Fiscal Cliff: Our First Published Book





Your first payroll check in January, 2013 will be two percent less. Actually, the amount the government takes out could be considerably more than that, but the 2% is practically assured. Did you know that? There’s more.

A few weeks ago Darling and I attended a prophecy conference where we heard the term “fiscal cliff” from Joel Rosenberg. I’d heard the term before, but hadn’t really considered what it meant to us.

Darling and I were concerned and started doing research. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of web sites that discuss the fiscal cliff, the inevitable financial crisis currently facing the United States. I read hundreds of these sites and compiled information from them. After a few dozen sites they started saying the same thing, repeated in different orders with a different emphasis (depending on the site).

I read dozens of other related sites, many of them I would consider “survivalist” sites. Some of the information was good, some of it was radical and what I considered extreme advice. If survivalists are right, then we have bigger worries than simply economic troubles (as bad as they are). I have a friend at work who is as close to a survivalist as I know. I told him that if our civilization collapses I’m moving in with him. He laughed and said he’d be heading for the hills in his truck with his guns and family. He planned to grow corn.

“Corn isn’t a good crop, buddy. You need something with more diversity.” I studied crops.

He looked sideways at me. “You don’t understand. You mash the corn, do a little distilling and then barter for whatever else you want.”

He’s obviously thought about this more than I have. I’d be growing squash.

We spoke with our friends and family about the “fiscal cliff” and they knew close to nothing about it. After reading about the impact this will have on the American Family, this concerned us greatly.

So we decided to write a book.

We spent last weekend collating all the information I gathered and creating the book. I spent a few days designing a cover and figuring out how to publish the e-book (I don’t think we’ll publish a printed version).

On Wednesday, after a steep learning curve, we put the book up on Amazon. The cover we finally used was not the one we started with, but it is a good cover. Amazon said the book would be available on the Amazon site within twelve hours, but it actually took until this morning (so about four days).

We originally posted the book for sale at $2.99, which gives us a bit over a dollar for each copy sold. After looking at other e-books, though, we dropped the price to $0.99, which will net us about thirty cents a copy. That change is not reflected on Amazon as of this writing.

We also enrolled the book in the KDP select program which will loan the book free of charge to Amazon Prime members and provide a few weeks of free distribution of the book (to increase “sales” - though if we are getting no profit, I’m not sure why we call it “sales”).

We don’t expect to make a lot of money on the book, but we are hoping that a lot of people read it. The Fiscal Cliff is real, people, and the economic consequences will be painful.

Be prepared. Buy our book Preparing for the Fiscal Cliff. (Pay the $2.99 if you want; that would be great! Or wait a bit and it will go to $0.99 and then probably free for a few weeks.)

In addition, if you have investments I ran across the only other book on the Fiscal Cliff that gives practical and usable advice for the average American. That one was $0.99 when I bought it, but might even be less now. It is called Fiscal Cliff Investing - Strategies for Investment Protection by John Marsland. I have already used the advice in John's book to modify some of my investments, and I'm watching them based on the criteria he proposes. Good stuff if you have any money in the stock market.

One final thing: after studying this, I’m sure we cannot avoid the fiscal cliff. It might be delayed by the government (and it should be), but it’s coming.

An update: Our book is now $0.99 and I found a way to make it free for five days every ninety days.

In the meantime, Amazon lets us have Authors' pages. You can see mine at amazon.com/author/vincentbernhardt or either of them by just clicking on the Author name. Cool, huh?

Let me know what you think I should have on my Author's page, or what Darling should put on hers. If you know me, send me an email; it not, just drop me a comment. Thanks.