Adding Kickback Opportunities

As many know, Buy Stuff is a really cool node, for it lists many of the better Perl books and provides, if you buy, a small kickback to the Monastery. Unfortunately, it's slightly out of date. More unfortunate, it's also a non-editable node.

So, I have a few questions for the faithful. Do you think:

Buy Stuff should be updated to include the most recent editions of Llama3, ISBN 2, and other updated editions?
Do you think there are other (including non-Perl) books that would be wise to include? I'm thinking of things like Otter, The Pragmatic Programmer, Knuth, and some other respected titles.)
Should Buy Stuff be maintainable by the janitors?
What about adding a form that lets you enter an ISBN number and, when clicked, does the same thing as an [isbn://] tag? Namely, open a link to fatbrain using the Monastery's FROM code? This might encourage more purchases (and kickbacks) when people decide to buy books other than the ones we list directly. This would be slightly different than the current Quick Search form, which does not always include the FROM code.

If you type title words and fatbrain finds the book, the results include the FROM variable. If you type a valid ISBN number, it displays the same thing, though without the FROM. My idea is to help make certain that TFL actually gets what he deserves when someone buys something from fatbrain using an ISBN number.

Thoughts? Comments?

--f

Comment on Adding Kickback Opportunities

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Adding Kickback Opportunities by VSarkiss (Monsignor) on Aug 09, 2001 at 21:33 UTC
I definitely agree with adding more links on the page. A personal favorite I'd like to see added is How to solve it by Polya. It's about math, but the general approach applies to many, many programming problems as well. As for making the page maintainable by the editors: I presume there's some reason F.L. didn't do it that way in the first place. If so, does the reason still hold? Another thing would be to make the blurb that the monastery benefits from purchases a little more prominent on the page. As a matter of fact, how about a link right next to "Donations gladly accepted" on The Monastery Gates, as well as one in the top links, next to Offering Plate? Or would people see that as being too commercial? Update Fixed link to point to right book. Thanks to marcink!	[reply]
Re: Adding Kickback Opportunities by agent00013 (Pilgrim) on Aug 09, 2001 at 22:16 UTC
If Buy Stuff included the newest versions of the Llama and CD, I'd be more likely to buy them. For maintenance, somebody should be able to update. If not the janitors, then maybe somebody trusted by the highest authorities (such as vroom). I believe the ISBN code could be useful. Many posts tell newbies to "get the Camel" and I suppose that some people would be able to use this to point the newbie in the right direction. Just do it. Love is random; fear is inevitable. -- Orson Scott Card	[reply]
Re: Re: Adding Kickback Opportunities by mischief (Hermit) on Aug 09, 2001 at 22:45 UTC
More likely to buy it? You mean you'd buy an outdated copy of The Llama? :-) To be honest, I think having outdated copies up in the first place is a really bad thing. This is meant to be a good place to find out stuff about Perl; links to out old copies of teaching books isn't exactly in keeping with the rest of the site.	[reply]
Re: Re: Adding Kickback Opportunities by Chrisf (Friar) on Aug 09, 2001 at 23:44 UTC
Well lookie here, it appears they're one step ahead of me. There's a little search box on the bottom of the buy stuff page that could be used to buy any book and get the monastery a kickback, well problem solved.	[reply]
Re: Re: Adding Kickback Opportunities by Chrisf (Friar) on Aug 09, 2001 at 23:40 UTC
Okay, I haven't read the details for the fatbrain affiliate program but couldn't you just have a link to the fatbrain main site and get credit for purchases made by visitors who came through that link and found the books themselves? So you could just put up one main link, have people click through it, do their search, buy their book. Seems simple enough right?	[reply]