Seeing as my “Go to college without going broke” book keep climbing up the ranks (it’s currently ranked #1,549 out of about a million Kindle books!), I figured I’d post this on the off chance anybody wants to hire me. I would love nothing more than to become a full-time contributor/blogger/columnist/whatever on the topic of personal finance, especially if it’s aimed at young people (students and recent graduates). Leave a comment on this post or go to my “contact” page if you’re interested. I also do birthday parties. *g*
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The 3-day-long giveaway of my “Go to college without going broke” book worked even better than I’d expected: as of right now, it’s been downloaded 14,747 times – and no, that’s not a typo. I can’t even visualize that many people… When I wrote my first book, Atheism-101, I used to get anxiety attacks after I sold a few hundred copies. After all, scores of strangers around the world would get a glimpse of my mind, and my creation would live on forever in all those Kindles, smart phones, computers or whatever it is people use to read their books these days. In a way, it’s kind of like Tom Riddle’s diary in the second Harry Potter book: when you write a book, you create a hard copy of a certain part of your mind, a snapshot of yourself that will never change or grow older.
I find it funny now that I used to worry so much about “only” a few hundred sales. Now that my “Go to college” book has been downloaded almost fifteen thousand times, I’m not even sure what to think. I’m nonplussed. A bit nervous and quite impressed. This giveaway was a win-win idea: if the book sales didn’t take off after the giveaway’s end, I still would have helped thousands of people save millions of dollars on their college degrees. If, on the other hand, the book became a bestseller, I would have helped others and earned some money. Looks like it’s the latter: according to the most recent statistics, my book is ranked #2,315 in the Kindle store (out of about a million books out there) and it’s the 12th most popular personal finance book on the web. With any luck, it’ll go a bit higher, make its way into the top 10, and I’ll be able to add “bestselling personal finance author” to my long, long list of achievements.
Life is good…
A week or so ago, I enrolled my e-books in Amazon’s KDP Select program. Long story short, it allows Amazon Prime users to borrow my books for free and (supposedly) results in more sales. It also lets me give my books away for free for five days every three months. The logic is simple: give your books away for free, get higher sales ratings, more reviews, and so on, and after the giveaway ends, your book will start making you a lot more money. Also, fame and/or glory. Maybe. Who knows.
Aaaanyway, I decided to give away my “Go to college without going broke” book today and tomorrow just to see what would happen. I just woke up and logged it into my KDP menu to see what the sales are like and, well, let’s say it’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking my morning tea because HOLY COW, 614 DOWNLOADS!!!! The number grows every time I click “Refresh,” so it’s probably a safe bet that it will reach several thousand by tomorrow midnight. Just to give you a rough idea, my other book, “Atheism-101,” never sold more than 320 copies a month. And the truth is, whatever happens after the sale ends, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t care if “Go to college” will plunge back into the depths of Amazon’s ratings, with hardly any sales save for on occasional bored reader. Sure, the money would be great, but what matters the most is that 639 people (just got 25 new downloads in the past two minutes!) will have read my book and learned my money-saving secrets.
Even if only 10% of them actually follow up on my advice, that’s still 64 people that will end up saving time and money and beating the system. It’s such an odd feeling – knowing that right now, over 600 people are reading something I wrote months ago, essentially tapping into my mind and learning about the college shortcuts I’d come up with years ago. It’s an odd feeling – odd but not unpleasant. I wonder what will happen next. Right now, at 8:04am Pacific Time, there have been 681 downloads, and the book is currently ranked #3,195 Free in Kindle Store. Eight hours down, 40 more to go!
And to all those who found my site from the blurb at the end of the book – welcome! Leave a comment, say hello, and I hope all that atheism-related stuff doesn’t scare you away. *g*
“A high percentage of people who wear their religion on their sleeve tend not to follow their religion’s teachings in everyday life.”
(I know, I know – I am very humble.) That happens all the time, all around us: people who are loud and vocal about their religion and who randomly bring up their faith in conversation often turn out to be hypocrites. Granted, there are those who are vocal about their religion and walk the walk – kudos to them, as long as they don’t oppress others in the name of their faith. The people I’m talking about range from petty, backstabbing coworkers who praise Jesus whenever they can and wear giant crucifixes, to famous politicians who play the faith card and claim to be holier than thou, all the while cheating on their wife (or husband!), embezzling funds, and doing all sorts of other decidedly un-Christian things.
It’s quite ironic that our society is far more willing to accept hypocritical loudmouth religious people (not just Christians, mind you – every religion has them), while bashing atheists who lead perfectly moral, law-abiding lives and whose only sin is their refusal to believe in God. Why does it have to be this way? Why is vocal hypocrisy accepted when quiet dissent is demonized? Is it merely because of the religion-based “us versus them” association and unwillingness to punish somebody from your own camp? Is it because this kind of hypocrisy is so ancient and ubiquitous that at this point it’s almost a way of life?
