Monday, December 01, 2008

Amazon strikes again

One good feature Amazon has had is the ability for users, writers, etc., to update product info. This is particularly useful in the case of anthologies, where not all the contributors are listed initially, just the editor. Submit the contributors' names with Amazon's "update product info" form, and, presto, users can now get search results on all the anthologies featuring their favorite writers.

Now, as if I already didn't have reason enough to stop linking to Amazon, they turn around and (1) unilaterally, (2) without notice, and (3) selectively are refusing to implement their own "update product info" feature.

Their new reason? "
Contributor list for anthologies should only include the editor(s)."

Oh, okay, sorry. I didn't realize that only editors contributed to anthologies. The people who actually wrote the stories... didn't contribute.

This means that anyone interested in searching on my name to discover what anthologies I've contributed stories to (there might actually be one or two readers out there interested in doing this, by gosh) will get zero results. This despite my contributions to Tales of the Shadowmen vols. 1-5, The Avenger Chronicles, and Lance Star--Sky Ranger, not to mention a few forthcoming books which, well, I can't mention yet.

In fact, Amazon, after accepting the product updated I submitted, for all of a week, you have now
reverted the listing for The Avenger Chronicles back to showing writers who never made it into the book.

And yet, "Data accuracy is highly important."

WTF.

So **** ***, Amazon, you have removed the last possible reason I might have had for linking to my books listed on your site. From this point forward it'll be B&N.com and Borders.com. And I know there are problems with those corporate conglomerates, too.

1 comment:

Blue Tyson said...

They also have countless anthologies listed with no editor, or with author as editor, or multiple authors as editor.

See The Living Dead, by noted non-editor Stephen King for a recent example of getting it wrong.