Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Good Books Take Me Away

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If you asked me what relaxes me more than anything else, I would have to say a good book. An enticing book will take my mind away to another world and allow me to focus on something besides working, the kids, the house, or my other responsibilities. The only down side to really good books is that if I get taken away too far, I don’t want to do anything else!

I’m not against reading business books, biographies, or even self-help books. I like learning in general. I’ve read everything from books about how not to be co-dependent to a history of the Conner Family in Indiana. They do say that variety is the spice of life (or at least I think I read that somewhere).

Despite all of that, I still find myself wanting to get lost in fiction. In the last year, I’ve even gravitated toward what they call “young adult” books, something that I would have never imagined. But after 4 Twilight books, 7 Harry Potter, 10 Sookie Stackhouse, 2 Hunger Games, 2 Vampire Diaries, and 6 House of Night books, I’m beginning to gravitate more and more toward the fantasy genre. After years of “chick lit” and legal thrillers, I have found my true escape.

This weekend I read a brand new YA fantasy called “Beautiful Creatures” by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. While I was first getting into it, I read it off and on when I didn’t have anything better to do. By the halfway point, I was reading on every commercial of the Steelers game because I literally didn’t want to put the book down. Although the book is about high school students (and witches!), I was captivated by that feeling of danger mixed with the purity of first love that you only find in YA books.

Something else that I have discovered is that I am particularly drawn to the series books. I think it’s because I never want a good book to end. When you find a good series and can keep reading week after week after week, it’s like you really become a part of the world the author has created. Now I anxiously await not only the next Sookie Stackhouse novel, House of Night novel, and the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy (all coming this year) but also the remaining 5 books of the Beautiful Creatures series.

If you have any interest at all, I recommend checking out some of the books listed above. Even if you think to yourself “I don’t read kid books,” you might be surprised at how entertained and relaxed you will be when you enter the world of wizards, witches, vampires, or werewolves. If you are already a fan, let me know what I might be missing!

(**Note that the Sookie Stackhouse novels are NOT Young Adult like the others. They are similar to Twilight but with a lot more sizzle!)

When Is Free Shipping Day 2009?

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I’ve been hearing a lot of talk amongst my friends about the alleged “Free Shipping Day” coming up in December. As someone who has worked in online shopping for years, I am here to tell you that you are asking for trouble if you wait for “Free Shipping Day” to do your online holiday shopping.

First of all, many merchants do free shipping year round. Even more merchants will be running free shipping as their holiday promotions starting on Black Friday. At Sunshine Rewards alone we have hundreds of free shipping deals. And we only have about 700 merchants total that we work with. Take a look at the companies that are already offering free shipping of some kind. Which other ones could you be waiting for?

Second, check out the shipping schedules for most merchants. Free Shipping Day is supposed to be December 17. That’s just 8 days before Christmas, including a weekend. Most merchants will tell you that if you want to use standard shipping, you need to place your order before December 17 (especially if the order is personalized in any way).

Third, even assuming that the store you are wanting to order from will still be shipping Christmas gifts by the 17th, do you want to a) take the chance that the items you want will be sold out, or b) take the chance that UPS or Fed Ex will be even a day late in getting them to you and your gifts will not arrive by Christmas? Been there, done that. I’ve even done the “guaranteed to be delivered by Christmas” thing and ended up getting the gifts a day or two later. It just isn’t worth the risk.

Lastly, free shipping often comes with strings. A free shipping coupon won’t do you any good if it only applies to a minimum order and you won’t be placing that minimum order. You would have been better off with a percent or dollar off coupon that applied to your minimum purchase.

There’s a lot of hype surrounding holiday shopping and every year there’s something new added to it– Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Green Monday, now Free Shipping Day. The bottom line is that there will be good deals from Thanksgiving through the end of the year and some deals that will be extra good because they are loss leaders or in limited supply. Do your homework and scope out coupon sites, cash back shopping sites, etc. rather than getting caught up in when everyone says you should be shopping. And don’t wait until the last minute unless you like taking risks with your gifts.

Twilight Parody “Nightlight” Now Available

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I wouldn’t dare put this post on BuyTwilightStuff.com for fear of losing all of my readers, but I just had to blog about it somewhere!

