Updated, 17.36

ONLINE RETAILER AMAZON has pulled a controversial self-published e-book from its listings less than an hour after the publication made it into its top 100 bestsellers.

Last night, Amazon said it had no plans to remove The Pedophile’s Guide to Love & Pleasure from its site as it was not in breach of the site’s terms of service.

Amazon told TheJournal.ie: “Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.”

Andrew Madden, a survivor of clerical sex abuse said it was “a great concern” that the book would be available to anyone who might take it as an endorsement of their child abusing activities.

Madden particularly criticised the author’s suggestions of rules paedophiles should follow to ensure getting a lighter sentence if caught.

The book was added to the store two week’s ago, causing customers in the US to boycott the store until its removal.

TechCrunch reports this morning that the book has been pulled and its link now directs users to a 404 error page.

Amazon has, so far, declined to issue comment as to why it had taken down the book – after yesterday telling TheJournal.ie that the site did not ‘censor’ books, instead asking its users to exercise their own judgement about what they buy.

The book had earlier appeared to be taken down, then was back up, then back down. TechCrunch explained this could be caused by requested being directed to “datacenters where the book is still there”.

Gawker reports that the book’s author said he had only sold one copy of his guide to being a child predator before the story broke across multiple news outlets, pushing sales up by over 101,000%.