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Re: Our Book

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:57 am
by hocus2004
There were some questions raised last night re my upcoming book "Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work" at the board associated with the RetireEarlyHomePage.com web site. I provided a response this morning in this thread:

http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/cgi- ... 89;start=0

The post that I put forward is essentially a Statement of Intent re publication of the "Passion Saving" book in an Advance Reader version at my web site (I explained in earlier posts that the book will be available for sale only to members of our existing board communities and to new community members that I am able to pull in through publicity efforts for my web site, not at bookstores or at Amazon.com). I have hopes that publication of my book will help us in our effort to steer our movement in a new and more fruitful direction, and since that effort has obvious implications for the future of this board community, I thought that I should put forward the Statement of Intent here as well as at the HocoMania Forum.

The text of the post that I put forward at the other board in response to a question by Mr. 007 is set forth below.

Hocus: "I understand the point you are making, Ben. But, no, I do not agree with the way you state it.

I agree with you that the writing style used in my posts is indicative of the writing style used in the book. The book is more polished, but its the same person at the keyboard.

The themes explored in the book are indeed the same themes that were explored in my pre-May 13, 2002, Motley Fool posts. I often use posts to test and develop ideas. Putting something forward in a post forces me to organize the argument. The feedback helps me come up with new directions in which to take the idea. I use posts to test-market ideas. My old posts are rough drafts of much of the material in the book.

The book is the first place in which all of the ideas are pulled together into an integrated whole. A lightbulb went on in my head when I wrote the "Secrets" report. I had initially thought that I would use some of my most popular posts as the primary content of the report, and just add some transition material. When I tried writing the transitions, I found that there were all sorts of fundamental questions that had not been addressed at the board (it was just the Motley Fool board at the time). By the time I addressed those questions, I had enough fresh material to fill an entire report.

The scope of some of the claims advanced in the report surprised and excited me, I saw that there was more to this Retire Early business than I had first realized. I continued exploring the fundamental questions, and discovered new implications in the ideas first put forward in the report. The book is the product of these explorations. The book integrates the various strands of thought in an in-depth description of an entirely new approach to money management.

The claim advanced in the book is a bold one. I am saying that everyone should follow this new approach. It is because of the boldness of the claim that I want to release this in stages. I see the "Passion Saving" book as being the vehicle by which we take the ideas we have examined on discussion boards for six years now and take them to a much bigger stage--all middle-class workers with an interest in obtaining more value from the money they earn. I see all sorts of things from all sorts of people following in days to come. But I see my book as our planting of our flag in the ground. I get the royalties from the book. But I think of it as being "our" statement of the purpose of "our" movement.

I of course understand that I will not get all community members to sign off on the statement put forward in the book. Still, I see this as not the decription of one community member of his particular plan, but as the description of a new approach to money management that has well served thousands of community members. So I think it makes sense to hear some reaction from the community from which the book originates before taking the thing to the bigger stage.

My hope is that the version that goes into bookstores will be word-for-word the same as the version that goes up for sale at my web site in May. I don't look forward to more rewrites. But in the event that someone raises a point that I had not considered that seems important to me, I want to remain open to the possibility that some rewriting is needed. I want to put the strongest possible statement forward when I bring our ideas to the attention of the general public.
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