BAFAB the cash cow

In a discussion of book swapping sites some time back marydell of bookblog.net went into a strange rant against, well, me. Stumbling upon it rather surprised me, as I have, as far as I know, never had any contact with the author. So it seems an odd thing that I should have inspired such odium. At any rate, she writes, regarding the book-swapping site Bookins:

$3.99 per book you receive and they provide mailing labels, including postage, for the books you send. I was almost tempted to try it when I made the mistake of looking at the "Our Favorite Sites" page. BAFAB is the first link on their alphabetical list, an idea I find to be the most stupid book meme ever. First of all, you don't need a made-up week to buy a friend a book. Its creator writes terrible reviews fawning over terrible books. And, it's no coincidence that BAFAB weeks happen to coincide with the start of each Amazon Associates fiscal quarter. I know Bookins has nothing to do with it, but I had to close the window anyway.

Clearly, marydell does not like my book reviews, which is of course her right, though I would suggest at least that not all the books I review are terrible--you're welcome to decide for yourself--or that, at least, I tend not to actually fawn over the terrible ones. It's also true, as marydell writes, that "you don't need a made-up week to buy a friend a book." Very true! I would like on the same grounds--please, God--to eliminate Christmas from the holiday schedule, as one certainly doesn't need a holiday, made up some time ago, to give people presents or get together with your family.

Now, I wanted to address two points here. (1) BOOKINS -- It is, as marydell herself notes, rather unreasonable of her to belittle Bookins because of its mention of my site. Bookins is an excellent book trading site--well designed and smoothly operating, with unbeatable customer service. Her rant against it is a little odd and quite unfair. I urge people who are looking to trade books online to try Bookins out, as I've only had good experiences with the site. (2) FINANCES -- Marydell asserts that "it's no coincidence that BAFAB weeks happen to coincide with the start of each Amazon Associates fiscal quarter." Apart from the fact that it is a coincidence, well, the year does divide up nicely into four relatively equal quarters, and I guess I'm not the first to have noticed that. Sorry. But whether it corresponds to Amazon's fiscal quarter or not is irrelevant. Apparently marydell is under the impression that one makes more off of Amazon links at the beginning of a quarter than at other times during the quarter. As far as I know, this isn't the case. So her point makes absolutely no sense to me.

On the other hand, marydell is correct to assume that I would like to make money off of the BAFAB site, and it's true that to that end I have links to Amazon on the site as well as Google ads. So, curious, I tallied up my earnings in this grand scheme.

I started the site in mid-2005. (And note that this is far from my first site, and far from my first site with Amazon links. In other words, I knew what to expect regarding earnings, more or less, going into the project.) Here's what I've earned to date, in not quite two years:

From Amazon links: $26.15
From ads: $0.20
Total earnings: $26.35

But wait! There are expenses associated with the site, to wit, registration of the domain name via GoDaddy, which I believe I've spent $8.95 per year on. So let's say, for a year and a half of the domain name, I've spent about $13.00. Added to that are the countless hours I've spent designing and maintaining the site and publicizing it and contacting authors and organizing contests, as well as the expenses I've incurred by giving away books during each BAFAB Week, and I'd say I'm pretty clearly in the red here.

BAFAB, alas, is not a money-making venture, and it wasn't designed to be (not that there's anything wrong with that, and, please, do go off and buy some books through my links). But I did rather think it was a nice idea, as my site suggests, to promote books and (more-or-less) spontaneous generosity with a fun, and dare I say harmless, made-up holiday. Enjoy! BAFAB Week starts in only three days.

Tags: BAFAB, bookblog.net, Buy a Friend a Book

Comments

[Susan]

Oh, Debra, I'm sorry you've been so unfairly attacked! From my observation it's the *best* bloggers who seem to be targetted. I think it's a mean-spirited attempt to drag you down to the level of the attacker.

As to your book reviews, they are exactly what I prefer. You are courteous to the author (civilized behaviour) and you give a very nice synopsis of each book. The discerning visitor is able to 'read between the lines' to make any purchasing decisions. You review a book without delivering the kind of cheap shots you've just received.

[Tom]

I wonder if she is jealous because you own the domain book-blog.com. As far as your reviews go, I think that you do tend to give good reviews to bad books but so what? Reviewing is based on opinions and everyone has the right to their opinion. And certainly your reviews are not terrible. I think they are very well written.

As far as making money from amazon, most associates don't make very much. Sites need to generate a huge volume of visitors to make money. My Down syndrome site has made $3,700 from amazon in the last 5 years. The reason I have been able to generate some decent revenue is because (1) people that come to my site are looking for information so they are interested in finding books (2) the forums make my site sticky so people tend to be regular visitors and tend to spend a lot of time on the site.

[Debra Hamel]

I think her site predates mine, and certainly predates my getting the domain.

But as for bad books, I think the deal is that there are few books that I don't find something to like about. One may have terrible dialogue but a great plot, or no plot but beautiful writing. This is why I almost never give up on a book, because I rarely hate them. On the other hand, I'm not afraid to criticize what I don't like about books, and I believe I do so regularly.

[Maxine]

I wonder if she hadn't fully appreciated what BAFAB is all about? I know it took me a while to get it, as I kepts seeing all the banners everywhere before discovering your blog, and it confused me in that I didn't really get what you were supposed to do -- I was not familiar with blogging then. I just wonder if there was some confusion in her post, as I have encountered her quite a bit in the past few months and she's been reasonable in several fierce disputes. I hope she'll read your post and clarify some of the points she made -- she's certainly on the wrong track about the revenue!

