Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Disney’s New Summer Nightastic Fireworks

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I love Disney fireworks! My favorite part of our trips is always the chance to see fireworks over the Magic Kingdom. “Wishes” always brings a tear to my eye, and the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party fireworks are not to be missed. I was upset when I found out that we were going to miss the new Summer Nightastic Fireworks by only one night on our recent trip. We had stayed a week and on our last night, we went to see “Wishes” and I loved it as usual.

The next day, we sent the kids off to my mom’s house and planned on spending our anniversary dinner at the Polynesian and then watching “Wishes” one last time from the beach. However, when we checked in at the Poly, I found out that they were doing a soft opening of the new fireworks one night early and we could, indeed, see it! We headed to Kona an hour early and were lucky enough to get in so that we could make it over to the Magic Kingdom to see the new parade (which was too short, in my opinion) and then the fireworks. We parked in front of the castle about 3 hours before the fireworks to ensure a great spot.

We were not disappointed! I loved the fireworks–even more than “Wishes.” Maybe not quite as much as MNSSHP, but probably close. The fireworks were definitely less traditional than “Wishes.” There were some interesting effects regarding Cinderella’s Castle.

I found this video from Inside the Magic on YouTube. It’s not one that I took but is from about where I was sitting. If you are not going to make it to the Magic Kingdom for the Summer Nightastic Fireworks this year, you should definitely check it out!

[youtube1]w26tsywMdDI[/youtube1]

Book Series Worth Checking Out

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I love a good book series. There’s something about being able to connect with characters from book to book that just takes me in and holds me. I have quite a few series that I have read regularly or completely and would recommend to friends. A few are pretty obvious, but some of the others may interest you as well!

Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling) My favorite of all favorites. It took me a long time to read these because I kept saying I didn’t like “kid” books. I ended up loving them so much that I cried when I was done and couldn’t think about reading anything else for weeks. For a year, I compared every book I read to Harry Potter. The early books seem to be written a little more for kids and young adults. The later books are, at times, very dark with heavy themes. (7 books–series complete)

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) Not much I can say about this one. You probably know more than you want to about it. (4 books plus a novella coming out–series complete?)

Vampire Academy (Richelle Mead) This series has blown me away. I picked it up on a lark at the grocery story and ended up reading all of them that were out in a matter of weeks. They are vampire books but like none other that I have read. By the 4th book, I was loving them as much as Twilight. (5 books–more to come)

Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Charlaine Harris) I also picked these up at the grocery just because I was looking for something new and saw that the “True Blood” series on HBO was based on them. I had not seen the series but figured I would read the books first. They are a quick read and kind of fun. More vampires but a lot of other creatures as well. (10 books–more to come)

House of Night (Kristin Cast and P.C. Cast) Eight books in this series so far. They are a quick read about (guess what??) vampires. The vampires are “fledglings” in a vampire school. A little romance but the teen crush variety rather than a lot of the “true love” variety. (8 books–more to come)

Hunger Games Trilogy (Suzanne Collins) This series was recommended by a friend who actually got it from her daughter. It’s geared toward young adults but also has some very adult themes. In particular, I think it has a lot to say about reality television and to what extent we get wrapped up in it regardless of the impact it has on the people involved. (2 books–last one coming in August)

Wake Trilogy (Lisa McMann) This is a short series of quickly read books about a teen girl who gets sucked into people’s dreams when they fall asleep. I’m actually reading the last of them right now and anxious to see how it ends! (3 books–series complete)

Shiver (Maggie Stiefvater) Supernatural but with no vampires. A lot story about teenagers with some big problems. I liked the book but am not sure about series potential. The sequel, “Linger,” comes out July 2010. (unknown series length)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Rick Riordan) A fun kid/young adult series based on mythology. This one was fun to read with my 9-year-old daughter. A number of my friends also read them alongside their school-aged kids. (5 books–series complete but a follow-up series starting in the fall)

Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl) Only the first of this series has come out yet, but it is a great read. Unlike most of the others, this book is written from the teen boy perspective. He falls in love with a girl with supernatural powers. It’s supernatural and romantic at the same time. The second book will be available October 12. (one book so far)

Undead Series (Mary Janice Davidson) More vampires and an interesting take on it all. These are very light-hearted. They are sometimes known as “Betsy the Vampire Queen.” I’ve read half of them and will likely read the rest when I have time but am not itching to read them all like the other series listed. (8 books out, 9th book being released July 201)

Kingdom Keepers (Ridley Pearson) These books take place in Disney World, so Disney fans will enjoy them. I know as many adults who loved them as kids who did! The stories are about kids who are trying to save the parks from evil that comes out at night. (3 books so far)

Those are my favorites! Click here to see what else I am reading.

Great Debate: Buy Online or Shop Local

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Every time I hear about Shop Local campaigns, I feel a twinge of guilt. After all, I earn my living by encouraging people to shop online. I teach people how to get free shipping so that they do not even have to visit their local stores. And yet, as a small business owner, I want to encourage people to support other small business. How do I reconcile all of this?

