E-commerce giant Amazon has introduced a separate category of disability fiction in adult’s section for books on its site.
The move comes following a change in Thema, a code followed by publishers and retailers. The inclusion has also received a thumbs up from authors who have been campaigning for the same.
The authors Penny Batchelor and Victoria Scott launched the campaign, highlighting the lack of a specific category. Their debut novels ‘My Perfect Sister’ and ‘Patience’, featuring disabled characters, did not get classified in any category.
According to news reports, Amazon said the move was in line with updated Thema codes used by the industry. News reports quoted a spokesperson as saying, “Amazon has added a Disability Fiction category under (Adult) Fiction. This is in addition to the other disability categories already in place, e.g. Children’s Physical Disabilities or Young Adult Disabilities. Once publishers use the Thema codes in their books’ metadata, those titles will appear within this new classification.”
