With money being the daily fuel of politics, many of us understand the power of voting with our pocketbooks. We rage at the propaganda aired by Disney/ABC, for example, and pledge to boycott the Mouse.
And then on our own websites, we sometimes forget the power of voting with our wallets. We forget the need to support local, independent stores in the face of growing corporatism. We may even write a book like, say, Crashing the Gate and go to local independent bookstores for readings and yet feature only the link to Amazon.com on our homepage. (If you want to support DailyKos by buying the book online, please go to CrashingTheGate.com and choose the Booksense.com option rather than following the Amazon.com link at the top of DailyKos.com.)
This diary shows that it is better for the customer and often for the website owner or blogger to use Booksense or Barnes & Noble. It then shows how Booksense can make our communities better places, why Barnes & Nobel is a good second choice, and why Amazon.com still runs last. If you have a website with an affiliate program, please make sure it supports your core mission. And whenever you shop, please spend your money with your politics in mind.
[Disclosure: I'm a member and volunteer for Raleigh Unchained: the Raleigh Independent Business Alliance. I was the part-time executive director for Raleigh Unchained, but we didn't get enough momentum going to continue paying any staff. The following is my personal opinion; RIBA is nonpartisan.]
First, a word about BookSense.com
Booksense.com was set up by the American Booksellers Association to make it affordable and convenient for independent bookstores to have an Internet presence. Yesterday, the ABA's Chief Operating Officer Oren Teicher told me that while Booksense.com works well for national sites like DailyKos.com, it really shines at allowing local organizations link to local stores. So your local chapter of The Yakking Liberals can sign up for an affiliate program and link directly to a friendly local bookstore.
But by default, Booksense.com customers are asked for their zip codes and then offered a choice of local bookstores. For example, people in Austin excited about the upcoming visit of Markos and Anthony would be directed to Book People or Book Woman, plus some other stores in nearby areas. Each individual store sets the price of the books and the shipping charges, if any. The local government, of course, sets the sales tax.
Price Comparisons
Here is the total price and the component prices for the paperback edition of Crashing the Gate. As described above, the Booksense stores set their own prices, so I just chose two examples: one of the store I would use and one found by Googling "Booksense".
If I join the member program and pick the book up, the total cost would be:
- $11.21 at Barnes & Noble (BN.com). That's $10.48 for the book plus $0.73 sales tax. The member program is $25 a year. There is a Barnes & Noble within a mile of a route I frequently take to visit family, so gas and time are not much of an issue.
- $12.47 at Quail Ridge Books, my local store as identified by Booksense.com. That's $11.65 for the book plus $0.82 sales tax. The member program is only $15 a year. In other words, you'd have to buy 8 books at B&N to make its member program a better deal than QRB's ... and that's on a personal financial basis. I live three block away from QRB, which is in my nearest shopping center, so it's very convenient.
For a book delivered to my house without a member program:
- $12.95 at Keplers.com, another Booksense.com book store. (Free shipping, no sales tax.)
- $13.96 at Amazon.com ($9.97 plus $3.99 shipping for standard, 3-5 day shipping, no sales tax)
- $14.36 at ChelseaGreen.com, the publisher ($10.36 plus $4.00 for shipping UPS ground, no sales tax)
- $16.73 at BN.com ($11.65 plus $3.99 shipping for standard 2 business days or less shipping plus $1.09 sales tax)
Affiliate Comparisons
Affiliate programs give commissions to referring websites. That's what all those "Support this site! Buy blah blah" banners are about. The commissions vary based on the volume of sales from each affiliate. Sell more, get more. Interestingly, credit for sales accumulates continuously with Booksense.com, but resets each quarter with Amazon.com and BN.com.
How much would DailyKos make per book sale of the Crashing the Gate paperback if it used the various affiliate programs?
