holiday shopping for 2019

I just got my first email from somebody that ordered a pile of physical books (building a better world) and saying "My holiday shopping is now mostly done!"

For the past five years or so, I've sold a lot of permaculture playing cards between thanksgiving and december 10.  In fact, about 95% of the permaculture playing cards sales would happen for that small window.   Maybe because they are a great stocking stuffer size?  Or maybe because their primary design function is to be handed out to others so you seem a little less crazy.  

The amazon reviews started off with 4.9 stars, and have slowly drifted down to 4.4 stars with the primary complaint being that the text is too small.  For a while, with the 4.9 stars, I thought it might be good to make a second deck.   I even made a list of what the new cards would feature.   But at 4.4 stars ...   well, I guess it wasn't as cool as I thought it was.

But now we have the book.  The book conveys a dozen times more information.  And the primary design function is that, in time, the book might reach millions of brains which, in turn, might do far more global change than all of my previous efforts combined.  And the holidays are the best time to give the book to dozens of people.  

Now is the time.



I think there were a lot of people that did not support the kickstarter because they did not know if it was lame or not.   The reviews are pouring in that the book is excellent!

And then there were a lot of people that did not support the kickstarter because they weren't sure if the book would even exist.   It now exists in paperback, ebook and audiobook.  

And then there were people that were interested in getting many for the low price, but they kinda wanted to read a bit of it first.  I think there are several chapters available for free on amazon and on audible.  

So maybe right now is a good time to get one copy of the book to see if you want more for the holidays.    


https://permies.com/bwb





And the cards are still available if that's what you are into:

https://richsoil.com/cards.jsp

When it comes to amazon, I am a clod.   But my guess is that if you go to amazon and search for the book, that is best.   But if you don't wanna search, here is the shortcut:  https://amzn.to/2NfZRs8

Hello Paul, Just checked out the preview of your book. Looks great. It just got me thinking about the good old incandescent light bulb. I came up with a theory when I was a kid on how to make them last pretty much indefinitely.  They just need a "soft start". Haven't you noticed that the only time they blow is when first energized. Simple circuitry could be incorporated into the light bezel or the switch for that matter. Let me know your thoughts.

And I have tests going on for a bulb that is built to last.  But even better is this:  https://permies.com/t/31062/incandescent-light-bulb

Only 6 reviews on Amazon..!...? !!!   Come on, folks!!  This is a perfect opportunity for the 'many hands make light work' strategy.... tens, hundreds of us should be ... er.. have the opportunity to do a little to get the word OUT.  Wonder how many will have posted ... in a week?   .. a month??

Bucky Fuller:  "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."  and it doesn't have to be a 'giant' new model... many backyard 'new models' will do the trick.  It's up to (thousands!?) of us little guys.... with a measly review : )

OK... and now I just posted at 'Good Reads'... where is everybody else?  ??

I've been watching review stuff on here - it seems a bit more community-esque.

nancy sutton wrote:Only 6 reviews on Amazon..!...? !!!   Come on, folks!!  This is a perfect opportunity for the 'many hands make light work' strategy.... tens, hundreds of us should be ... er.. have the opportunity to do a little to get the word OUT.  Wonder how many will have posted ... in a week?   .. a month??

I just added one so we should be up to 7.  Yay team!

I just realized I'd never reviewed the cards on amazon, just here on permies. Review made! The cards really are  amazing. I gave away all but two decks of my first dozen, and now have 48 more coming my way! Weee!

I already did my christmas shopping. The monthly email came a day too late. I got my mom a purse, my stepdad a knife, my big bro a throw blanket, my little bro a microphone for his music, my little sis gets beaded jewelry. It's a win-win because it's cheap and they will like it.

The book is on my Amazon wish list; may get a second one for my son. $24 on amazon.ca.

paul wheaton wrote:When it comes to amazon, I am a clod.   But my guess is that if you go to amazon and search for the book, that is best.   But if you don't wanna search, here is the shortcut:  https://amzn.to/2NfZRs8

Even if you don't want to buy more of the book, if you are doing ANY shopping on Amazon, and you use Paul's link above (or any Amazon link here on permies) it provides a little kickback that helps support the forums. At no additional cost to you!

So if you start with Paul's link and then search within Amazon for toothpaste, Permies gets a cut of the toothpaste sale???

Mike Jay Haasl wrote:So if you start with Paul's link and then search within Amazon for toothpaste, Permies gets a cut of the toothpaste sale???

Yes! Exactly! Though there might be a time limit on it like 15 minutes or so.

I keep a permies.com thread, with an Amazon link in it,  bookmarked, and then I start there for all of my Amazon shopping.

