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BAFAB the cash cow

by Debra Hamel on March 29, 2007

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.

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