Lost in the Amazon

Shut the Fuck up and Die! by William Todd Rose

Shut the Fuck Up and Die! used to be my best-selling title. At one point, I had more sales of this particular book than all of my other works combined, which I always found kind of amazing. I didn't do anything to promote this book; people just found it and were apparently intrigued enough to buy a copy.

Then, one day, sales tanked. At first, I thought it was just a slump; but after months of not selling a single copy, I decided to do a little market research to see what had changed. After searching my own name on Amazon, I was dismayed to find that Shut the Fuck Up and Die! wasn't listed among the search results. I knew the book was still actively published, but couldn't understand why it wasn't listed.

An Amazon search just for the book's title brought up albums with the same (or similar) titles by bands like Sub Dub Micromachine, Marasmus, and Death In Custody...but no book.

Finally, I got extremely specific and searched for the book title only within the Kindle store category. That was when I saw what had happened. At the top of my search results was the following link: "Your search contains adult items which have been hidden. If you wish to see them, show all results". Only upon clicking the link, did my book appear...which explains why sales had tanked. At one time, readers had discovered this book in their search results; now, however, they have to be specifically searching for it. They not only have to know it exists, but also know that they need to refine their search only to the Kindle Store and not All Items.

But hey...at least I can find "Oh! Shut up! Fuck Off! I Love You!" by The Callas.