I sometimes read a book that I find very poor, and I don't like to write a totally damning review, so I tend not to review it at all. The last one I read that I thought a waste of time was one that another blogger had reviewed positively, so I thought to myself that some people evidently do and will like it, so it does not need a global health warning, and concluded that the world will probably not benefit one jot from me slagging off the book, so just kept silent. I prefer to review a book that I think others might like to read, and I enjoy collecting up positive reviews of books I think I might like to. I wouldn't bother collecting up negative reviews!

[Debra Hamel]

Tom, your Amazon earnings are very good. I haven't yet hit $200 in any year from all my sites combined.

[Maxine]

Yes, I'm always scared when I get that monthly email from Amazon, as I am convinced they are going to tell me I owe them money.

Luckily, so far each month it has told me my account is zero.

[Kimmy]

Wow, I am just amazed by this!

I for one, think BAFAB is a wonderful idea and I cannot fathom how anyone could think otherwise. Also, I love your book reviews. It doesn't matter whether I agree with every review or not, I still appreciate your opinion.

[Debra Hamel]

Amazon.com has just gone to monthly rather than quarterly payments, in fact.

Kimmy and Susan, I really appreciate what you have to say here. Thanks!

Maxine, yes, some people take that non-reviewing approach. I review everything, myself. If I finish it, if I've put the time into it, I figure I'm going to review it. And I finish virtually every book I start, with very, very few exceptions. The thing is, I don't know, if you point out the good and the bad and not get nasty about it (which I know you don't, but some do), then you've served a purpose. Certainly I'm not always dissuaded from reading a book by bad reviews, as whatever troubled the reviewer may not be the sort of thing that troubles me. Or because I want to see for myself. But at least in reviewing it you're giving the book some exposure.

But I can see the case for not bothering to review something you don't want to recommend, also.

[Tom]

Just to agree with Kimmy, I also think BAFAB week is a great idea. I was going to comment on the bookblog.net post but apparently you can't comment on old posts.

Bad reviews can be very helpful if they are written to explain why the reviewer doesn't like the book. When I write a negative review I try to write as if I was explaining to the author why I didn't like the book. I feel responsible to explain exactly what was wrong with the book. I think reviewers who only write positive reviews are not helping their readers. By sharing both the good and the bad, your readers get to know what kind of books you like so they can judge better whether your opinion is likely to be the same as theirs. Also by having both good and bad reviews for a book, readers can get a better idea about a book.

An example is the book "Rats". Debra and I have both reviewed the book and given it very different reviews. If you only had one of our reviews, I think you would get a more limited opinion of the book.

[Debra Hamel]

Thanks, Tom. You write, "When I write a negative review I try to write as if I was explaining to the author why I didn't like the book." I think that's probably just what's in the back of my mind. Actually, I've written some negative reviews of books and had the authors thank me for them--not just polite, professional thank yous, I mean, but they were pleased with the constructive criticism. I do very much want to be constructive rather than snarky in my reviews, recognizing that, as someone once put it, no one's out there *trying* to produce a bad book, and there's no point to the hostility. You can be critical without being nasty.

Are there any other books we've overlapped on that I don't know about, Tom?

[Tom]

Only overlap: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. We both liked it.

[Maxine]

Thanks for your comment to my comment, Debra. I have recently started reviewing for Karen of Eurocrime, and have just had my first experience of "having" to review a book that I didn't think good. (I don't "have" to review it, but I had agreed with Karen that I would and the publisher sent me a review copy, and in my book that makes me "have" to review it). I think she'll post the review this weekend so I'll send you a link and you can tell me what you think. I certainly agree that a constructively critical review is very useful, particualarly for non-fiction, which is not so subjective. We publish a lot of that type of review on nature where someone has got their science wrong, for example. But for a book like one I read recently, that was basically (in my opinion) a piece of derivative marketing trash, why give it the publicity of even a bad review? Time is too short to add the time of reviewing to the time of reading in a case like that. Sometimes, I can see no benefit to publishing a bad review -- though I could see how this particular book might appeal to some and could have written about that, I did not want to give this whole marketing exercise any more of my time than I'd already spent on it.

Has Marydell responded yet? If not, shall I send her a link to your post?

[Tom]

Maxine, the reason to write a review of a bad book is so that I don't have to waste a week of MY life reading a book that sucks. The benefit of a review is to the reader of the review.

[Debra Hamel]

Hi, Maxine. Yes, do send the review link when it's up. I'll have to take a closer look at Eurocrime. As for Marydell, you can do whatever you want with that. I imagine she'll see it sometime, given the posting at metaxu.

[Maxine]

OK, Tom: Shadow Man by Corey McFadyn. Don't bother.
Will that do? (I agree with you about the point to the reader, but the poor reviewer still has to spend time writing the review!)
On the other hand, I can highly recommend Bad Luck and Trouble, Lee Child's latest, if you like Jack Reacher. Very easy reading for someone who is recuperating.

[Maxine]

PS I loved "Curious Incident" too, but as I read it pre-blogging, have not reviewed it.

[Kathleen]

Quite the shrewish attack. And cynical. Never mind, your book-loving spirit will not be broken. Rock on Debra. (And yes, I am still on the planet!) Love from Kathleen

[Debra Hamel]

Maxine -- For me the time spent writing the review is far shorter than the time spent reading the book. And I don't mind the writing process at all.

Kathleen!!!! Sigh.... Listen, I was thinking, if you won't blog, will you Twitter? Is Mark in college yet?