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Norma Lehmeier Hartie | ||||||||||||||
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Book! |
Expert in Creating Green and Balanced Spaces | March 2008 |
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Norma's
Musings & Rants
March 3 Since the beginning of this year, they keep taking away the discount. When I inquired about it to customer service, I got this reply: "Like any retail store, Amazon.com reserves the right to discount any titles that we sell as we see fit. At this time, we will be unable to offer a discount on your title...we will be unable to respond to further inquiries from you regarding this issue." Bastards. The only other books that aren't discounted (as far as I've seen) are subsidy published ones. So, I did the only thing I could think of, which was to write to Jeffrey Bezos, the President and CEO of Amazon. I'll see what happens.
March 9 Amazon is doing some weird things, however. I've noticed some books that are no longer in print that have still-changing sales rankings and the rankings aren't bad, either. Also, they are in cahoots with "distributors/wholesalers" that sell new and used copies on Amazon and have online retail bookstores with basically wholesale prices, at or below Amazon's. Ostensibly, Amazon benefits from cut they get when a book is sold through their site. These sellers must be linked in with Amazon, as the prices of proffered books are based on Amazon's selling price of a particular book. Go to Superbookdeals, for example, and you can search for books according to sales rankings. They don't list actual ranking, however, but I'm 99% sure it's the same as Amazon's . They offer used and new books on Amazon at competitive prices based on what Amazon is charging. So, when my book was not discounted, the prices of the books offered from Superbookdeals were between $14-16; now that book is offered on Amazon for $13.57, their prices are down to $12.89. A couple weeks ago, my husband and I were in Rhinebeck, a town about an hour north of us. We bought a few things in a store call Fleisher's that carries local meats and produce. Last night, we ate the lamb shepherd's pie and it was delicious. I made it with steamed and sautéed carrots, turnips and jicama with butter, dijon mustard and honey. Perfect combination! Check out recipes for the details. March 17 A few months ago, my husband and I got a hankering for a Rueben sandwich--you know, with corned beef, swiss cheese, sauerkraut and 1000 island dressing on real Jewish rye. However, since we only eat grass-fed, free range meat, we knew we would have to wait until around St. Patrick's Day to get the corned beef. We got the corned beef at a place called Fleisher's in Kingston, NY (there is also one in Rhinebeck) and they sell only locally grown, pasture-raised beef. I boiled it up last night and added cabbage for the last 20 minutes of cooking time. Instead of boiling the potatoes and vegetables, I roasted them. The result--this is the best corned beef I've ever had! I didn't make sandwiches (that's for today,) we ate the meat, cabbage that had the mild and delicious flavor of the meat brine and roasted potatoes, turnips and carrots with garlic. I was on a food high! Click here for the recipe. Back to Amazon...I got an email last week from customer service that Jeff Bezos passed my letter on to her and that all correspondence between us would be seen by corporate office. Great! In the interim, discount has come and gone several times. I've decided to relax about it. What will be will be.
Archived Musings & Rants |
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Harmonious Environment |
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