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.

Comments

  1. Hey, thanks for the shout out. I'll grab your book as soon as I get a chance and give it a fair review.

    Warm regards,

    John Marsland, Author
    Fiscal Cliff Investing
    http://amzn.to/QXsse5

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just finished reading your book today. It was nice to see all the information regarding this upcoming phenomenon in one, convenient place. I appreciate that you offer suggestions for weathering the storm. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) we've been forced to scale back and watch our pennies over the last several years due to setbacks that you are already aware of. We actually put a garden in this summer but our crops didn't do very well. I've concluded that the soil we bought was not very good. We're going to try again next spring and hopefully have better luck. I appreciate all your work on this and the effort you put into getting it all compiled and easy to read and understand. Nice work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for reading the book, Dave. Now go post a nice review for me on Amazon! ;)

    I have some information on small-space gardening I can share with you. Keep an eye on your email!

    ReplyDelete
  4. CONGRATS ON THE BOOK, IT WAS EYE OPENING,AND I GET TO BRAG I HAVE A COUSIN WHO'S A PUBLISHED AUTHOR, BUT LIKE DAVE,WE'VE BEEN LIVING PRETTY FRUGALLY FOR SOME TIME NOW, FARMING FULL TIME MAKES THAT A NECESSITY TOO BAD DAVE DIDN'T LIVE CLOSER, WE GOT LOTS OF "ORGANIC" MATTER THAT WOULD AMEND HIS POOR SOIL, MIGHT OFFEND THE NEIGHBORS BUT CROPS LOVE IT!ML

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very insightful, just curious (without reading the book) is this still relevant to 2019? seeing that is was published in 2012.

    thanks again for the great info!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, yes, it is still viable. We've thought of doing an update - something like "Falling off the Fiscal Cliff" because of the extreme financial situation the USA is in and nobody seems to mention. I mean, we think it should be front page news that the US Government is now 75 Trillion dollars in debt - by their own calculations!
      The government’s total net loss in FY 2018 was $1.16 TRILLION.
      Their report can be found here (https://fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/financial-report/2018/03282019-FR(Final).pdf).
      Thanks for reading.

      Delete

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