Back in the early days of the blog, I tried keeping a page of recommended resources for folks, and I meant to add to it whenever I recommended a new one. That way if someone had a question, for example, about what Bible translation or Greek study tool I recommend, they could look on the recommendations page and find out.
This proved to be impractical. Blogging software is not set up to make maintaining this kind of page easy, and it proved too difficult and cumbersome to fish the page out of the archives and add to it (and remember to do this), and so the page fell into desuetude.
Things change fast on the Internet, though, and Amazon.com has now come up with a tool that allows me to do this kind of thing much more easily. They call the tool an "aStore," and they introduced it in a beta version a few months ago, asking people to test it out and give them feedback. I tested it out, and knew immediately that it wasn’t anywhere near flexible enough to be very useful, but they’ve now added new functionality that allows me to use it for the kind of standing recommendations page that I’d wanted early on.
In other words, I don’t have to fight the software any more, trying to press it into a purpose it’s not designed for. With the aStore, I can quickly and easily add products that I recommend or that I think readers may be interested in.
So this weekend I reorganized and expanded the store to include a variety of categories and products. Over time, I’ll add more, as well as adding reviews for products I feel particularly strongly about.
There is one category in particular, I’d like to call attention to. This category is called In The Mail, and I’m using it for products that publishers have sent me review copies of. To try to get the word out about their books, DVDs, CDs, or what have you, publishers generally send out review copies to media outlets–magazines, newspapers, TV and radio shows, and now blogs.
So every so often I get an unexpected book or DVD in the mail with a note from the publisher saying, "We thought that your readers might be interested in this, and we hope that you’ll enjoy this review copy and perhaps let your readers know about it."
And most of the time (not all of the time), the publishers are right and it is something I think readers would be interested in. I might not be interested in it myself, but I can see how others would be. A good example would be The Catholic Home by Meredith Gould. This is a book about Catholic traditions and activities for things that your family can do at different times in the liturgical year and when a family member is preparing to receive a particular sacrament. Since I don’t have a family at the moment, this kind of book isn’t of much use to me, but since most folks are more fortunate than I am family-wise, I can see how it would be of interest to a lot of readers.
And so, as long as I think that the product would be interesting to people and as long as a quick look at it suggests that it is "Mostly Harmless," I’m happy to go ahead and let folks know about it. So that’s what I’m putting in the "In The Mail" category on the store.
As I add new items to this category, I’ll also put a notice on the blog so that people will know that they are there and, in some cases, I’ll add a brief (or not so brief) review of the product. If you look at the category at the moment, you’ll see that I have several products there that I haven’t yet put up notices for or reviewed. I plan to do that, but I’ll have to do it over time because I am always concerned about maintaining the right mix of topics on the blog so that it stays interesting to people. I don’t want it to be a blog about reviews of Catholic books and videos, though letting people know about Catholic (or other) resources that they may be interested in is something that I’m not opposed to.
I thought I’d explain all this so that folks would understand how this works and what purposes I’m intending to use the aStore for.
In the interest of full disclosure, I do get a (tiny) cut of the proceeds on the products sold through the aStore, which I figure will help defray the costs of maintaining the blog, which I pay for out of my own pocket. The amount of money I get from the store is not great, though I was shocked when I checked my quarter-to-date earnings report and found out that the blog may have actually paid for itself this quarter.
I know some blogs try to maintain themselves by using advertisements, and that’s fine, though I’ve always resisted that–even when people have asked if they could advertise on JA.O. I don’t like it when a blog is cluttered up with advertising–usually for products or services that the blogmasters have little or no control over. JA.O is not a commercial venture for me, and if I were in it for the money I could make a lot more by devoting my blog writing time to paying projects. The blog is something I do for fun, and it’s great if it pays for itself (at least the costs I pay TypePad), but I’d rather have that happen through recommending products I think readers will actually enjoy and benefit from rather than ads from an Internet ad service.
Hope that explains matters and, if you’d like to browse some books, DVDs, or CDs that you might find of interest,
CHECK OUT THE STORE.
this is very cool. Will items stay in the cart a really long time like they do on amazon.com? I love that feature. I add things whenever it looks like something I really want, and once every month or two I actually place the order, and everything I want is right there without my having to keep lists next to the computer that other people flip over and use to write phone numbers on without also writing who’s phone number it is so you have to call to find out if it’s important.
As far as I know, you’re basically putting items into your Amazon.com cart, so they should stay there indefinitely.
This is great!
I wonder why Jimmy Akin doesn’t have as wide an audio/video product line like Tim Staples does?
Tim is awesome, but I’m sure there would be folks interested in similar products from Jimmy as well!
I couldn’t recommend The Catholic Home. The fist half of the book on customs is fine, but the second half on home devotions and the sacraments is riddled with errors and is really sloppy theologically in regards to the sacraments.
She says things like “Currently the vocation of priest and deacon is open only to Catholic men.” Currently? She then goes on against priestly celibacy mentioning how some of the Apostles had been married and then bringing up the old myth about celibacy being imposed because of medieval property rights disputes. She speaks glowingly of the Orthodox and there having married priests without mentioning that both their monks and bishops are required to be unmarried. “God only knows what the future holds for those who feel called to receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders.”
Her section on the Sacrament of the Sick is also way off in that she says that it can be given for “unhealthy relationships” and other reasons that don’t quite match up to canon law.
There are much better books on devotions in the home.
Anytime you want to set up a link to our store and promote all kinds of Catholic stuff, feel free.
Jimmy, another reason to be interested in this Mass is that it is the same place we will have Mass while on the Catholic Answers’ Cruise in May!
‘The catholic home’ by the way is incredible. I’ve created a liturgical year list of family traditions that was highly influenced by the book. So far famliy life is much richer 🙂
I’m excited to stay tuned into your recp,,emds Jimmy.