Jeffrey Bezos,

Chairman, President, and CEO Amazon.com Inc.

1200 12th Ave. South, Suite 1200

Seattle, WA 98144-2734

Dear Mr. Bezos,

I’m writing you as the Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org. We're the nation’s largest online civil rights organization with more than one million people working for positive social change and racial progress. As one of the largest booksellers, and the largest ebook retailer, the power of Amazon to influence the success or failure of products cannot be overstated. How a book is classified, listed, and ranked by genre, section, or algorithmic determination directly affect how many copies are sold. 74% of all US ebook purchases and 71% of all US consumer dollars spent on ebooks go through Amazon’s website. Yet under the current genre specific sections there is no section specifically for Black people or people of color. We would like you to add categories to further increase the visibility of diverse speculative fiction, defined as science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres.  

The lack of these sections causes difficulties for readers shopping for diverse speculative fiction.  If they would like to learn about other books or authors, they can only rely on suggested books either by people they know, articles, or the internal Amazon algorithm.  This can cause many books and authors to go unnoticed. In addition, when the genre specific categories are used to search, diverse works are lost among all of the works.  Other than looking at covers, there is no way to quickly find diverse books. This further increases the frustration of readers when seeking out new material.

The lack of a section specific to Black authors or other authors of color writing speculative fiction leaves many books and authors unknown to their desired audiences. As the largest and one of the most influential booksellers, Amazon should take the lead in showing that they hear and understand the desires of their customers. By creating a speculative fiction section under the diversity categories for people of color as well as creating a section featuring works about people of color under the speculative fiction categories, you can help facilitate and further promote diversity in reading.

Currently, there is no specific way to find science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories written by or featuring Black people as main characters when browsing Amazon’s online stores. Additionally, when the genre specific categories are used to search, works by Black authors are lost among results with no way to sort them out specifically. Even within the African American literature section, there are no sub-genre headings for science fiction, fantasy, or horror. You have a reputation as a businessman who is responsive and decisive, and prides himself on solving problems that others barely perceive. I have no doubt that you will recognize the issue the hand and bring your talents to bear in solving it and ensuring that Amazon retains its place as the largest bookseller and one that truly serves the needs of the market.

Sincerely,

Rashad Robinson

Executive Director

ColorOfChange.org