TB here.
We originally posted this on April 6. On the morning of April 7, the books we’ve listed below no longer appear to be excluded. We’ll continue to monitor the situation.
On February 17, 2026, we shared some news about Amazon Associates that had us extremely worried. If you haven’t read that post, you can here. It’ll make the rest of this post easier to understand.
First: the good news
It’s been over a month and there have been some changes to Associates. Just a refresher, this is a program through which Amazon pays websites like ours a small commission if a customer buys a product after clicking a link on our site.
As we shared, a huge number of new releases, including A Choreography of Longing, by Miranda and me, had been swept up into Amazon’s new Associates policy, meaning our book was demonetized. That means that if someone clicked on the link to A Choreography of Longing and then purchased it, we wouldn’t receive a commission from that sale since Amazon had booted it from the Associates program.
We’re happy to report, this is no longer the case for A Choreography of Longing.
Many other books that had been swept up, including memoirs, are no longer demonetized.
That’s progress, but you might be sensing a but coming…
Now for the bad news that still makes us queasy
When I first started noticing that Amazon was kicking some books out of their Associates program, there was one category of books that seemed to get consistently whacked. Erotica. Not simply sapphic erotica, but ALL erotica.
Now, they’ve proven they can reenroll books into Associates because they did so with A Choreography of Longing and others.
So why is it when I click on erotica titles, most of them are still excluded?
For example (and for reference, all of the screenshots below were captured on March 30, 2026 and you must have an Associates account to see these details):
Or this:
Need another example?
Here’s an older erotica title that got whacked:
I think you get the picture.
The question is what should we make of this?
We noticed on March 18 that A Choreography of Longing was no longer tagged as “excluded.” When it had happened, I’d sent an email to Amazon Associates asking why it had been in the first place and essentially their response was we’re not sure but also, we can do whatever we like (they didn’t say it in those words, but that was how I interpreted what they did say).
Do you think they emailed me when it was back in the program? Nope.
We waited well over a week to see if there would be changes for the erotica books that were still demonetized, hoping they simply hadn’t gotten around to it. Sadly, when I started drafting this post on March 30, they still hadn’t. Does that mean they won’t? No. And we hope these books are allowed back into the Associates program. We don’t like seeing books with an excluded tag. It’s unsettling, especially given the fraught political times we’re living in.
Since Amazon has never explained what their intention is, we don’t really know what is going on. Which means we can only guess.
It does seem that erotica is still being targeted. Is that on purpose? I can’t say for sure. Was it the original purpose and they messed it up, sweeping in books that shouldn’t have been excluded? Again, I don’t know. Also, we want to reiterate we don’t think any category of books should be excluded from the Associates program.
What I do know is seeing so many erotica books being excluded makes me suspicious about their motives. The lack of communication from Amazon doesn’t put me at ease. It’s difficult to believe it’s a complete accident. It can be, but without any word from them, how can we truly know their motives?
What will IHS do going forward?
We rely on Amazon Associates as one of the ways to support the website. Saying that, we still plan to add erotica books to our database. We don’t know if linking to erotica puts our Associates in jeopardy because again, Amazon hasn’t explained themselves in language that can be understood by humans. Sure, they put out legalese that no one knows what they mean. When you ask for clarification, a representative will simply copy and paste the thing you didn’t understand in the first place. I think they do this, because they don’t understand it either.
Including wide links on IHS
When we realized that Amazon Associates was removing some books from the program, we knew we had to do something to counteract it. We had our website designers add other buy buttons instead of solely listing Amazon links. This is a time-intensive project, but I’m happy to report, I’ve updated hundreds of titles, adding more buy links.
If your books are wide, you can submit your wide links by using this form. I’ve set aside time each morning to work on the forms. Please note, your links won’t be added overnight, but I’m doing my best to get to them.
As of now, we have associates with Amazon (for the books they allow), Kobo, and Bookshop.org. We don’t have it with Apple or Barnes & Noble, but we’re still including those links, along with links to buy direct either from the publisher or author when that is available.
How can you help?
If you enjoy IHS and want to help us cover the costs of implementing the new changes, we’d sure appreciate it if you considered buying us a coffee or joining our Patreon. Even joining our Patreon for free is immensely helpful. Every little bit will help us navigate this new world we find ourselves in.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the erotica situation and will update the community if Amazon reverses course. Fingers crossed!
