I was in Barnes and Noble this afternoon. I rarely make purchases from bookstores anymore…my ultimate preferences for books, music cds and dvds is Amazon.com. You cannot beat the price, no tax and free shipping. 99.9% of the time your items are less expensive than from a bookstore, Costco or other retail store.
So why was I there? My credit card company sent me this 25% off coupon for any one item in the store, but it had to be purchased on my credit card. I took a look at the rather long list in my Amazon.com shopping cart and my "Wish List" items and made note of how much several books and some music cds were online. It was still less at Amazon, even though I had this 25% coupon.
I'm browsing the store and happen upon some cookbooks in the clearance/bargain section. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I'm very food photography centric right now. I spot a cookie and a cupcake book, both nicely packaged with photos for every recipe. It looked like the two books were part of some baking or cooking series because the layout and style of the cookbooks were identical. I thumb over to examine the copyright dates…2008. Okay. Not that old. But it was evident that these books suffered in way of appeal. The photography was dull, drab and the composition and the lighting of the food made the cookbooks "unappetizing". Both cookies and cupcakes were photographed from afar and you couldn't see details in the baked goods.
The cookbooks might have been the best recipes ever…but for readers, it was a deal breaker that the photographs were unattractive. Case and point…stacks of these books were sadly sitting in the bargain aisle.