The Harvard Lampoon released today a new book parodying the hit “Twilight.” The book is called “Nightlight: A Parody” and the fun begins with a picture of an apple core on the cover. (aff link)

The story is a true parody of Twilight (albeit much shorter at only 160 pages). Belle Goose falls in love with Edwart Mullen, a hot computer nerd. Here’s a quote from the description:

“About three things I was absolutely certain. First, Edwart was most likely my soul mate, maybe. Second, there was a vampire part of him–which I assumed was wildly out of his control–that wanted me dead. And third, I unconditionally, irrevocably, impenetrably, heterogeneously, gynecologically, and disreputably wished he had kissed me.”

Although I am a self-professed Twilight fan, I still think that this book would be quite funny. What do you think? Does it ruin the love story for you? Or does it add to the Twilight legacy?

Bendaroos Commercial with My Kids

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I have finally captured the Bendaroos commercial with my daughters, Jillian and Cassie, in it! It’s not the best quality, but it is still pretty cool.

How did it happen? My girls make video reviews pretty regularly for Sunshine Rewards. Cassie made a Bendaroos video when she was 6 and we uploaded it to YouTube. In June, I got an email from a man who said that he had seen the video on YouTube and was producing the newest Bendaroos commercial. He asked if Cassie would like to be in it. After a few weeks of going back and forth (and sending a current “head shot”), we agreed on a day for him to fly to Indiana to shoot some footage for the commercial. I told him I had another daughter who also does videos and actually made most of the creations in Cassie’s video. He told me that he might be able to use her in the video as well.

On a sunny summer day, a small crew arrived at our house. They did some shooting on our front porch (which you see in the part where Cassie dances and they show the sunglasses and ring). They also shot at our kitchen table (which you just get a quick glimpse of). We waited all summer and were about to think that there was not going to be a commercial.

All of a sudden last week Jillian came home from school and said that a friend has seen the commercial on Nickelodeon. Within a couple of days, other friends started telling us about it and we finally saw it ourselves. The girls were so excited!! Every day now they come home from school and talk about who saw the commercial the day before.

Here’s the commercial in a very low tech way (my Flip camera in front of the television!). There’s a cute little shot of Fishers, Indiana, that locals might recognize. (For the record, they didn’t get paid for the commercial but they did get a lot of Bendaroos!)

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Love Vampires? Check out the Sookie Stackhouse Books

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Why haven’t I been blogging as much lately? Quite simply, I have had my nose stuck in books! After finishing the Twilight Series and the Harry Potter series, I was having a hard time getting into anything again. But knowing that I had a little bit of time to relax over the long Labor Day weekend, I was desperate to find a book to read. In the aisle at Kroger, I found a book that said “Now on HBO, True Blood, the original series based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels.” All of the similarly marked books said that they were written by Charlaine Harris and have “dead” somewhere in the title. I had heard people raving about True Blood, so I figured that I would buy the first book and see what I thought.

By the end of the Labor Day weekend, I think that I was on the 2nd or 3rd book. Fast forward another week and I am now on book 6! They are quick reads (about 300-ish pages each). The first book had an alarming number of similarities to Twilight. But then it diverged and took a different direction.

Similarities to the Twilight series: Main character is a woman who falls in love with a vampire. She has some “other” types of love interests as well who are not completely human. The authors set an interesting atmosphere of a world that is both similar to normal and different. There are enough books that you can keep reading and reading and reading to truly feel invested in the stories.

Differences from Twilight: Sex! While Twilight is in large part about abstinence, the Sookie Stackhouse books each have at least one sex scene that is pretty graphic and a couple of pages long. It’s not like the whole book is about sex, but there is definitely enough to make your cheeks flush.

From what I can tell, there are 9 books in the series. 8 are now in paperback, and you can get a set of the first 7 from Amazon for $32, including free shipping. That’s terrific considering that I paid $48 for the first 6 that I bought at Kroger. I have read that a boxed set of the first 8 is coming out soon as well if you want to wait for it. It’s $34.50 at Amazon with free shipping and ships at the end of September (if you can wait that long!). Book 9 is only available in hard cover right now, and book 10 will be released in May 2010.

I’m making myself take a break before I buy 7-9 so that I can have something to look forward to in the coming weeks if I get all of my work done. I’m anxious to hear what you think of the books if you are reading as well!