Sunday
Sep052010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill What's up with Amazon?
Sep 5, 2010 Climate: HSI This is odd. The Hockey Stick Illusion no longer appears in the Amazon Global Warming category. Looking more closely, this seems to be a problem with many sceptic titles, particularly the newer ones: Booker, Bob Carter, Roy Spencer, and Christian Gerondeau. Older sceptic titles, by the likes of Plimer, Lawson, Peter Taylor and Lomborg are still there.
Very odd indeed.
Update on Sep 5, 2010 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
I wonder if something along these lines has happened?
Reader Comments (44)
Bish - Have you asked Amazon why this has happened? Perhaps William Connelley has friends there!
Maybe they are preparing a book burning?
I guess the amazon is economically senitive, scepical books makes the alarmistical books mould on the shelf. Action must be taken now... :-)
You could always ask google!
http://www.twawki.com/?p=8508
Did they start a Global Cooling category?
Don't p*** about. Ask for an explanation from Amazon. If a distributor did something that hurt my business I wouldn't wait half a second before picking up the phone.
Dominic
I was alarmed that Amazon would do that. However, look at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Hockey+Stick+Illusion&x=18&y=17
I follow your blog regularly, but am dissappointed that I may have to verify some of your statements periodically.
[BH adds: Jack. Reread my posting. I said it has gone from the global warming category, not from Amazon as a whole. I was also speaking about Amazon.co.uk. HSI is still categorised in the US, but is not in the correct category.]
I've just googled 'Global Warming Amazon' to find the headline 'Amazon could shrink by 85% due to 'Climate Change' Scientists say' - David Adam - Grauniad March '09.
Ah, those heady days !
Jack.. It's still listed in climate by Amazon US, who has it ranked #88 in books about rivers for some reason. Amazon UK though seems to have dropped pretty much all of the sceptical books from their science or climate categorys and now has most of them uncategorised.
Something funny is happening..
Note to Jack Chapman: HSI appears in the GW general category, but HSI has been at or near the top of the Bestsellers in Global Warming category over the last three weeks ( and earlier) with an individual grading on the opening page of the search ever since the book first came out. This grading has now gone although I seem to remember it was first on Friday. Today it does not appear in the top 100 GW best sellers, as far as I can see, and only Nigel Lawson's book is in the top half dozen, with an awful lot of "catastrophe" books instead. What is going on?
It seems to have been decategorised, but still available. If this turns out to be deliberate mischief to try and nobble sales, it won't work. More likely, should the story of such a shabby attempt be confirmed, the intrigue would itself lift sales still further. Nobody is buying it for its sales listing like a paperback novel anyway.
I'm not going to rank on Amazon, but people who buy the book from me get a signed bookplate, free shipping and a free CD of additional reference material, including one of the most terrifying papers I've read...the Pustilnik/Din paper that correlates 400 years of wheat market prices to solar cycles.
The HSI stands at 10,333 overall and is not included in GW category nor in GW best sellers.
The book at No 2 in GW BS is called The Emerald Planet and is categorised as Deforestation (not GW).
Nigel Lawson, Appeal to Reason is at 4 in GW BS and stands at 27,224 overall.
Al Gore, Our Choice is at No 11 in GW BS and stands at 58, 476 overall.
Sorry, Emerald Planet is actually at No 3.
BH update noted. You are being too patient. Get on the phone. Or call your solicitor/preferred legal representative tomorrow and instruct them to pursue the matter with Amazon UK on your behalf.
Daft oversight on my part - sorry - have Stacey International do it. Sorry
On the update. Having read HSI twice, I completely missed the "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual" content of the book! I'll now have to read it again - sigh.
So do you think that the HSI has been classed as adult literature ;-) Too many hockey playing youngsters innocently looking for books on ball control and getting your naughty book instead? Tut! Corrupting those fresh minds with SCEPTICISM.
There was a comment somewhere saying the HSI was like Stieg Larsen without the lesbian sex, so perhaps that's where the error occurred!
Well, here's some more information about the Hockey stick that you won't find on Amazon either
(It was always a problem)
http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/an-ill-wind/#comment-8411
I just finished HSI and thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend it. ;)
Andrew
Just last week I received the usual advert from Amazon which I rarely read and was about to delete. Fortunately, I didn't as this was the content:
Amazon:
Are you looking for something in our Scientific, Technical & Medical: Environment category? If so, you might be interested in these items.
________________________________________
The Hockey Stick Illusion;Climategate and the Corruption of Science (Independent Minds)
Climate: the Counter-consensus (Independent Minds)
Climate: the Great Delusion (Independent Minds)
The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The Obsession With `Climate Change` Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History?
Air Con: The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming
Chill, A Reassessment of Global Warming Theory: Does Climate Change Mean the World is Cooling, and If So What Should We Do About It?
The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth About Global Warming
HSI is top of the list!
HSI now 5,796 overall.
Looks like the Connolley analogy is the most likely explanation - one or two rogue individuals at Amazon have taken it upon themselves to engage in manipulation of the categories. If this is the case, a firm communication with someone senior in Amazon UK should do the trick, if that is the right word to use.