I don’t know, and I doubt anybody can come up with a definitive answer… What I do know is that earlier tonight a highly religious but otherwise average buddy of mine revealed his true colors and, well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. I didn’t bother pointing out that what he did was just about as un-Christian as it gets. I doubt he would have understood, and if he had, he probably would have just ignored it and moved on…
I did not see this coming… A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a New York Times reporter who was writing an article on college students and frugality. She was on a tight deadline and I wasn’t even sure my advice was good enough to make it into the article. And then, a few days later, I found my name (and my book!) mentioned in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. Here’s the link, on the off chance you’re curious enough to read it: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/fashion/college-students-find-creative-ways-to-make-money.html?_r=2#
On the face of it, it’s not such a big deal – just a short paragraph on page 14 of the giant Sunday edition. The symbolic value of getting mentioned in the NYT, however, is immense. First of all, I now have a new great pickup line – “Have you ever met a NYT-featured bestselling author? Would you like to?” (which would probably work better than “Excuse me, does this smell like chloroform?”). Then there’s the fact that I went from a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant who sounded just like Borat to an NYT-recognized author in only eight years. If that’s not uncanny, I don’t know what is. And then there’s the potential for future projects with people who learned about me from the article… As one of my friends likes to say, “Things are happening.” It’s about time.
A couple of days ago, I finally got my new driver’s license (after a long and tedious battle with both the DMV and the post office… joy) with my new address, so I guess it’s official – I am now a Vegan! As in Las Vegan. Somebody should come up with a better term, because Vegasite sounds even worse…
The move from Reno (or, technically speaking, Fernley) was surprisingly easy once I decided not to get a Uhaul and only take what I could fit in my Buick. After a chaotic morning of packing, re-packing and re-re-packing, I managed to compress the essentials (clothes, gadgets and books) into my Skylark and that was it. There were no tearful goodbyes, no sad orchestra music, no eye-opening and life-changing epiphanies one always sees in Hollywood movies – I just got in the car, drove for seven hours and became a resident of the weirdest city in the United States. Come to think of it, it was almost too easy.
My first impressions of Vegas: traffic isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be; drivers are a lot worse than I thought they would be; I miss seeing the stars at night; there are way, way too many hipsters; Fremont Street is perfect – to hell with the Strip and its tourist traps; I could watch the nightly Treasure Island pirate show over and over; it’s not always hot but it definitely beats Reno; having palm trees outside your workplace is amazing. Life is good.
A friend of mine got robbed the other day. The thieves took all of her electronics, including her *ahem* personal massage device. However, they didn’t touch any of the art, some of which was unique and quite expensive. I guess it’s true what they say about reality being stranger than fiction…
I am now closer to 50 than I am to 0. Not quite where I had thought I would be at this age, but it could be worse… Then again, it could also be a whole lot better. Still living with roommates, stuck at a job where I can’t even begin to tap into my full potential, fast-forwarding through time while waiting for things to change. The more I think about it, the more it seems that the TV show Friends was pretty much spot-on with its portrayal of 20-somethings in America.
A few weeks ago, I went on vacation to Las Vegas. Despite having lived in Nevada for eight years, this was my first visit to the city of sin and, well, I fell in love with it! It’s bright, it’s loud, it’s extremely improbable – a sprawling oasis set in the middle of the Nevada desert. A contemporary Babylon, it exists for the sole purpose of entertaining people from all the over world, and it does that well. The sheer amount of eye candy alone is enough to give one diabetes!
I love the city’s casinos and the incredible amount of effort they go to in order to attract tourists – the Egyptian-themed Luxor, or all the gigantic statues at the Caesar’s. I love all the entrepreneurs that I saw on the Strip – free market in action! And then, of course, there’s the weather. A lot of people don’t like the idea of 100-degree weather, but I couldn’t get enough of it. Constant heat and no snow whatsoever – it’s every Siberian’s dream…
And then, of course, there’s the dirt-cheap real estate. Las Vegas was a ground zero for the housing bubble, and there are thousands of unoccupied residences throughout the city. A friend of mine paid $70,000 for a condo that had been selling for $240,000 at the peak of the bubble (the prices have gone even lower since then, to $59,000!), which is a great deal for a property located right next to the Strip. And just a block away, there are small (but still nice) condos selling for just $25,000. When it comes to big purchases, my philosophy is “function over form.” I think of a house as a place to live, not necessarily an investment, and it would be really hard to beat that kind of deal.
The one thing I don’t understand is why on earth it took me eight years to visit Las Vegas. Sure, I live 450 miles away from it (Nevada is a pretty big state), but there were so many other opportunities to visit it… Better late than never, I guess. Fortunately, my company has a facility in Vegas. Transferring there would mean taking a 15% pay cut, but I think it would be better in the long run. If nothing else, I’ll never have to drive through a snow storm ever again (we get quite a few of them here in the northern Nevada). If all goes well, I’ll move there about a month from now. A Siberian living in Las Vegas – how improbable is that?
…Andy! Congratulations, Andy – send me an email with your address, and your gift card will be on its way!!
Thanks for participating in the giveaway, everybody. 🙂
Grigory Lukin.com 