Kuo-Yu Liang of Diamond Book Distributors told ICv2 that Diamond does not sell books directly to Wal-Mart for the mega-retailer's online store.  Liang told ICv2 that Wal-Mart, like a number of other online retailers, imports a huge database of books from a major book wholesaler (such as Ingram or Baker and Taylor).  The database includes all the titles available from Diamond Book Distributors as well as those available from hundreds of other sources.  When someone orders a book repped by Diamond Book Distributors at Wal-Mart online, the middleman gets the books from Diamond and sends them to whoever does the fulfillment for Wal-Mart.  According to Liang, 'There are probably thousands of titles in that database that could potentially offend Wal-Mart's management -- they just don't have any idea of what's there.'

 

Yamila Abraham of Yaoi Press told ICv2 that the situation with Wal-Mart was 'the result of a glitch in their filtering system.'  'The three Yaoi Hentai titles are the only real 'adult' (18+) titles we publish,' she said.  'They have 'adults only' disclaimers on both the front and back covers and they are shrink-wrapped.  The descriptions we supplied to Diamond Book Distributors (and which Wal-Mart used) clearly state that the books are for adults only.'