It was recently brought to my attention (thanks to the Sensational Christmas Sale Event) that Amazon has classified Shades of Gray as a Young Adult/Teen novel.
Say What??
When an author/publisher uploads a book to Amazon they are allowed to choose a category to place their book in from a rather small list. Amazon then – apparently randomly – sticks the book in several other categories – like sci-fi shorts that you can read in two hours (This is a real category). And, as I said, they put Shades of Gray in the YA category. But why? How do they choose these seemingly odd extra categories for our books?
The question has been answered by Amazon help:
Hello Joleene,
Thank you for contacting Kindle Direct Publishing.
I understand you’re concerned about the category of your book, “Shades of Gray.”
Looking at your account, I see that based on your keywords selection, the category was automatically assigned to your book.
For your convenience, I’ve removed the following category:
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult
It should no longer be visible on the website within 24 hours.
I hope this helps.
Thanks for using Amazon KDP. Have a nice day!
*****
First, I do want to give them kudos for removing it quickly, but past that I want to say again, “what?!?!” because these are my chosen keywords:
- violence – doesn’t say YA to me
- dark – eh, still not really
- thriller – there are YA thrillers, but it’s not exclusive to the genre
- Amarathine – just a series name
- romance – doesn’t scream YA
- vampire & paranormal – aha.
And so we get to the crux of the matter. As an author I dared to use the keywords vampire, paranormal, and romance together, which must automatically mean the book is intended for teenage audience.
Can I scream now?
I don’t have anything against teenagers. I even LIKE many YA books, but why in the name of all that sucks blood does the word “vampire” automatically conjure the word “teenager”? No, don’t answer that. I know why. Because people have forgotten Carmella, and Dracula, and Louie, and Armand, and all the other ADULT vampires that came first, and all they can remember is the sparkling, high-school-attending Edward and his Twilight gang. And if that series was for teens, then that must mean that EVERY vampire series is for teens. Just as every animated show is for children (another tired stereotype that the anime Now and Then, Here and There, among others, has proven wrong), etc. etc.
Maybe it’s time to remind the world of that? Or at the very least, Amazon.
Amaranthine by Joleene Naylor 
Ruth Ann Nordin
/ November 17, 2014That is so annoying. I preferred it when vampires were for adults. They are more fun to read about. To this day, I can’t get into the Twilight series and probably never will. But I love the creepy feel of the world where vampires inspired horror.
Maegan Provan
/ November 17, 2014Reblogged this on Maegan Provan, Author and commented:
I think Joleene has taken the words right out of my mouth. And of course, Amazon has taken far too much genre control out of their authors hands. I mean, since they’re struggling as a company to hit their projected quarterly profits (yes, I work side by side with a financial planner and I am learning a lot about the market) they should not be trying to mess with the people still very much responsible for what profit they do make. With sites like Smashwords, Kobo, etc. there are a lot more self pub friendly publishing sites that we as authors can use. They really need to get themselves in check.
E.J. Wesley
/ November 18, 2014Just ridiculous. There’s a HUGE chunk of paranormal vampire fiction kids shouldn’t be going near. LOL I wonder, how many 15 year-olds snagged an Anita Blake book when their Kindle ‘recommended’ it because they’d read Twilight? One way to grow up fast, I guess. 🙂
dm yates
/ November 22, 2014Why does Amazon continually play with our accounts? I’m screaming as I read this. However, having read your books and being one of your biggest fans, I can’t help but laugh at this mistake of theirs.