Dear Readers,
As of today, this blog now has a widget to sell books through Amazon.com. I’ve been running a completely non-monetized blog for about eighteen months. I doubt I will ever earn more than a few dollars a month but I am hoping that this Amazon widget will at least slightly offset some of the costs of this blog. I’ve been pouring my own income into giveaways, the blog hosting and the services to keep it going, and travels for store reviews.
There are only four books highlighted by this Amazon widget:
- Onward: How Starbucks Fought for its Life without Losing its Soul (Howard Schultz)
- Pour Your Heart Into It (Howard Schultz)
- The Starbucks Experience (Joseph Michelli)
- It’s Not About The Coffee (Howard Behar)
Howard Schultz’s new book (Onward) will be released to the public on March 29, 2011, and you can pre-order it now on Amazon.com. I am asking you to consider that if you are going to be buying Onward, to please buy it through the StarbucksMelody.com widget. You can buy the latest book, and in a very small way, help support this blog.
Thank you!
Best regards,
Melody
33 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Socialize
I think you more than deserve to at least try and cover some of your losses on this hobby!
I hope it works out well, and it fits very much with the theme so i don’t think it’s distracting or detracting at all
Another thought- I have been in SB stores where partners were borrowed from other stores and have never seen those borrowed partners acting in the way they did in Texas. And such poor management to have all the store partners go to one event together!
My above comment was somehow placed in this thread sorry for that since it was meant to be placed in the Austin LEED store review. Re the amazon widget- I agree with AmazonV.
Melody: I think this a great idea and totally deserved! (you should get $$$$)
Great idea! I hope this helps at least a little…after all, you do now have a mortgage! 😉
I’m in! You should add a general affiliate link too so that you can earn from other purchases too.
Interesting…Amazon listed the Kindle eBook version of this book at $13.xx a few days ago but clicking your link reveals a $9.99 price. I wonder what it will show in March!
I still don’t know what a widget is and I probably will die without knowing too.
I just bought a scooter and some books from amazon and accessed amazon.com by clicking on one of the books in your widget hoping you’ll get the credit, but I think you need a general affiliate link instead of a direct item link.
(@Steve – the widget is the Amazon box with rotating book selections and it sends the user to the corresponding amazon page and gives Melody credit (payment) for a portion of the proceeds of the book purchase)
@CD – I realize now that anyone who clicks through Amazon using my widget, regardless of whether they’re buying books, or anything else, gets me a credit. So it doesn’t matter if you are looking for books on Starbucks, clothing or electronics, … if you use my widget on this page, I’ll end up with a credit.
I wasn’t really sure of the way it worked when I started this, but now I get it.
Melody, that’s good! 😀
I have yet to see a wigdet.
@Steve – on the right hand side, scroll past the email “subscribe” button and the “Melody Recommends” is the Amazon widget. If you use that to access Amazon.com, Melody will receive a small portion of your purchase amount that she can use to offset the cost of maintaining this blog.
@Melody – I just signed up for an Amazon Prime trial so I’ll be sure to hit your blog before I make any purchases.
Oh so that is a widget. Thanks CD. I thought for a while I was missing a good part of my education and I’d die not knowing what a widget was. Does she get a portion of anything bought from Amazon or just these 5 items? Melody does such a good service with this blog, not to mention her overwhelming generousity, she deserves some compensation. Actuallly I thing Starbucks should help out too since the blog is about Starbucks but that’s only my opinion.
@Steve – I think Melody recently said in a comment that she gets compensation from any purchase derived from a link from her widget. I certainly hope that’s the case.
BTW, anyone who is a frequent Amazon shopper, the Prime program now includes free moving streaming for about 5,000 TV and movie titles. The program runs $79 and upgrades all shipping to free second day air delivery. And you’ll be supporting two Seattle icons (Amazon and Melody) if not also Starbucks!
Now back to your regularly scheduled blog…
Sure, I’ll support the new Seattle icon!
@CD and @Steve and @LatteRose and @Karldotcom – Thanks for your support. Yes, I got a small earnings from ALL the clicks that come through that Amazon widget. Time to buy Onward. 😉
Thanks to CD I now know what a widget is. I looked widget up in my on line dictionery and it said it was a gadget or contriveance which left me as befuddled as ever.
