I know I promised a real report on the Licensing Show and it'll be along soon, along with a photo that was taken there of me posing with one of my favorite TV stars. I also owe you all the second part of my rant about drive-in movies. This will all happen.
I was talking earlier with someone about the concept of advance-ordering books (like my pal Vince Waldron's) from Amazon. I don't think people get that it's a chance to lock in the lowest-possible price that Amazon will sell the book for until its publication date. If the price goes up, you get the item for the price when you ordered it. If the price goes down, you get the item for the lower price. You can also cancel the order before it comes out. It's really a great service.
And so is Amazon Prime. If you don't know how this works, it's simple: Once a year, you pay them $79 and that covers two-day shipping on most items. You can do the math for yourself and see if that's cheaper than paying as much as you annually pay to Amazon for postage and handling. It is for me and it's also liberating in this way: I no longer have to worry about ordering at least $25 each time I want something from them. I can just order a $2.00 item and they pay to ship it to me. Or if my order is up to $24.37, I no longer have to browse around trying to find something for 63¢ in order to qualify for Free Shipping.
Come on…you know you've done that.
I really like Amazon. I can't recall the last time an order was wrong or late. I can't even recall the last time they were out of something I wanted to buy. The few times there have been problems, they've always been resolved to my satisfaction. If I had anything there to complain about, you know me: I would. But I don't. About the only thing I wish they could do that they don't is to not make me feel guilty when another independent bookseller goes under because people like me are ordering from Amazon. I do not, however, feel guilty enough about that to stop buying the easiest, cheapest way for me…and the easy part is more important than the cheap part.