Thanks, everyone, and another worldwide book mailing is going out tomorrow to the major contributors.
What a long, strange, seven years it's been. At least three of my former XOs will declare that the book has been ghost-written by someone who actually understands English grammar & punctuation.
The pocket guide (4"x5", 64 pages) went to the printers last week and should be back in a couple more weeks. The book & pocket guide can be ordered off Impact Publications' website now!
Impact has also been mailing review copies out to the list we put together a few months ago (
http://www.early-retirement.org/for...-about-financial-shows-on-tv-radio-55377.html) and even one to Suze Orman (
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/suze-orman-says-54353.html#post1063074). The blog's Twitter feed has been picked up by one of the subsidiary publications of the WSJ. Media interest should be building, so we'll probably see some interesting new members signing up to read the board.
According to Impact's contract (which is quite generous by industry standards) I won't see the first royalty check until December-- and then only if it nets out to over $135. The good news is that the contract's fine print implies a check will be sent if there are final sales of at least 100 copies by the end of October. I suspect that's achievable.
We could wait until December's payment to decide how to allocate the royalties. However if we choose the charities now then I could contact our intended recipients to let them know what we're doing. Impact Publications would be happy to jump aboard this bandwagon with their PR campaign. That could generate quite a bit of additional publicity and money. For example, a charity could suggest to its corporate sponsors that they buy a few thousand copies of the book to donate to their beneficiaries, and then we'd donate the royalties to the charity. I'd use that "viral spiral" achievement in media interviews to explain how we did it, and then we'd sell even more books. Here are the charities that have been nominated so far:
More military charities for “The Military Guide” royalties | Military Retirement & Financial Independence After the contributors get back to me, in a week or two I'll post the selected charities on the blog.
After nine months of posting 3x/week, the blog is gaining traction: Google the words "military financial independence" (without quotes) and in any order. It routinely achieves over 100 hits/day and monthly volume is steadily inching higher.
The pocket guide is perfect for transition programs on military bases and at VA sites. A few years ago the state of Florida purchased 125,000 copies of an Impact job-search pocket guide for their state VA programs. It's also a cheap [-]gateway drug[/-] way to get an idea of what the book can do. But the blog & pocket guide are just a periscope view of the whole picture. You only get the full impact (so to speak) with the book-- all the checklists, all the contributors' stories, all the analyses & discussions, all in your hands.
Most readers will enjoy the book & pocket guide and a few will hate them, but right now 99% of America has never heard of them. Publicity is the only way to reach out to that last group, and you guys know many more people than I do. I'd appreciate it if you could:
- tell people to read about the book on Early-Retirement.org, or
- pass this board's thread on to whoever you think might be interested, or
- post about the book and "like" it on your Facebook page (
https://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#...ndence-and-Retirement/160311297328631?sk=wall), or
- reTweet @TheMilitaryGuid (just strip out my #hashtags as necessary)
- just subscribe to The-Military-Guide.com. And feel free to add a comment there!
When you read the book, please post a review here or on some other discussion board or on any other bookseller's website. Feel free to [-]publicly humiliate[/-] let us know if you find a typo, because we've proofread the manuscript so many times that I'm losing track of both the trees and the forest.
I'm also looking for volunteers to step up with book donations to libraries on military bases and local communities. I've taken care of the Hawaii State Public Library system and the Pearl Harbor, Schofield, & Kaneohe base libraries. You'd think that would eat into sales but the reality is that people read the book from the library, get tired of borrowing it, buy their own copy, and buy extra copies for their family/friends.
I'd love to hear more stories from military veterans & family members. They can contribute to the second edition (and the blog) and help send more royalties to military charities.
As for the movie rights, you'll have to get your hands on the book to figure out which character is REWahoo!
And the cover is great, combining the typography and that photo of T-Al and Lena
Um, yeah, sure, that's right, we meant to do that!!
![thumbnail[8].jpg](/data/attachments/9/9985-5c618e77fb0949d66b559bd4d1ebf2a9.jpg)