Without a doubt you can save money online. My first thought is always that if I can save $10 by buying something online, that is $10 more that I can spend on something else. Chances are pretty good that I will then end up spending that $10 at a local restaurant, or maybe at the hairdresser. If I hadn’t saved that $10, I might not be spending it in those ways.

My second thought is that you can shop online and still support small businesses. Those businesses may not be in your hometown, but you are still supporting companies besides WalMart and Sears and Kmart (who I honestly wouldn’t care to ever shop at again). At Sunshine Rewards, we definitely go out of our way to promote the small businesses that we come across as long as they provide a good shopping experience for our members.

The one things that impacts where I spend my money most is the relationship that I have with the seller. For example, I will only buy my contacts from my optometrist. I know I could get them cheaper online. However, my optometrist is a really great guy and goes out of his way to take care of my eyes. For that reason, I want to give him my business. Conversely, I buy all of my makeup online because I have a great relationship with Sephora–they give me good deals and free samples and don’t make me nervous when I am browsing.

It’s a difficult decision to choose to save money by shopping online when you know that there are stores in your community who probably sell the same things. Moreover, a true “Shop Local” purchase would be to bypass your local Borders and get all of your books at the higher priced locally owned bookstore. I’m sure that there are people who do that, but I’d go broke doing that with as many books as I buy a month.

Do you shop online? Do you try to Shop Local? Do you feel guilty for not shopping locally?

Help Determine Affiliate Summit East Sessions

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Over the past few years I have been lucky enough to serve on the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board and see submissions for Affiliate Summit sessions in advance. I always considered it a preview of sorts for the upcoming conference and would jump in and start reading them as soon as they were posted.

This year everyone is being given the opportunity to give their feedback on the sessions for New York. Over 100 speaker proposals were submitted. These will be narrowed down through visitor voting, the Advisory Board feedback, and the conference itself.

Although I have seen a number of posts and Tweets about the voting (including great posts by TrishaLyn Fawver and Adam Reimer), there are not all that many people voting. It’s incredibly easy to vote. You create an account on Slinkset (if you do not already have one) and then simply click on the arrow to the left of the session to turn it blue if you want to vote for it. You can also leave comments.

I won’t say what I voted for, but I do find it interesting that there are quite a few in the top 10 that I did NOT vote for (for various reasons). Maybe I don’t find the same things interesting as other people do? Or maybe my personal preferences for speakers (or against) can sometimes get in the way? At any rate, that is why we need more people in there voting–we need the feedback from as many people as possible to truly represent the variety of people who will attend the conference. I’ve seen people complaining after Affiliate Summit before that there were not any sessions that interested them or they didn’t understand why X, Y, or Z topic were left out. Now is the time to give your feedback.

Click here to visit the voting site. If you are so inclined, here are my two sessions:

Podcasting 101

Strategies for Marketing to Women

The Expectation of Free

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I’m pretty sure some of you are going to disagree with this post. In fact, I might even lose some customers over it. And yet I feel strongly about writing it. I love free stuff as much as the next girl. But at some point you have to step back and evaluate the expectations that we all have now when it comes to getting something for nothing.

I love getting free samples of products because I never know what I might buy. I’ve found many of my favorite foods and beauty products from trying out free samples. It’s good business for companies to give out free samples to people in different ways–gift with purchase, a sample and a coupon, a free trial of a service, etc. It gets the product in the hands of the consumer and if the product is good, enough people will buy that product in the future to justify the expense of  giving away the freebies.

Sometimes the free stuff isn’t even related to the product being sold. Our local hardware store used to have a popcorn machine set up for customers to get a bag of free popcorn while they shopped. It probably kept people in the store longer and some parents probably preferred to shop there when their kids were with them just because the popcorn kept the kids happy while the parents did what they needed to do. The popcorn was in no way related to hardware but was cheap and worth it.

Now here comes the part that drives me crazy. Because of all of the above, people start to expect that they will be given something for free all the time and actually get irritated when they do not. They also find ways to work the system so that the businesses get nothing out of the free stuff. There are people who collect up the free samples so that they never have to actually buy the products. They send their kids up multiple times so that they can get more than the “one per person” allowed. They go to the hardware store for “snack time” every afternoon and go straight for the popcorn and back out again with no intention of ever even looking around the hardware store. These are the people who are ruining it for everyone else.

I own a website where we have a free game on the site that 600 people can play a day. I figured out recently that over 500 people had figured out a way to ensure that they got the free money every day and none of my other customers had a chance. Those 500 people do not use my business in any other way. Over YEARS of membership, they have done nothing but the free game and cashed out for prizes. So I changed up the game so that other people had more of a chance to play. Now I’m getting email messages from people telling me to “go to hell” and people are posting on message boards that it isn’t “fair” that I am taking away their free money.

When did “free” become the expectation and not the added surprise, the unexpected bonus, or the reward for loyalty? When did people start thinking that they DESERVE to be given free stuff by companies for absolutely nothing in return. Business is tough even in a good economy and even tougher right now. A company needs to show a return on investment for all of their marketing, and this kind of “free” doesn’t allow for that.

By the way, I heard the hardware store isn’t giving away the free popcorn anymore. I can’t imagine why.