@DeniseR and everyone – Denise in another thread you seem to say the Amazon widget was missing?? I still see it. Is it gone for anyone else?
Still there for me.
Re missing widget – earlier today (Saturday morning) the widget was missing – I think it had to do with a twitter load problem – the rest of the page had loaded – but your twitter comment and the widget were missing. I tried two different threads and same result – and the page (on my Mac continued to try to load for several minutes).
It’s back now.
Regarding missing widget — if you are using any ad blocking plug-ins (I use Adblock Plus) it will not allow the widget to show. You can disable ad blocking for a page or a site.
Good for you!!!
You run a great site,you deserve a little cash for all your work!!
it happened for me (missing widget) as CD wrote: it was always there, and then sometime yesterday…it was gone. (along with your twitter remark). Later it was back, as it is now, and I’ve already used it.
@DadCooks: thanx for your attempt at helping ….always appreciated. But, in this case, it was as I just wrote, and as CD said, think it had to do with twitter. or whatever.
@AmyNelson – thanks! I appreciate the props! @deniseR and dadcooks – Let me know again if the widget goes missing. A few people have used it. I’ve had two people buy Onward (one bought the Kindle version)! In any case, ANY purchases made through that widget count.
I bought Bisquick! (gluten free) So you really can buy anything through the widget! 😉
Oops! I had forgotten about this and had not been using it lately. Note to self, the URL for amazon.com is http://www.starbucksmelody.com...
@CD – Thanks! Actually, it’s tough to make any money on ads on a blog. I don’t want to litter the site with google ad sense ads – They look awful in content. And that amazon.com widget doesn’t attract any attention. I think I’ve made like $50 the whole year, at most. But hopefully more people will notice it! 🙂
As I said before Melody, and I wouldn’t hesitate telling Howard or anyone else at Starbucks, that you should receive some compensation from very wealthy Starbucks since your blog is all about Starbucks and features Starbucks stores and news.
Adding to Steve’s comment, I would think that Starbucks would put a “click thru” ad on your page since you present a very positive and informative service for Starbucks. Starbucks could even use it for special “insider” sales.
@Steve @DadCooks and @CD – Generally speaking, here’s how I see the situation. If Starbucks really compensated me for this blog, I would totally lose the ability to write any kind of article where I say, “I am disappointed with …” or “I have reservations about …” or “this could be improved if …” If you look at the MyStarbucksIdea.com blogs, they are almost a little boring because they have that sort of artificial flavor where every choice, decision, and product is wonderful.
It would be sort of great to get some money compensation somehow from this blog, but I don’t see any obvious way to do that. I could sell it to Starbucks, and it would totally change character, and there is ZERO reason for them to buy it – They definitely have the ability to produce their own content. They have no reason to buy it. They know how to make better content already.
When you add up hosting, domain name, fees to Kelly for her computer work, and my giveaways now and then, all I do is lose money. I guess I am okay with that because money isn’t the reason for me to have a blog.
Definitely, I’ve gotten a number of free gifts here and there from Starbucks – free half pounds of coffee, the juice tasting …I got a free t-shirt (the white one with the coffee spill!) – http://www.starbucksmelody.com/2011/09/25/nordstrom-is-now-selling-starbucks-inspired-designer-t-shirts/ — and there have been other times I’ve had to legally disclose free product. It’s a nice thank you and I do appreciate it!
So in the end, I cycle back to the place I started – I don’t want google ads on the blog. The Amazon.com is the only thing I have to at least somewhat off set the blog costs, but since I’ve never made more than $50 on the widget, it’s just a tiny off set (though much appreciated!!), and as to Starbucks, they’re not going to put me on a salary, and I’d have to be living in some fantasyland to think they’d pay me for this work. I do try keep the blog uplifting and fun, avoid certain kinds of topics (like the nyc guy wants to pleasure himself in every Starbucks bathrooms) but you can see how I talk in circles! Now if Starbucks wants to give me a big check and let me keep my journalistic independence, how could I turn that down? 😛 ha!
Upshot – Please use the amazon.com widget! Thank you!