Amazon Deletes Pre-Order Sales Of Popular Conservative Authors Nick Cole And Blaine Pardoe
Jon Del Arroz
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In a bizarre turn of events for the popular Galaxy’s Edge novel universe, Amazon has deleted all of the pre-orders of the new book Sgt. Thor.
Sgt. Thor by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole (2023)
The e-book listing had been deleted completely, with no price or link shown when searching on the main page for the book and an error displaying when clicking on the title.
Screenshot of Sgt. Thor page being broken on Amazon
“I had the digital book ordered but Amazon canceled the order. I was able to preorder the audible version. With all the asshattery going on with canceling books I’m starting to order all your forgotten ruin books in physical form (hard backed if possible) the I will start with Gala,” one user Tweeted.
Heimdall250 on X
Award-winning author Nick Cole also posted about the matter, claiming that it isn’t the first time Amazon’s deleted his pre-orders.
“This has happened before. Like it’s a pattern,” he said. He also claimed that Amazon is Agreement Incapable, violating their terms of use by taking unilateral action to remove the sales of his and Jason Anspach’s books.
Nick Cole on X
Battletech and Blue Dawn author Blaine Pardoe followed up, mentioning he’s had similar problems with Amazon, and that he believes these deletions are politically motivated.
“The exact same thing happened with the pre-orders for Blue Dawn. There are other instances of Big Tech interfering with conservatives. Another conservative author found that some sort of ‘glitch’ had boosted the price of his book to over $400 a copy! Yes, it had a huge impact on people buying his book. It is hard to get people back once they are scared off,” Pardoe posted.
Blue Dawn by Blaine Pardoe (2021)
He continued, “Make no mistake, this is Big Tech waging monkey warfare on conservative creators and conservative publishers. It happened with Defiance Press, it’s happened to WarGate. No one is ever found to be accountable for these ‘inconveniences.’ Amazon mysteriously doesn’t have backups of these preorders, they are simply lost to the ether. The people that suffer eyond the publishers and authors, are the fans of these franchises.”
“This is why there are publishers like those I write for. Companies like WarGate and Defiance exist because conservatives have targets on our backs. The workers at the tech companies feel sabotage is a legitimate way to censor people whose views they disagree with,” he asserted. “They know there is no ramifications for their actions because they will never be caught.”
A Most Uncivil War. Book Two in the Blue Dawn series by Blaine Pardoe (2022)
Next, Pardoe shared how his readers can fight back, “How can you fight back? Buy the books from conservative authors! Pick up books from these publishers. Talk with the clout of your money. Support the authors who are out there, on the front lines, fighting to provide you good entertaining content. Promote the books of conservatives authors on your social media. Give them meaningful reviews. Be a warrior (like Sgt. Thor).”
Blaine Pardoe on X
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Similar problems with pre-order deletions have occurred in the past with conservative and Christian authors Jon Del Arroz, the author of this article, and Declan Finn, as chronicled by PJ Media in 2019. Silver Empire publisher Russell Newquist stated at the time, “Amazon’s claiming I didn’t get the final files uploaded in time, but that’s total B.S. I had the files for both uploaded weeks ago.”
Combat Frame X-Seed author Brian Niemeier said he’d also had problems with Amazon, blogging about how Amazon has messed with the search algorithm to make his books unfindable.
“KDP has been messing with my popular Combat Frame XSeed series,” he said. “For some reason, they’re bundling books into series that don’t go together.”
Combat Frame XSeed S by Brian Niemeier (2020)
With so many Christian and conservative authors now facing the same problems at Amazon over a period of years, many are speculating Amazon’s moves are politically motivated.
With popular conservative culture war movements spawning out of science fiction and comic books with #IronAge and #ComicsGate, the gatekeepers of culture would have a motive to try to hamper the sales of right-leaning authors by purging their pre-sales and making discoverability more difficult.
Deus Vult: A Catholic Action Horror Novel by Declan Finn (2022)
The problem authors face is that Amazon is a near monopoly in bookselling. Attempts to sell fiction novels on other platforms or on one’s own website are extremely difficult, with such a vast percentage of the book-buying audience reading on Kindle.
Amazon has capitalized on this with their Kindle Unlimited program, forcing authors to sell their books at page-turn rates, which only get them about 1/3 the revenue of an actual sale of the book much of the time, and keeping them in exclusive contracts for e-books for the privilege.
Glorified by Jon Del Arroz (2022)
With big tech seemingly putting a wrench into sales, conservative authors have little recourse for now and have to play Amazon’s game.
Regardless, authors like Nick Cole are building their own spaces to sell books directly to customers, but it still hampers sales to be unable to promote on the world’s biggest storefront.
Savage Wars by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole (2020)
As of publication, Amazon has restored the Sgt. Thor title on their website. However, it’s unclear if they restored the lost pre-orders.
What do you think about Amazon purging pre-orders of Sgt. Thor and other books? Leave a comment and let us know.
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