I am sure your publisher will get this sorted pdq. However if you have been writing in LGBT code a quick word with Rajendra might help improve your style and ratings:-)
Please keep up the good work.
Maybe it's chapter 8, "Big Mac and the two whoppers" that's causing a problem. Such thinly veiled sexual innuendo might play havoc with content filtering systems.
But I'd personally bet my money on a William Connolley type insider.
Just for curiosity sake. Here is what the categorization looks like at Amazon Canada right now:
#71 in Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Weather
#71 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Earth Sciences > Meteorology
#31 in Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Climatology > Climate Changes
Obviously the various international Amazon sites are less integrated than are the various global land temperature series ;-)
"something along these lines"
Have you looked under Erotica? :-)
Well I finally broke open the piggy bank and ordered the HSI from amazon.co.uk the shipping costs to Sweden was more than half the price of the book itself, so I had to order a few other books to justify the freight. Looking forward to reading the HSI later in the week.
You might want to try the Book Depository instead - free shipping anywhere in the world.
As Andrew's fellow victim, I can very much confirm this odd behaviour by Amazon UK in 'disappearing' the newer and top-selling 'sceptical' books from its 'global warming bestsellers' list. For months my own book The Real Global Warming Disaster was No 1, For most of the time since April my book has been contesting the top slot with Andrew's HSI, with Bob Carter and Christian Gerondeaui occasionally surging ahead of us, The list has been consistently dominated by 'sceptical' titles (three published by Stacey International). Then at the end of August our books all vanished from the list. This morning, for instance, my book was ranked 3,502 and should have stood 2nd. But the No.2 slot on the list was given to Nigel Lawson's Appeal to Reason, ranked 8,930. All the other books in the top ten were by supporters of AGW, It is hard to believe that this has not resulted from a deliberate action by someone in Amazon, although pretending we don't exist would seem to contradict their commericial interest in selling books, I am asking my own publisher to look into this and suggest that Stacey International do the same, although Amazon UK is notoriously difficult to engage in dialogue!
To Booker and the Bish
Amazon is a "battleground" for skeptics and warmists as much as elsewhere, it has been so for years going back. People giving each others' camps books "one star reviews" without reading the books etc.
For example, I did not see Booker's book come up anywhere in my recent searches at Amazon, but I knew about it from elsewhere. Now I can understand why. Thanks for that information.
Look at the hostile editorial review from Publishers Weekly being listed first. This is my first time, looking at an Amazon.com hostile and inhibitory editorial review. I mean, you want to sell your books right, whatever might be written in them?
A green version of a book burning.
Wait until google does a similar trick on blogs and articles which disagree with their board member Al Gore.
What is it about AGW that brings out the worst in allegedly enlightened people?
I definitely felt I hit problems at Amazon too, regarding climate skeptics' works. When they happened they seemed too much for "coincidence" but, well, it could still have been "coincidence". If I can I'll find the titles I could not obtain or even find mention of. Nils-Axel Moerner was one IIRC. Then there was a CO2 primer. I forget the rest.
Andrew, thank you for the tip on The Book Depository, I will check them out the next time my piggy bank is looking a little plump. I am just happy that your book and three John LeCarré novels will be on my desk by the weekend. I have followed the various stories at climateaudit over the years but I understand you put a finer line on things and bring it all home. Aside from that Andrew! Darn it! Folks keep quoting The Hockey Stick Illusion with page numbers and such!!! How can I follow along without my own copy of HSI? :)
Now I do not have to wonder...
HSI is available at Powells.com in the USA
Book Depository are very good. I ordered two copies to be sent to Sydney and they arrived in less than a week.
[No relation to Nick Hewitt for the avoidance of doubt!]
Book Depository are very good. I ordered two copies to be sent to Sydney and they arrived in less than a week.
[No relation to Nick Hewitt for ther avoidance of doubt!]
The good thing to cocme of this is that I finally got off of my reaer end and ordered your book.
Still not been fixed at 4.45pm. The Wind Farm scam still occupies top spot in its category.
I know what's up. We know how Google refused to prompt searches relating to Climategate. Now Andrew's review of the
reviewswhitewashes is soon to appear, his profile has been raised as another "he who must not be named" character. Another Steve McIntyre, too persistent, too exact, too unarguable, too close to the real sticking-points - and too mindful of courtesy.Sorry to wander off-topic, but when I saw Monbiot’s latest article beginning:
“This will not be an easy column to write. I am about to put down 1,200 words in support of a book that ... has persuaded me that I was wrong”.
I thought maybe ... But no. George is not ready yet to read a book with numbers in it. This is about how he is ready to eat bacon butties, as long as the pigs are not taking food out f the mouths of his vegan friends. “Let them eat pigswill” is the new green slogan.
Amazon US had the problem of employees editing the book Unfit For Command, to have it say Fit for Command. The book was critical of John Kerry and came out during his campaign for president.
Hello, Andrew,
It is important that the influence should be promoted and kept for HSI. The on-line bookstore is the battle ground.
And we also wonder whether you have received our email concerning on the plan translating and publish for HSI in China. Waiting for your reply.
Best Wishes
Lian JIAN in Beijing