Leave it to the baby boomers to do everything in a big way. As this generation has muscled its way through history, its sheer numbers have made its every life passage an earth-shaking event. Now, as the boomers' peak earning years coincide with millennium fervor, and the Internet phenomenon intersects with the boomers' demographic stampede into maturity, there's an overwhelming feeling that we are entering a period of change with unlimited possibilities. In the last 10 years, huge fortunes have been made in the longest running bull market in history. Career and productivity mountains have been scaled with technology. Powered by half a century unmarred by world war, and endowed with unheard-of prosperity, material and spiritual boundaries once considered inviolable have been breached. Finally, undreamed-of advances in science and medicine enable people to live longer, much longer, and rethink, if not invent, life plans suited to the new longevity.
Just around the corner is retirement, a passage that this generation will also put its unique stamp upon. As American Demographics said in its December 1995 article "The Baby Boom Turns 50," "Baby Boomers are entirely unlike older generations of Americans, both in attitude and lifestyles. Attempts to lump boomers into the 'mature' category simply because they are in their 50s will be either ignored by boomers or greeted with hoots of contempt. Boomers' attitude is that they can always take care of themselves. They are optimistic economically."
Information Is Money
For astute publishers, this convergence of forces in the marketplace has been a windfall. Noting that IDG Books has been charting the movement of baby boomers through their life passages, senior editor Mark Butler observes, "Information is money. What we've seen in the last several years is the acceptance of this idea, which in turn has resulted in the real empowerment of investors. More information is available to more people today." He adds that with its For Dummies titles -- and recently acquired Lasser's tax guides and reimagined Cliffs Notes series -- IDG "is trying to help people understand their newfound power and responsibility."
As McGraw-Hill investing and finance publisher Jeffrey Krames puts it, "More than any time in history, investors are taking responsibility for their money" as they search for information to help them take action. Says Cynthia Zigmund, president of Dearborn Trade, "People want more sophisticated information than they did a few years ago. They want specific information that will help them make money and give them an edge." John Mahaney, executive editor of Times Books, remarks, "The new economy is about, if nothing else, the transforming power of information. Information is now the ultimate good." Several publishers speak of the "democratization" of valuable financial information, information once reserved for the elite, as a defining characteristic of the explosion of titles in the areas of personal finance and investing.
"Interest in the category of personal finance and investment has never been higher, driven by two widely held perceptions," says Ann Binkley, spokesperson for Borders.com. "The Internet represents an unprecedented opportunity for personal wealth creation, and the rules of wealth creation have been, and will continue to be, changed by the new economy. As a result, books that are doing well now address one or both of these issues. Y2K financial fallout, online trading, day trading, Internet stock valuations, in fact, anything Internet company related, are all hot issues now, and most will remain so as we cross over the millennium threshold."
Harry Edwards, business and investing editor for Amazon.com, reports that personal finance and investment titles are doing extremely well, for many of the same reasons cited by Binkley; the category as a whole is one of Amazon's top three. Jack Covert, general manager of 800-CEO-READ, formerly Schwartz Business Books, in Milwaukee, says, "People have a lot of capital and are looking for ways to invest it. People who 10 years ago wouldn't have known a security from an option are now selling short."
The Root of All What?
General money books that deal with the gamut of decisions facing everyone, including earning, budgeting, buying a home, getting insurance and investing, are well represented on publishers' forthcoming lists. The beneficiaries of post-WWII prosperity, boomers grew up placing an emphasis on good times without fear of loss or hardship. Budgeting and counting pennies were not skills deeply ingrained in many of these children of the survivors of the Depression of the '30s. The advent of plastic money and easy credit coincided with their coming of age, making it seem as if the party could go on forever. Finitude and limits were not in their vocabulary. Middle age, with its burdens of college-age children, aging parents, personal debt, loss of loved ones and other real-life traumas has come as a rude awakening. "Many boomers are now past 50," says David Harrison, director of Kiplinger Books & Tapes. "Others are in their 40s. They've finally started looking seriously at their financial futures. Many delayed marrying and having children and now are faced with the ˜twin terrors' -- saving for their retirement and their kids' tuition simultaneously." Kiplinger recently issued a title targeted directly at this situation, Kiplinger's Practical Guide to Your Money by Ted Miller, the editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine.