WOW, that's awesome!  I knew direct links worked that way but this is much better!  

I think there's also a direct link that you can bookmark that gives kickback. I have it in my bookmarks as my default amazon link. This should be it, but it might not copy right. I'm going to go find the tinkering thread about it.

http://amzn.to/2h3z3us

(And, you all gotta know how torn I am now. My son's in school and they have a shiny link that gives money to his school. Do I support permies, or his school. Such a hard decision! And, um, bad parent that I am, I use the permies link!)

Ah-ha! My direct link won't bookmark. Supposedly this does, though

Destiny Hagest wrote:Permies Amazon Homepage Affiliate Link

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share a little bit of link magic with you all here. I know a lot of you love Permies and the hard work that Paul and his team have done to keep this space for us up and running - I get a lot of emails from people just wanting to know, how can I help?.

Aside from the usual stuff - practicing permaculture, being active in the forums, sharing our stuff, etc. - there are a lot of bills to pay around here. Not only are there expenses with keeping this site up and running, but there are projects at the Lab where permaculture is getting practiced in real life, but often times we need money to complete them.

It's that simple - money helps, a lot unfortunately. And while we have the merchandise page that certainly helps to support us, I know we all have our own set of bills to pay, and sometimes you just can't justify spending money on a new book when you need to order shoes for the kids or buy gardening supplies - I totally get that.

That's why I'm posting this link here - our affiliate link for the Amazon home page:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/rs12-20

When you use that link, it redirects you to the Amazon homepage, but it tells Amazon that we sent you there, and any purchase made within 24 hours there gives us a little kickback. I know I buy a TON of stuff on Amazon still, so I plan to insert this link into my bookmarks bar, so that any time I need to place an order, I can just click the button and help support the Empire.

The thing to remember is though (for this to work and help Permies) is that this link redirects, so the URL you land on isn't the one that you put in the search bar when the page actually loads. For this reason, if you want to bookmark that affiliate link, you'll need to work a little magic, like in this video:

Basically, you just need to isolate that link, but you should just be able to drag it right from this post up into your bookmarks bar.

If that method doesn't work for you though, you can always just bookmark this post instead - that's why I've got the link at the top in big bold text as well. It adds one click to the process - that's it.

Permies.com wouldn't be the success it is without the support of all of you guys - in the short time I've worked for Paul so far, I've already seen the power and strength of that support. So even if you can't make room in your budget for Permaculture Chickens or World Domination Gardening DVDs, you can use this link when you shop on Amazon, and really, seriously help out with some of the bills around here.

I'm quoting that from Support Permies.com by Buying Things you Were Buying Anyway!

Those are the directions I used to make my bookmark a good 4+ years ago!

Ah, and then later on that same page,  Paul lists the same url that is my bookmarked one, so it looks like that works as well! http://amzn.to/2h3z3us

Nicole Alderman wrote:

(And, you all gotta know how torn I am now. My son's in school and they have a shiny link that gives money to his school. Do I support permies, or his school. Such a hard decision! And, um, bad parent that I am, I use the permies link!)

Your son won't always be in the same school, but he will always be part of the same World, and you are making it a better place!

Ryan Hobbs wrote:I already did my christmas shopping. The monthly email came a day too late. I got my mom a purse, my stepdad a knife, my big bro a throw blanket, my little bro a microphone for his music, my little sis gets beaded jewelry. It's a win-win because it's cheap and they will like it.

I did my Christmas shopping Nov 1.
I hope everybody likes half price Halloween candy.

I set myself a target of knitting socks for my family.  So Amazon may come in very handy since I've only got half of them done..

I love the direction this thread is going.  Knitting.   A knitted pair of mittens, or a knitted hat or scarf .... that is such a huge amount of work.   And it seems like when I watch people knitting they are pouring soul into the project.   What a beautiful thing to give or receive.  

Nicole taught me to knit.   I didn't get very far.  

I see a lot of people here at my place knitting a lot.  


....   I have to confess that my intent with this thread is far more devious.     It all starts with the thought of people struggling with real world problems.   Like Greta.   Despite dropping my career and working on this stuff for 80 hours a week for ...  wow, 15 years - I have not gotten any of my messages across as well as Greta.  Greta's message is probably reaching a half billion people.  I sure hope it helps.   Naturally, I wish that Greta would tell people my message, but that's just silly - if not a bit rude.  

For 15 years I have worked on trying to repair things and think a lot about how to do that.  For hundreds of bricks I had the thought "This will be the one.  This will be the thing that gets the attention of a hundred million people - and then those people will embrace all my other stuff."    

