How Barnes & Noble Sucked Me In

...With Tea and Crumpets

For Christmas, my husband gave me a very thoughtful gift: a refillable silver Cross pen. The funny thing about it was that I already had one! He knew I had one in the past, but he thought I had lost it because he hadn't seen me using it in such a long time. So, when I went to the mall to return it, I went to Barnes & Noble afterward. Because a writer loves her journals and novels and books of all kinds.

The Journals

For starters, Barnes & Noble is a bookstore, after all. And I am a writer. So I guess it goes without saying that writers love bookstores and could camp out there for hours on end every single week. Some people would argue daily. I love the trinkets, the games, the pens, the pencils, the bookmarks, the children's section, the calendars, the journals, the novels, the cookbooks, the EVERYTHING!!!

The last time I had gone there was to buy a few things for my kids for Christmas, and here I am again, about a month later. Well, whaddya know... I told the cashier, "I could live here." She said, "Well then, this is a very dangerous place for you." She knows me well.

So, I walk toward the journals because that's what I had my heart set on this time around. Oh, they were so pretty! Some were colorful with exquisite artwork on both sides of the cover. Others had no spine, but were bound with fancy thick cardstock fronts and backs, and of course the pages were glued together, and painted a fun color. Some were small and cute and fun to hold. Other journals were leather-bound and handcrafted in Italy with a fancy tree of life symbol or Celtic symbol on the front. Some of the leather journals were bold red or green colors.

I browsed the journal shelves for 45 minutes!!! I even saw journals with promptings for writers, teens, Christians, and more! So what did I settle on, you may ask? First off, my husband had also gotten me a really nice leather-bound journal for Christmas. I have never owned a leather journal in all my years of journaling. That's about 35 years worth of writing in journals. I have maybe 20 that are full! So, I didn't opt for a leather one, since I had just received a really nice one.

I chose a simple cardstock bound journal with a paint colored cover. It's mostly a light purplish-pink color with a little bit of blue, green and yellow on the edges. The quote on the front sold me.

"With freedom,
books, flowers,
and the moon,
who could not
be happy?"
- Oscar Wilde

Maybe it's the last name, I don't know, even though mine doesn't have an 'e'. The second book I found was a little reading journal published in 2010: My Bibliofile: A Reading Journal for Book Lovers. It's basically the printed format of the journal I used to be so diligent in keeping when reading so many picture books.

Each 2-page spread has a place for the title, the author, the date published, the category, date started, date finished, and a 5-star rating system. I'm going to use if for my novel reading adventures. I don't recommend it for picture books because you could easily fill it up in a short period of time. It also has a section that you could write about how the book inspired you to learn about other subjects, and a whole page to take notes. Perfect! I just had to have it! There's also a section in the back full of reading lists with Award winning novels. If anything is going to get me to read a little more, it's this book!

Great Customer Service

Back to Barnes & Noble, though. So was it the books that sucked me in? Yeah, a little bit. But what I really mean is that even though I love books, I don't really buy a lot of them. When I went to pay, the lady at the register asked if I wanted to get a rewards card and save a percentage off my purchase today. I said "No" because I would have to buy like $250 worth of books in order to get any savings, since the annual savings card is usually $25.

But she must have seen the longing in my eyes, or the hesitation in my voice, or maybe she's simple required to sell, sell, sell and it wasn't a long line, either. She continued to tell me all the wonderful benefits of being a member. And for a limited time, they were giving away a Starbucks coffee each month, just for getting the Member Card. Well, that alone would pay for itself!

"But I don't drink coffee," I said.

Tea and Crumpets

Well, I don't drink tea either and I'm not in the habit of eating crumpets, but Starbucks has coffee and cookies. And apparently, the cashier said the magic words:

"They also have smoothies."

Wait. What? Smoothies? I love smoothies! Where do I sign up? And that was all it took. Such clever marketing, I noted. And that's how Barnes & Noble sucked me into their Member Card savings program with tea and crumpets... er, I mean smoothies and cookies.

Needless to say, I had a chocolate banana smoothie and 2 large cookies for dinner that night as I drove home.

How often do you go book shopping? How much money do you spend on books in one year? How many books do you read in a year? Take your pick! Share in the comments!

Keep on keepin' on...

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