Site icon Kairos – By Brian Niemeier

Amazon: The Tiger Strikes

Since the launch of the Kindle and KDP, we’ve had doomsayers–mostly tradpub authors, editors, and agents–prophesying Amazon’s imminent descent into tyranny. Most forecasts of impending woe were founded on the premise that Amazon is a monopoly, and as such would impose draconian royalty terms on authors as soon as the Big Five New York publishers were out of the picture.

Best selling author Joe Konrath liked to answer these jeremiads with a simple metaphor. If wolves (tradpub) are gnawing on your leg, worry about them instead of the tiger (Amazon) that has yet to strike.

I’ve repeatedly gone on record to refute the wilder anti-Amazon zombie memes that keep turning up in publishing circles. It’s no secret that my opinion of the company has been generally favorable. Amazon has enabled thousands of authors who never had a chance of passing the tradpub gatekeepers to reach readers and earn money. Many pro authors have escaped from odious tradpub contracts and are now making a living from their craft thanks to KDP.

That doesn’t mean I uncritically carry water for a trillion-dollar megacorp. I’m also on record calling Amazon out when they’ve screwed up in the past. My loyalty is to readers and and fellow authors. It’s been my informed opinion that Amazon was a net positive for both. Though I always accepted the possibility that Amazon could turn to the dark side, I counseled prudence and patience. Deal with the wolves, then worry about the tiger.

Yesterday, a sequence of events came to my attention that leave little room for any other conclusion than that the tiger has struck.

Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh is a notorious international gadabout and pickup artist. He’s written nineteen books, many of which offer advice to young men on how to seduce women. Judging by how his outlook has deepened of late, he may be on the cusp of an Augustinian conversion. He rose to infamy a couple years back when he tried to organize a worldwide series of get-togethers for his readers. These events were a chance for young men to meet up, have a few drinks, and share their experience of living in a world that actively hates them.

If Roosh’s enemies had any plausible deniability about their hatred of men, it went out the window when they launched a global crackdown on his meetups. Local officials, police, and even the Australian Navy were called upon to stop young men from convening to talk about anything deeper than craft beer and sportsball. It makes you think.

That’s just the prologue. Before we get to the main event, it’s worth noting that in 2015, SJWs submitted a petition with 250,000 signatures demanding that Amazon pull Roosh’s books from their service. Amazon chose not to act.

Flash forward to 2018. Starting on Friday, September 7, Amazon began removing Roosh’s books from the Kindle Store and their paperback service CreateSpace. Nine of his nineteen titles have now been removed in total.

Even more insidious, Amazon refuses to explain why they banned Roosh’s books. The usual song and dance about “violating are guidelines”, which should sound eerily familiar at this point, was bandied about. But when Roosh contacted the company to find out specifically which guidelines his books violated, he was thrust into a cyberpunk kafkatrap wherein the rep on the phone told him the banning department could only be reached by email, and his email query referred him right back to the nebulous “guideline violations” dodge.

Not one word about the tawdry subject matter of Roosh’s books. A cursory search will turn up dozens of far sleazier KDP titles. Despite the high-handed claims in their guidelines, Amazon hosts straight-up porn. If Amazon wanted to purge all the smut from their site, I’d cheer them on. But this is no moral crusade.

What exactly is it? Contra the alarmists, the fact is we just don’t know. Here are the most likely possibilities in no particular order:

Whatever the cause of Roosh’s ban turns out to be, Amazon had better get its act together. Unless they either A) reinstate Roosh’s books or B) offer a damn good explanation for their removal, including citing the exact guidelines he violated, authors and readers will be forced to conclude that Amazon is no longer market-facing, has been ideologically compromised to a dangerous extent, and cannot be trusted.
For the time being, stay alert, formulate a plan, and wait for Amazon’s next move.
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