I have been thinking about why one day I started switching my business book references in my posts from Amazon to 800-CEO-READ links. And I can come up with justifiable answers...but none of them really seemed to explain it. I didn't think the decision through - I just acted.
Although I am more likely to shop at an independent bookstore, I personally don't feel that "Amazon is evil" (overhead the other day at lunch from small press distributor) and have fond memories of Amazon that go back to the days when website screens were gray. Their powerful platform strategy makes it a difficult decision to cut ties to their extensive network. Just one side-effect is I lose out on being potentially listed in Technorati booktalk. I had a few resistant thoughts because of the power of platforms.
So, perhaps it was the fact that Todd invited me to review books for the 800-CEO-READ blog. No that's not it, either. I am not obligated to link to 800-CEO-READ whatsoever. I just did.
That's when I realized it wasn't rational. It certainly wasn't a bold but counterintuitive, calculated move to up my Google rank or anything like that. I have yet to dissect what effect it will have on my own blog.
It's reminiscent of the association I had with my neighborhood running store (staffed with runners, not just anyone whom can ring a cash register) where I could go to find the local track club newsletter, local race entry forms, a good recommendation for a coach or physical therapist, and was a faithful sponsor of the local 5K, 10K and other racing events I attended. (Puzzled why I went into a physical store, I'm talking pre-Internet). I met the employees face to face. I stopped buying my running shoes from the national mail order catalog just to shave off a few bucks on running shoes.
Their blog is creating a neighborhood of sorts for those with a passion (an otaku, perhaps?) for books, and especially business books, and I've gotten to know the shopkeepers and the other neighbors through their own reviews and blogs. No one is anonymous or amorphous. We've had chats on the porch of the shop. Maybe their own otaku and authority and passion for business books is catching. Conversations, relationships, personal, authentic. It flows into a natural sequence to do business with them and send referrals their way. There wasn't much consideration needed.
In a discussion author Kevin Roberts has with Malcolm Gladwell in the book, Lovemarks, Gladwell says:
"The allegiance that people have to certain brands in not always knowable or quantifiable, and it might be sometimes a mistake to try and ascertain what the nature of that X is. We don't really know why we have it, and you can't figure it out. We simply have it."
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