In January, Times Books will release Simple Money Solutions by Nancy Lloyd, the NPR commentator who has been called "the Martha Stewart of money." Aimed at baby boomers as well as Gen Xers who want to get a grip on their finances but always seem to run out of money at the end of the month, Simple Money Solutions, says Mahaney, "is a nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts book to help you discover where you are spending money needlessly and to get control of your personal finances." A June release from Times, The Wealth of Choices by Wall Street Journal Washington bureau chief Alan Murray is billed as "The Roaring 2000s meets Die Broke: the new rules for the new economy and how to profit and live well." Also published in June was a HarperBusiness title that addressed similare themes: Building Wealth: The New Rules for Individuals, Companies, and Nations in a Knowledge-Based Economy by noted economist Lester Thurow.
For the money maladaptive in need of attitude adjustments, Andrews McMeel offers Making Peace with Money by Jerrold Mundis (Sept.), which outlines the principles and practices for changing emotions, psychological attitudes and beliefs about money from the pathological to the healthy. Two similar titles out this year are a new edition of Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by J Dominguez and Vicki Robin (Penguin, Sept.) and Wake Up and Smell the Money: Fresh Starts at Any Age -- And Any Season of Your Life by Ginger Applegarth with Leslie Whitaker (Viking, trade paperback due in Jan. 2000). Jane Von Mehren, associate publisher at Penguin Putnam, calls the first title "the Bible of the simplicity movement," and notes that the second "guides the reader through the major money passages in his or her life."
Today's concerned consumers can turn to a trio of Wiley releases to assuage their money worries: The Savage Truth About Money by Terry Savage (Oct.), Smart Money Decisions: Why You Do What You Do with Money (and How to Change for the Better) by Max H. Bazerman (Sept.) and The Average Family's Guide to Financial Freedom: How You Can Save a Small Fortune on a Modest Income by Bill and Mary Toohey (Mar. 2000). Jeffrey Brown, Wiley v-p and general manager of the business program, observes, "There's room for a lot of approaches to this area -- no one methodology works all the time for everyone. There is no single path to wealth."
Speaking of wealth, IDG offers just that in terms of basic financial information. The first consumer For Dummies title, Personal Finance for Dummies, will come out in its third edition in April. In September, IDG published a quartet of Cliffs Notes titles dealing with general money matters: Cliffsnotes Creating a Budget, ¦Getting Out of Debt, ¦Managing Your Money and ¦Balancing Your Checkbook with Quicken. "Cliffs Notes are a transcendent brand," says Mark Butler. "They've been around for years and people learned to trust them. And there is the nostalgia angle of ˜these helped me' about the brand." He adds, "What we're trying to do with Cliffs and Dummies books is find commonalities and universal truths dealing with money. We're trying not to exclude anyone."
Intended to zap some creativity into one's approach to finance, Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform and Out-Earn the Competition by Jay Abraham (St. Martin's/Truman Talley, Feb. 2000) will help consumers make the most of hidden assets, overlooked opportunities and untapped resources right under their noses. In Talley's words, "It's all about how you can see with new eyes the multitude of opportunities all around you."
Finally, yet another media personality has an all-purpose money book en route to the shelves: due in February from Villard is Right on the Money: Taking Control of Your Personal Finances by Christopher Ferrell of NPR's Sound Money fame.
Making All That Money Work
"The explosive growth of the Internet and online services has transformed individual investing. The sophisticated tools and access to information once enjoyed only by financial professionals and the most well-heeled of investors are now easily available to anyone with a computer and a modem," says Mahaney. Adrian Zackheim, associate publisher of HarperCollins and editor-in-chief of Harper Information, concurs: "The Internet is the big story -- we're seeing a raging transformation of everything, including publishing itself." Krames at McGraw-Hill says, "The whole online world is transforming investing. It's a huge paradigm change. Today you can buy up to 5000 shares of a stock online for less than the price of a movie in New York City. There are over 11 million online accounts executing 500,000 trades a day. Cyberbrokers are spending $1.5 billion this year to advertise their services."
