So Amazon has conceded and has removed the despicable book from its site. For that I’m glad. Very glad.
However …
What did it take for this action to occur? A twitter, blogosphere, and facebook uproar. Thousands of one-star, “I hate this!” ratings and just as many comments opposing the soul-destroying, childhood stealing, criminal promoting book. Countless personal emails and phone calls to Amazon. Anderson Cooper.
The problem, here, is that Amazon has no effective filters. No real people with real eyes and real brains who screen the stuff that goes up on their site. Apparently, no one at Amazon was even aware of it. Until the uproar.
Well, I say that’s too late. The last time I checked the site to see if the book was still up, it was ranking #96 on the Kindle bestseller list. Number 96! Shame on Amazon for their lack of safeguards. Shame on Amazon for keeping this book available long enough that it even ranked AT ALL on their bestseller list.
The fact is, anyone can publish anything these days with all the do-it-yourself opportunities out there. The problem is when those offering the services have little or no idea of what’s being published through the tools they’re offering. And what’s worse is when they don’t care. When companies get so big that they have to send you automated boilerplate responses when they should have real people investigating each serious complaint, you know their main concern is the bottom line, not their customers. Amazon proudly displays, “Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” as a closing for their automated responses. Uh, not when our feedback is received and responded to by a machine. What’s so customer-centric about that? And certainly not when it takes the combined voices of an entire continent, plus media coverage, to make you realize and rectify your careless error. Customer-centric isn’t the term that comes to mind.
You can be sure of this: This wasn’t the first incident. And it won’t be the last.
The bottom line is this people: support your local indies. Use your hard-earned money to support a business that truly does care about their customers. Support a business that cares enough to know exactly what’s on their shelves. Support a business that employs real people with real brains.
**Check the comment below from Paul Agius … It’s NOT over. We must continue speaking loudly! Take action.