Samantha Cole, reporting for Motherboard: In the last few days, word has spread among independent erotica authors on social media that Amazon was quietly changing its policies for erotic novels. Five authors I spoke to, and several more on social media, have reported that their books were stripped of their best seller rankings — essentially hiding them from casual browsing on the site, and separating them from more mainstream, safe-for-work titles. […] Most people browsing Amazon books might not notice or care about the best seller rank — a number that’s based on how well the title is selling on Amazon.com — but it’s part of an algorithm that influences how the book appears in search, and whether it shows up in advertisements, including suggestions from one product to the next (“If you like this book, you might like this book”). For independent authors and booksellers, this ranking is hugely important for visibility.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Amazon is Burying Sexy Books, Sending Erotic Novel Authors to the ‘No-Rank Dungeon’