The web is alive with people having issues with Amazon’s recent de-ranking of certain “adult” books. The rumors are swarming that it’s a big conspiracy or something like that against certain types of books (namely gay, lesbian, etc.). The problem I had with what I was “hearing” was that I seriously doubted Amazon would harm publishers or authors in the romance industry in this way. Heck, we’re one of the biggest selling genres of authors out there. So I was TOTALLY relieved to have found this information from Amazon Spokesman Drew Herdener. Here’s what I found:

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Now that does make more sense! I’m excited to know that the books we know and love aren’t going to be harmed by being left out of the search engines!

It’s nice to know that while most of us are under some financial difficulties in this trying economical time, not everyone is cutting out–what I’ve heard recently some call–guilty pleasures. The Los Angeles Times reports that:

Publishers are seeing strong sales in the romance genre as other categories decline and consumers cut back on spending.

Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., a global giant in women’s fiction, reported fourth-quarter earnings up 32% over the same period a year earlier, with U.S. retail sales up 9% in 2008.

For the week of May 10, romance book sales overall were up nearly 2.4% compared with the same week last year, according to Nielsen BookScan, which covers 75% of retail sales. Travel book sales were down 16%, detective/mystery and self-help were each down 17% and adult fiction overall, of which romance is a subgenre, was up 1%.

Jennifer Enderlin, associate publisher for St. Martin’s Press, said romance is doing so well that the publisher is releasing 32 titles this year (more could be added), compared to 26 last year.