Amazon is excluding spicy romance & LGBTQ books from the affiliates program.
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@DavidBridger @susankayequinn It can be a hard choice to make when they are the market leader for your line of business so huge credit to you.
As a customer, where possible, I choose who, where and how I spend my money. That and how I vote are two givens in my life.
@Broadfork @susankayequinn Thank you. I share those two givens of yours.
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@DavidBridger I respect that choice, but yeah, it's brutal.
@susankayequinn It effectively stalled my career. Not my love of writing for my readers. I've kept going, and my established readers have stayed with me. But commercially it was a head-on collision with a truck.
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Amazon is excluding spicy romance & LGBTQ books from the affiliates program. It's Bezos obeying the fascists in advance. And it highlights how, with the flip of a switch, they can easily shadow-ban whatever books they want.
I'm removing all my Amazon affiliate links & will deprioritize Amazon links
Bezos is an asshole and I hope that #ChuckTingle takes his awesome library to his own store and makes bank! I'd happily purchase; "Pounded By This Weregroundhog In A Seemingly Endless Time Loop On Groundhog Day " for twice the price if Chuck got it all!
Think I'm making that title up?
https://www.amazon.com/Pounded-Weregroundhog-Seemingly-Endless-Groundhog-ebook/dp/B0GKXF61S9 -
I do think people are, more and more, understanding that their choices in shopping are really holding THEM hostage as well as having all the negative impacts. Finding a way for readers to still be able to get books and work their way off dependency on Amazon is tough... but the environment is ripe for it. Sometimes people just won't leave... until they do. Until there's just one terrible thing too many.
@susankayequinn @DavidBridger Yes, that’s very true. One minute the customer thinks they’ve got a good deal from the options available to them. The next there’s only one offer on the table because the competition has folded or been assimilated.
But sooner or later Empires always fall. And when they do, they crumble quickly.
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Bezos is an asshole and I hope that #ChuckTingle takes his awesome library to his own store and makes bank! I'd happily purchase; "Pounded By This Weregroundhog In A Seemingly Endless Time Loop On Groundhog Day " for twice the price if Chuck got it all!
Think I'm making that title up?
https://www.amazon.com/Pounded-Weregroundhog-Seemingly-Endless-Groundhog-ebook/dp/B0GKXF61S9@mycotropic Chuck Tingle is a national treasure
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Amazon is excluding spicy romance & LGBTQ books from the affiliates program. It's Bezos obeying the fascists in advance. And it highlights how, with the flip of a switch, they can easily shadow-ban whatever books they want.
I'm removing all my Amazon affiliate links & will deprioritize Amazon links
@susankayequinn I hate this timeline we are in, where fascism is appreciated and promoted on the Internet more than kissing and gender or sexuality expression.
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@mycotropic Chuck Tingle is a national treasure
Are you also into Dan Lacey? https://designyoutrust.com/2019/06/this-artist-makes-a-living-by-painting-celebrities-with-pancakes-on-their-heads/
I discovered both through #SomethingAwful back in the day. I still have a stock of Lacey paintings and I always wanted Chuck and Dan to collaborate!
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Amazon is excluding spicy romance & LGBTQ books from the affiliates program. It's Bezos obeying the fascists in advance. And it highlights how, with the flip of a switch, they can easily shadow-ban whatever books they want.
I'm removing all my Amazon affiliate links & will deprioritize Amazon links
@andrew @susankayequinn Keep in mind Bezo is no longer the CEO of amazon so you guys can't blame this on him.
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Are you also into Dan Lacey? https://designyoutrust.com/2019/06/this-artist-makes-a-living-by-painting-celebrities-with-pancakes-on-their-heads/
I discovered both through #SomethingAwful back in the day. I still have a stock of Lacey paintings and I always wanted Chuck and Dan to collaborate!
@mycotropic nope never heard of Lacey
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@andrew @susankayequinn Keep in mind Bezo is no longer the CEO of amazon so you guys can't blame this on him.
@sapphireangel you're... you're kidding, right?
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@sapphireangel you're... you're kidding, right?
@susankayequinn @andrew Andy Jassy became amazon president and CEO July 2021.
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Amazon is excluding spicy romance & LGBTQ books from the affiliates program. It's Bezos obeying the fascists in advance. And it highlights how, with the flip of a switch, they can easily shadow-ban whatever books they want.
I'm removing all my Amazon affiliate links & will deprioritize Amazon links
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@susankayequinn @andrew Andy Jassy became amazon president and CEO July 2021.
@sapphireangel I know I'm just amazed that you think that's important to point out
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@sapphireangel I know I'm just amazed that you think that's important to point out
@susankayequinn @andrew I don't agree with what they are doing, but people need to stop tossing everything at the founder when he's not the one making the decisions now. He was and that can be faulted.
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@susankayequinn @andrew I don't agree with what they are doing, but people need to stop tossing everything at the founder when he's not the one making the decisions now. He was and that can be faulted.
@sapphireangel Bezos empowered Trump, donated to the ballroom, funded the Melania movie, in every way has used HIS AMAZON MONEY to put the people into power who are enforcing Project2025 at every level they possibly can, OF WHICH THIS IS PART. Amazon is absolutely kow-towing to the fascists and Bezos is *making that happen*.
Your "people need to stop"... is an insult at best, at worst, it's making excuses.
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@DavidBridger @susankayequinn I haven’t used Amazon for anything in fifteen years.
In the UK they were always undercutting other companies, putting them out of business, while not paying their taxes and offering poor employment terms and conditions to boot.
The right choice isn’t often an easy choice. But it is the right choice.
@Broadfork @DavidBridger @susankayequinn
I can't remember exactly when I stopped using Amazon, but it was quite a while back, when I heard about their terrible employment practices. I wasn't going to support a business which penalized their workers for taking breaks (and other relentless, ruthless and callous practices).
I have not regretted it. For books, I go to Fishpond.com.au; and that was the only thing I bought from Amazon anyway.(I wish I could put a permanent setting on all my search engines to exclude results from Amazon; it's a bit annoying to have to add the "-site:" string every time I'm looking for shopping stuff...)
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@mycotropic nope never heard of Lacey
Chuck is enough anyway!
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Amazon is excluding spicy romance & LGBTQ books from the affiliates program. It's Bezos obeying the fascists in advance. And it highlights how, with the flip of a switch, they can easily shadow-ban whatever books they want.
I'm removing all my Amazon affiliate links & will deprioritize Amazon links
@susankayequinn what non-amazon ebook shops do you suggest- looking for those which let me download.
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@susankayequinn what non-amazon ebook shops do you suggest- looking for those which let me download.
@peribotsarah Bookshop.org is carrying ebooks now. I'm working on getting the rest of my books over there. Kobo is good. Nook is decent. I'm also on Google Play and Apple but they're big tech too — not as horrible as Amazon (maybe) but yeah.
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READERS need to lead the way by moving to retailers other than Amazon:
@bookshop.org has ebooks now.AUTHORS need to get their books over there too (via @draft2digital.bsky.social ).
I'm already on 4 other retailers (plus print, audio, libraries), but I'm working on getting my books on Bookshop.
@susankayequinn Sadly, D2D is not great for spicy books either and will not send any of mine to bookshop.org. Like, they will publish to other places, but two of my books they will only publish to Smashwords.
Like I feel you, they are better than Amazon, but there is a strong chance that if it's spicy they will block it from bookshop.org.
