I've had some problems with Amazon lately. Nothing too awful, and nothing I want to go into here*, but bad enough for me to start looking at other places to make my purchases. Most of my purchases tend to be books. And though I've used various online bookstores for some time now**, I'd have to admit that Amazon tends to be my Go To place, even when it comes to buying Used Books. But since The Trouble*, I've started to reconsider that choice...and as of about 4 a.m. this morning I have decided that I will probably not buy any more books from Amazon, and definitely will not buy any more Used Books from them.
I woke up from a rather dissettling dream (at fo--...you guessed it) and, knowing that I would not be going back to sleep, picked up my Kindle and read Christoffer Petersen's Camp Century. (A most excellent story, by the way. More on that elsewhere as well.) When I finished, I popped over for a look at my Facebook feed and saw a story about Better World Books. I have been a Better World Books customer for some time now. Not only do they have a large selection & good (often the best) prices, but they are also a company which attempts to do some good in the world: "...it donates books or a percentage of its profit to literacy programs around the world. As of 2013, the company had donated an estimated $14 million under this program." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_World_Books) I also lived in the Mishawaka / South Bend Indiana area for a year and a half, where the company originated, so it has that pull for me as well. So I watched the video (HERE) that had been posted on Facebook. And when it hit the frame which you see pictured above, I had to pause it, back it up, and listen again. With reference to Amazon, Dustin Holland, President and CEO of Better World Books, told the interviewer this: "They take 40% of every dollar, so if we sell a $10 book, $4 goes to Amazon. If we sell a $10 book on Better World Books that money goes back into the company and we're able to do more, support our employees, and give back and donate more books around the world. [For every book bought directly from Better World Books]...we donate a book to somebody in need."
Mr. Holland also talked about how the company has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Robinson Community Learning Center in South Bend, and says that they have donated close to 30 million books worldwide to date. (Which is more than twice the number reported on the Wikipedia page, by the way.) ***
But of course the salient point is this: Amazon is taking a huge cut of the profits away from Better World Books...a company which uses a healthy portion of its profits to make the world a better place.
Hmmm. That would be scanned.
Okay, done scanning. Fuck Amazon. Make Mine Better World Books. In fact, ahmo go buy some stuff from them right now. Speaking of which, here's another big bonus so far as I'm concerned: you can pay via PayPal. And after getting burned by Amazon with respect to my account security*, that's a big plus.
P.S. After I'd completed today's purchase ($15.98 for three books: Apache Devil by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Saints for Girls by Solveig Muus and Bart Tesoriero, and This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich...which neatly breaks down to one for Joe, one for Jacqueline, and one for me--respectively)...I received the message that my Better World Books purchases had resulted in 23 books being donated.
So there's that.
👣🎵
* Though I will go into it elsewhere, out of a sense of civic duty coupled with my anger at the ineptitude and disdain displayed by a half-dozen members of the Amazon team.
** Better World Books, Thrift Books, Alibris, AbeBooks, Biblio.com are my go tos, though of course ebay has been known to have its charms as well.
*** In attempting to verify the figure, I ended up on the Better World Books' Our Impact page (who'd have thunk it?) and found these (running) totals: 26,502,000 Books Donated, 28,430,000 Funds raised for literacy & libraries, & 320,019,014 Books reused or recycled. So suck on that, Wikipedia.
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