I’ve been one of the unlucky Amazon affiliates to be dropped from the program because the state of Illinois passed a law that would require Amazon to collect taxes on all sales in the state.

The law says that the online seller must have a physical presence in the state, and Illinois considers affiliates to be a “physical presence.”

Affiliates in other states, such as California, New York, Arkansas, North Caroline, Hawaii, Colorado and others, have been dropped. Some web companies rely on Amazon’s affiliate program for a large chunk of their revenue. I know of at least one company in Illinois that relocated to Wisconsin to keep their affiliate status.

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I’ve written a lot about the concept of “free” on this blog: Give stuff away and make more money. The word “free” is a very loaded word that has a huge psychological impact on consumers. After all, who can pass up a free offer?

US convenience store chain 7-Eleven is reaping the financial rewards of the “free” concept. Since today’s date is 7/11, it only makes sense that they should have some kind of special promotion. They do; and if you’re a Slurpee fan, you’re in luck.

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You didn’t ask for it, but it’s here anyway. I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m gonna start selling exclusive Brad’s Reader gear. This is in the form of the usual t-shirts and mugs.

The designs are original, drawn by yours truly (don’t laugh). I only have one t-shirt design right now, though more will be on the way within the next month or so. The mug is a pretty basic mug with the Brad’s Reader logo and URL.

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The largest online retail website Amazon.com dropped thousands of California affiliates on Wednesday. Amazon affiliates in California are the latest victim of an ongoing campaign by states to collect sales tax from online retailers.

The catch is, however, that the retailer must have a physical presence in the state to collect the sales tax. State laws have been written to include affiliates as being a “physical presence” in the state.

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Since Brad’s Reader seems to be growing in readership and popularity, I’m going to try an experiment in shameless promotion. I’m going to be selling exclusive Brad’s Reader gear, compliments of DIY design site Zazzle.com.

This decision was decided, in part, by the loss of revenue after the state of Illinois passed a law that will tax the internet, forcing Amazon to dump all affiliates in the state.

Don’t worry, my products won’t just be boring shirts and mugs with the Brad’s Reader logo and URL. Yes, there will be t-shirts and mugs, but they will feature original drawings/designs by yours truly.

Right now my store is still a work in progress. Once some products are up, I’ll be tastefully promoting them right here.

July can be the ‘make or break’ month for the Borders book chain. If they don’t get a buyer soon to take over their debt, then the chain will start liquidating by July 29.

Borders entered into bankruptcy earlier this year. Since then, over 200 stores have closed, and there are more on the chopping block. Actually, the entire company is on the chopping block right now.

Publishers Weekly gives the dirty details:

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I want to wish all the dads out there a Happy Father’s Day. This is the first year I’m celebrating this day dedicated to dads. I now understand what it means to be a dad and all the work involved.

Of course, even on a holiday like this, I still can’t help working on Brad’s Reader and searching for all tech news as it relates to reading and writing.

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to find the #1 Father’s Day present. I’d like to say it’s an eReader, but I can’t back that up. I got my own father-in-law a Kindle WiFi (the same model I have) and he’s really excited about it.

Again, have a Happy Father’s Day!

- Brad

Borders won a very small victory today when six landlords granted the struggling bookseller a reprieve, giving Borders more time to think about canceling the leases on those stores.

Borders was supposed to close an additional 51 stores, but that has been reduced to 45. This is on top of the 237 stores they closed in February after filing for bankruptcy.

This Bloomberg article explains:

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Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest bookseller, is exploring the idea of buying their competitor Borders Group. This comes after a tough year for Borders, which declared bankruptcy earlier and had their stock delisted on NYSE.

There has been previous rumors of Borders acquiring Barnes & Noble with the help of investors, but so far those rumors have been unfounded.

According to this post on thebookseller.com, a B&N takeover of Borders could pose antitrust issues:

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Sometimes it’s easy to forget that even major news publications can make mistakes. Everything from spelling and punctuation errors to getting names wrong in a story. It happens.

But I usually don’t see many mistakes in news headlines – online or print.

Yesterday, I found a doozy.

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