- $0.64 - $0.81 from Booksense via Quail Ridge Books, from the BookSense.com affiliate program
- $0.71 - $0.90 from Booksense via Keplers (or via Quail Ridge Books for any customers who were not members of the Readers' Club)
- $0.39 - $0.84 from Amazon.com
- $0.52 to $0.99 from BN.com
So, an affiliate starts out making more per book through Booksense.com. The way the bonus structures currently work, the affiliate may make more with Booksense selling up to 940 books a quarter. (Even with the discounting Booksense seller, Booksense wins for the first 90 books and then is only down by a penny for up to 330 books a quarter.) Amazon.com pays more for 941 books up to 2,146 books a quarter. After that, it's a tossup between B&N and Amazon.com, depending on whether or not the customers join the B&N club.
Since Booksense doesn't start from zero every quarter, they also may pay more over time. The loyalty effect doesn't kick in for awhile, but a site that averages 10 or 100 books a day will do better after 3 years with Booksense. One that averages 200 a day will do better with Booksense after just a year and a half. The loyalty effect continues if you sold a bunch of books during your 15 minutes o' fame, and then drop down to a still lucrative trickle.
Why Booksense.com should be the first choice for website owners & bloggers
Booksense supports independent bookstores as near as possible to a customer's community. This is a good for several reasons:
- Only brick and mortar stores can host author visits and other community events. Quail Ridge Books, for example, hosted Markos and Jerome when they visited Raleigh, providing people to meet them at the airport, let the local Progressive Dems have a reception at the store with the authors and invite our local candidates, helped coordinate press coverage, and more. It was invigorating to have Markos and Jerome visit. (Thanks so much, guys!) It never would have happened without a bookstore as a sponsor.
- Studies in Austin and Maine show that shopping at a local independent store keeps about 45% of the customer's money in his or her community, thus paying for parks, schools, the fire department, social services, and the like. Shopping at a chain, such as going directly to a Barnes & Noble store, will keep about 13% of the money in the community. Shopping at a strictly online service like Amazon is great for the Seattle area but worth essentially nothing to your local community. (Learn more from the American Independent Business Alliance.)
- Having a diverse set of stores and store owners makes it easier to do good things like have an overall larger selection of books, discover new authors, provide good local jobs, and promote local tastes.
- Having a diverse set of stores and store owners makes it harder to do bad things, like refusing to sell certain books (economic censorship) or creating a single source of data about a huge number of customers, which could be mined by the government or exploited by criminals. For those of us who are concerned about the rise of corporatism, having many small businesses are simply safer than a few big businesses.
- From an environmental point of view, it's much better to drop by a bookstore on your way somewhere than to have a big truck roar up your street to deliver it.
And finally, Booksense.com gives your customers a choice of bookstores, which means you don't lose sales to people who don't support Amazon.com (or BN.com, for that matter). The 8% commission on no sale is nothing.
What's wrong with Amazon.com?
I was an early and big customer of Amazon.com. I loved the convenience and the community aspects, such as the book reviews and ratings. But I quit not just to support my local stores, but also to stop supporting the Republican Party. In the 2004 election cycle, according to BuyBlue.org, Amazon.com donated $106,250 to federal candidates, of which $62,250 -- 59% -- went to Republicans. This includes $2000 to Richard Burr (R-NC), who ran against a candidate I was supporting to take John Edwards' former seat. Burr won. It also includes $1000 to Rick (shudder) Santorum (R-PA). See the list of recipients at OpenSecrets.com.
The good news is that so far in 2006, the Amazon PAC has contributed more to Democratic candidates. But 48% of their contributions still went to Republicans.
What about Barnes & Noble?
On the other hand, the leaders of Barnes & Noble contributed 92% of their money to Democrats in the 2004 election cycle, none to Republicans, and $8,000 to Ralph Nader. So far in 2006, Chairman Leonard Riggio and his wife have contributed $23,400: 40% to Democrats and 51% to Ralph Nader, and 9% to Joe Lieberman (after Joe lost the primary).
Voting with your wallet for a Democratic majority
In Crashing the Gate, Jerome and Markos take NARAL to task for supporting a pro-choice Republican over an anti-choice Democrat. They are astonished by NARAL:
... it seemed obvious that a Democrat—anyDemocrat—would be preferrable to a Republican for progressive organizations
If this is true for PAC money coming directly from an organization, shouldn't it also be true for PAC money coming from a major business partner? I'd say yes. Let's do everything in our power, every day, to elect a Democratic majority, including choosing to shop local and shop blue.