Yaoi sales strong at Amazon

Well, this is interesting. ICV2.com reports that yaoi titles from Digital Manga and Central Park Media make up a significant part of Amazon.com's manga bestseller list. The retailer website notes that they are three of the top five, four of the top 10, and six of the top 15 as of Nov. 7:

#2 Desire (Digital Manga)
#3 Selfish Love: Book 1 (CPM)
#4 Golden Cain (CPM)
#8 Passion: Volume 1 (Digital Manga)
#12 Only the Ring Finger Knows (Digital Manga)
#13 Selfish Love: Book 2 (CPM)

ICv2 compares the list to Bookscan's, and finds none of these titles appears on the breakdown of top graphic novels. So, why the difference? ICv2 takes a stab at it:

"We can only speculate, but we see a couple of factors at work. One is that purchasers of these yaoi titles may prefer the privacy and relative anonymity of purchases made through an online seller, rather than by interaction with a retail clerk. But perhaps more importantly, display and merchandising may be a factor in the brick and mortar stores. Neither Digital Manga nor CPM have the merchandising clout or number of titles as the publishers with titles at the top of the graphic novel lists, and it may also be that the Digital Manga and CPM yaoi titles are available in fewer stores or less prominently displayed because of their content. But given that Gravitation and Fake (another Tokyopop yaoi title) have done fairly well in bookstores, it seems that if display is a factor, it's probably more a matter of the publishers involved than the content."