I spent a full weekend editing the video.   I was so sure it would be an overnight sensation.  Millions of views in the first week.



It is now nine years old.  

It's like I'm in a sort of action movie.   I have the solution to solving the world's problems, but I just can't get the information to the right people.  So think.   Think, think, think.  Think harder than that.   And now try to think ten times harder than THAT!   THINK YOU GIANT DOOFUS!  

Shawn and I started this book in january of 2018.   Almost two years ago.   And most of the content is from my efforts of the 25 years before that.   The book is an attempt to make change.  Big change.  Globally.  Can this book infect millions of brains?  Hundreds of millions?  

This is the moment.  All this buildup to now.  The holiday season of 2019.   700 people bought a dozen books through the kickstarter.   If they give out 10 books each, and half those people actually read it, that's 3500 brains infected.   If half those people get a dozen books and give out 10 and half of those people read it, that's 8750 additional brains.  And then 20,000 more on the next cycle.  And then 50,000.   Then 150,000.   ...   Eventually millions.

Of course, with the suggestions here, some people might be able to find a home for 64 books and dramatically accelerate all of this.  I remember working for a company where the company bought everybody a copy of "Who Moved My Cheese."  

Thanksgiving will be here in a couple of weeks.  An opportunity to give people several copies each and ask them to pass them on.   If people have 400 facebook friends, could a few hundred ebook gift codes be handed out?

After all this effort - is this going to make a global difference?  Is it going to get momentum?  Might this be the beginning of massive change?  It's a huge gamble, but it is better than doing nothing.



.......    after all these years of stress about how to authentically save the world.   It is delicious to get a reality check about the beautiful act of knitting.  Knitting reflects a peaceful mind and a massive act of generosity to a person.  It says "I thought about you for many hours."  



... and now, i gotta get back to my stuff.  Try more things.  Try, try, try ...

This is may be OT, but your frustration brought this to mind:  "What if you didn't care who got the credit?"   And, I don't think you would care, if your goal was achieved by someone, somehow, somewhere, sometime.  I believe (blindly?) that your goal (and that of Heminway, Perkins, Holmgren, Mollison, Rhodes, Yeoman, etc, etc, etc... there are a lot of 'someones' in this effort') is being achieved... just not as visibly and dramatically as desired.  I choose to continue to believe that... because I choose to not believe that the 'bad guys' will win.  I don't want to give them my attention - and it is my choice.  Hmmm... not sure what I'm saying, except, maybe my tagline : )

nancy sutton wrote:This is may be OT, but your frustration brought this to mind:  "What if you didn't care who got the credit?"   And, I don't think you would care, if your goal was achieved by someone, somehow, somewhere, sometime.  I believe (blindly?) that your goal (and that of Heminway, Perkins, Holmgren, Mollison, Rhodes, Yeoman, etc, etc, etc... there are a lot of 'someones' in this effort') is being achieved... just not as visibly and dramatically as desired.  I choose to continue to believe that... because I choose to not believe that the 'bad guys' will win.  I don't want to give them my attention - and it is my choice.  Hmmm... not sure what I'm saying, except, maybe my tagline : )

I am totally cool with getting zero credit.  I think that is what I was getting at with this thread.  

paul wheaton wrote:

nancy sutton wrote:This is may be OT, but your frustration brought this to mind:  "What if you didn't care who got the credit?"   And, I don't think you would care, if your goal was achieved by someone, somehow, somewhere, sometime.  I believe (blindly?) that your goal (and that of Heminway, Perkins, Holmgren, Mollison, Rhodes, Yeoman, etc, etc, etc... there are a lot of 'someones' in this effort') is being achieved... just not as visibly and dramatically as desired.  I choose to continue to believe that... because I choose to not believe that the 'bad guys' will win.  I don't want to give them my attention - and it is my choice.  Hmmm... not sure what I'm saying, except, maybe my tagline : )

I am totally cool with getting zero credit.  I think that is what I was getting at with this thread.  

Ronald Reagan said something about "It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit."
Or something like that.

In the thing I wrote about before, I was upset because I found this very popular discussion about "what can i do, from my apartment, to make a better world."   And the answers were all weak.   I had strong hopes that there would be tons of suggestions from people about the things we talk about here.   I don't need any credit or mention.   But there was nothing.  

That said, I do need to say that I don't need credit for ideas.   But I don't want somebody to take something I created (like images or videos or text) and republish it as their own creation.  Make your own images and videos and stuff.   And I have always expressed that I am fine with people using one image or a big blob of text that I wrote if they link to the source.  And, as always, people are welcome to embed my youtube videos as much as they want.