“Kindle KDP customer service, how can I help?”
I say, “I’m having… this feels so absolutely ridiculous—”
“I wasn’t on your previous ten calls.”
“They took my young adult urban fantasy mermaid novel off of the young adult urban fantasy mermaid category. It’s an absurd situation, but I want to know why.”
“Ah I see sir. Yes sir. I understand how you feel. What is the name of the novel?”
“Overmorrow. It sold so much in the first twelve hours that it ranked number one in young adult urban fantasy mermaid novels. They booted it to the natural world, for some reason, though it’s also number one there.”
“Ah I see. That’s sales rank sir.”
“No, your categories are nested like a Porphyrian tree of being. So—“
“A what?”
“Nature is under fiction is under teen is under kindle is under books is under any department. Check again.”
“One moment sir.”
Pachelbel plays. A lame Ai generates a 60’s folk version of Pachelbel. Pachelbel’s Canon in EDM. Every pop song derivative of Pachelbel imaginable from Basket Caseto Step.
“Are you there sir?”
“Barely,” I mutter in D.
“I see you’ve received responses.”
“Thus the ten calls.”
“I don’t know how I will be able to tell you anything new about mermaids sir.”
“They haven’t told me anything at all about mermaids, so literally anything at this point would be new information.”
“They escalated this to ensure a positive customer experience for readers. Your book details (including keywords, categories and/or BISAC) show it isn’t eligible for the selected category and may cause a misleading customer experience.”
“Let me get this straight,” I say.
“Go on, sir.”
“My book that has a giant flying whale on the cover—”
“Yes.”
“Featuring water magic—”
“Yes.”
“Has three young adult protagonists—”
“Okay.”
“Who spend the entire novel in the densest urban center in the United States, New York City—”
“Right.”
“War against a flying fish’s mermaid and mermen underlings—”
“Correct.”
“And this provides a misleading customer experience for those shopping in the — and I want to speak slowly and enunciate here — young adult. Urban. Fantasy. Mermaid category?”
“You’re right on the money, sir.”
“Why?”
“We discovered that the book does not pertain to the category ‘Teen & Young Adult Mermaid eBooks’ since it does not seem to be directly associated with the subject of ‘Teen & Young Adult Mermaid eBooks’ according to the description. The narrative appears to be a fantasy novel featuring magical components; however, there is no reference to mermaids or material specifically aimed at a young adult demographic.”
“In the novel?”
“Correct.”
“I want you to open the text of the book.”
“Sir?”
“Open the ebook.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t open the book in the backend of a company named Kindle Direct Publishing? Open the damn file.”
“It’s not in there for me, sir.”
“Hell I can even check the spelling in your review pane. Log in to my viewing portal and then open the book.”
“I’m unable to sir.”
“Okay give me your email and I’ll email you a copy and have you use the basic search bar in your Kindle app and we will — together — search for two words: mermaid and mermen.”
“I don’t have one.”
“You don’t have an email?”
“I have this number and the chat interface.”
“Why won’t you list a mermaid young adult urban fantasy with mermaid young adult urban fantasy books? Why? I don’t even need it fixed. I just want to know, man, explain it to me. Don’t give me boilerplate, I’m begging you—”
“This is a question for the technical team.”
“So transfer me.”
“We can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“We don’t have a number for the technical department. I have to let you go, sir, I can offer nothing else—”
“Get me a supervisor.”
“You would like that? More than happy. I’ll do that right now. Would you like that?”
“Please escalate it for the love of God.”
Ten more minutes of shitty Pachelbel riffs. Brain matter shoots out my ears.
“Mister Scoobert?”
“Dooby Doobert. Listen, why’d this happen?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll email them.”
“Whom?”
“Our technical team.”
“You don’t have a number in this company between your two very different teams who deal with — and I feel like I’m losing my frigging mind at this point — the extremely specific taxonomy of young adult urban fantasy mermaid novels?”
“No sir. I can only respond to the email you did.”
“Sure.”
“It will take five days for a response.”
“To you?”
“I have to wait as long as everyone else.”
“As a supervisor?”
“Especially so. Anything else?”
“Surprised this didn’t happen before.”
“What was that sir?”
“With my other books. Like you didn’t do it to Bell Hammers.”
“Let me pull that up.”
“Don’t.”
“It says here that you’re a bestseller in rural and small town fiction. What was the town?”
“Bellhammer, Illinois.”
The sounds of keys like locusts clack. “I see. There is no Bellhammer, Illinois.”
“I made it up.”
“You what?”
“It’s fiction in a fiction category. I made it up.”
“Sir this category’s for fiction based on real life small and rural towns. Not made up towns. I’m afraid—”
“Wait wait wait wait wait. I based the name on two towns, okay. Bellville and Bellflower, but it’s based on stories about Salem and Odin and—”
“Bellville’s fifty thousand. That sound like a small town?”
“Is this real life?”
“No, sir, you made up Bellhammer.”
I shout, “WAIT A MINUTE! I’m looking at these other mermaid covers. You removed my book from the mermaid category cause it’s not an erotica like Fifty Shades of Twilight!”
“Our proprietary—”
“My teen urban fantasy mermaid novel doesn’t have enough porn for Kindle?”
“Sir, I—”
“Mermaids don’t even have sex organs! That’s sirens! Haven’t you ever seen a Starbucks cup? I appeal to The Readership.”
“Who, sir?”
“The Readership.”
“Is that someone in our company, sir?”
“No.”
“Your lawyer?”
“No.”
“A politician? A preacher? A friend. Who’s The Readership?”
I say. “They’ll sign my petition for justice to my minor, mermaid categories! Call back when you’re good and ready.”
Readers en masse sign my Kindle: Restore Young Adult Mermaid Urban Fantasy to YA Mermaid Urban Fantasy Category petition on Change.org. They also get their copy of Overmorrow:
- Order Overmorrow directly from me for $3.99
- Order Overmorrow for your Kindle for $3.99
- Preorder the Paperback
* * *
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