No "Duck Dynasty" In A Skirt: The Saga Of Linda Harvey, Amazon And "Maybe He's NOT Gay"

No Mystery, Just Bad Reviews and Inept Publishing

The saga of one of the shortest book lives on Amazon is: "Maybe He's NOT Gay" by Mission America's Linda Harvey was pulled from Amazon less than week after its debut. In what seemed to be a possible "Duck Dynasty" censorship hitting the book world, the MSM took to the laptops and declared that Amazon had pulled the book because of cries from the LGBT community.

One comment:

"That Amazon.com would sell such a potentially dangerous book full of anti-gay propaganda to an already at-risk group of LGBT youth and their parents by a well known radical hate group leader is beyond disgusting."

But in this corner:

Illinois Family Institute

        "Linda is one of my heroes in the pro-family Christian movement. She is a former journalist and media executive who now is a sought after speaker and hosts a national radio show based out of Ohio. Hidden within this attractive, professional woman, is a real stick of dynamite. She has more courage in one pinky finger than many people have in their whole body. She isn’t easily intimidated and doesn’t back away from a debate over truth with anyone. Linda chose to pull her book from Amazon. Homosexual activists have quickly twisted that into a lie that Amazon pulled the book because of its harmful or inaccurate content."

Unfortunately, Ms. Harvey seems to have backed away from a debate over truth" with this book. She didn't have the courage to stick things out long enough for good reviews from her fans.

Christian Post

       "Harvey, author of the book and head of the Ohio-based conservative organization Mission America, told The Christian Post on Friday that it was removed from the website at her request.

"I saw the rotten reviews, a smear campaign by those who had not read the book, and the publisher attempted to get Amazon to pull the ad hominem reviews, but they were not immediately responsive," said Harvey.

"So, since the book is brand new and I didn't want it to be harmed by this uninformed and vicious campaign stimulated by 'gay' bloggers, I decided to pull the page for now."

And on other sites:

     "And these hysteria-generators dredged up every fabrication about Mission America that’s ever been written, and then the pink mob descended on the book page on Amazon and without having read the book, wrote vicious, insulting reviews."

Mystery Solved: Harvey Is Totally Inept At Publishing

So was Amazon really at fault for the book being pulled, torpedoing the book by publishing (purposely) the worst reviews? Who were those ad hominem reviewers/bloggers? Was Micah Clark of the Christian Post (above) right in saying that homosexual activists "twisted ...into a lie that Amazon pulled the book"? This episode in anti-gay/anti-Christian animus raises a lot of questions.

But the biggest question for this former author and publisher is: does Harvey know anything about publishing a book? All the signs of ineptitude are there:

• Maybe He's NOT Gay is self-published. Googling Penrhyn Press turns up zilch. It has no website to promote its one title. The only promotion, in fact, for the book seems to be on Mission: America's webpage. This gives rise to the assumption that Harvey may have tried to get the book published by a (reputable) publisher, but didn't find one - not even a Christian book publisher. Couldn't she have enlisted someone like Pat Robertson to help her find a publisher? 
• There is no publication date for the book. (!?!) WTF? Are copies in print without this info? Standard procedure for a publication is that a copy be sent to the Library of Congress, but it must have a publication date. It must have a publication date for reviewers. It has an ISBN # (9781629030104), but no publication date? Weird.
• Few (if any) legitimate book reviewers received review copies of the book (or manuscript pages). The only statement of future publication came from Harvey herself. 
• Asking Amazon to pull the bad reviews is bad form. Pulling the book because of bad reviews on Amazon is worse. Citing a conspiracy from any group to trash the book is absurd. 

Another possibility: Harvey couldn't fire up enough "good" reviewers/friends for Amazon reviews. Just wait: her second Amazon page will have gobs.

Her friends are very slow readers.