though the print books aren't.

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OMG! That is just...ludicrous! And it goes to show there is no logical sense to their filter decisions. I really feel for you! Hope your publisher can sort it out!

Maryn said:

Yeah, that's one problem with Amaz0n (I'm so sick of it accidentally linking!) being the biggest dog in the fight. It sets whatever rules it wants to, decides not to share what those rules are, enforces those rules without any consistency, and doesn't want to back down once a decision--even a wrong one--has been made.

I hope the tweaks your publisher is making to cover and blurb make this all better.

Maryn, thinking about lunch

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Since this has happened I've spoken to several erotica authors and I've been paying more attention to book titles and blurbs. One author told me his book was filtered for having 'steps' getting it on, and yet this morning I looked at a few best-sellers on Amazon and these include the step bro/sis relationship in the title. Blurb also, and yet this guy's book was filtered. It really is unbelievable how random Amazon is.

Thanks, Jules. I know that my book has an adult filter because the only way to find it on Amazon is under the 'books' search tag, but yes, if I do a search on salesrank is comes up with a big fat and red "ADULT". My publisher is changing the cover and blurb and if it remains under the 'adult' filter, I'm going to wait until they republish it to get in touch with Amazon and request they unfilter the book. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE ON FEB 1ST: The cover was changed and the blurb altered and now the book is out of the ADULT filter. Happy! However, it lost whatever ranking it had, and the carousel of 'customers who viewed this also viewed...' But I guess that's what happens. So, we'll see if it stays out of 'filtered'. The 'tags' it's under now are 'contemporary'. Not even romance, which I don't know what to do about so it might be the kiss of death in other ways.Uff!

UPDATE ON FEB 1ST: The cover was changed and the blurb altered and now the book is out of the ADULT filter. Happy! However, it lost whatever ranking it had, and the carousel of 'customers who viewed this also viewed...' But I guess that's what happens. So, we'll see if it stays out of 'filtered'. The 'tags' it's under now are 'contemporary'. Not even romance, which I don't know what to do about so it might be the kiss of death in other ways.Uff!