The problem was first reported on Sunday by author , who noticed that his own book, "The Filly," and other gay-themed books had had their search rankings dropped.

His report set off a firestorm in the blogosphere, where some accused the company of anti-gay censorship.

On Monday, Amazon said that the glitch didn't have to do with only gay and lesbian titles. It affected 57,310 books worldwide "in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica."

The company is still in the process of fixing the problem, Amazon spokeswoman Patricia Smith said via e-mail on Monday.

That didn't prevent one man from claiming credit for the glitch. As bloggers complained that Amazon's explanation didn't adequately explain what had happened, a hacker going by the name of Weev by exploiting a common Web programming error on the Amazon site.