Though not in that league, houses large and small are spending a considerable amount to publish and promote titles on everything remotely associated with investing -- online and otherwise -- including the dubious subset of day trading. A veritable tidal wave of titles is hitting the stores to satisfy this consumer appetite.
Wiley's Online Trading for a Living series points to this trend, says Jeffrey Brown. "We've had great success in this arena, and it is continuing to evolve." Titles in the series include Day Trade Online by Christopher A. Farrell, Electronic Day Trading to Win by Bob Baird and Craig McBurney, Trade Options Online by George A. Fontanills, How I Trade for a Living by Gary Smith, Electronic Day Trading 101 by Sunny Harris and The Strategic Electronic Day Trader by Robert Deel.
Two April titles -- Harper Business's Scam Dogs and Mo-Mo Mamas: Inside the Wild and Woolly World of Internet Stock Trading by John Emshwiller and Random House's Dumb Money: Adventures of a Day Trader by J y Anuff and Gary Wolf -- promise to serve up exposé stories that will curl your hair.
Although Adams Media president Bob Adams tells PW that the demand for day trading books "has fallen off because of the shooting in Atlanta and media stories showing just how difficult it is to make money there," he continues to see "an interest in online trading among investors of all kinds." Adams's titles in this area are The Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online by Toni Turner and Start Investing Online Today! by Deborah Price. "In '98 we published the first book on electronic day trading," Krames at McGraw-Hill says, and "we will also do the first title on electronic futures trading [The Complete Guide to Electronics Futures Trading: Everything You Need to Start Trading Online by Scott Slutsky and Darrell Jobman, Dec.]." McGraw-Hill's list is dense with electronic trading and investing titles, including Understanding Electronic Day Trading: Every Investor's Guide to Wall Street's Hottest Phenomenon by Carol Troy (Nov.), The New Electronic Traders: Understanding What It Takes to Make the Jump to Electronic Trading by Jonathon Aspatore (Jan. 2000) and How to Be an Internet Stock Investor by David Newton (May 2000), part of the publisher's Mastering the Market series.
Last March IDG released the second edition of Kathleen Sindell's Investing Online for Dummies, while another second edition is due from Dearborn in June -- The Day Trader's Advantage: How to Move from One Winning Position to the Next by Howard Abell. The On-line Investor, published by St. Martin's last August in a revised and updated edition, is by Ted Allrich, host of America Online's Online Investor. Editor George Witte calls this title "a basic, practical problem-solving book." In April, Times Books will issue Online Investing by Dave Petit and Rich Jaroslovsky and the reporters and editors of the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition. "You don't have to know anything about investing," says Mahaney. "This is a basic guide to investing and doing it online."
Published by Jossey-Bass in June was Net Profit: How to Invest and Compete in the Real World of Internet Business, in which author (and CNBC commentator) Peter S. Cohan reveals the techniques that helped him pick his CNBC winners.
Stocking Up
There is no shortage of stock pick or bond pick titles out there, as well as books on selecting the right mutual fund. "People are interested in individual stocks, not just mutual funds these days," Bob Adams of Adams Media observes. "Our stock pick books have been performing better and better." Adams covers both bases with The 100 Best Mutual Funds You Can Buy, 2000 by Gordon K. Williamson and The 100 Best Stocks You Can Buy, 2000 by John Slatter, now shipping. "Our investing books tend to be category specific," says John Crutcher, marketing director of Bloomberg Press, pointing to Investing in Small Cap Stocks, revised edition, by Christopher Graja and Elizabeth Ungar and Investing in IPOs by Tom Taulli, which was, according to Crutcher, the first book on the market that was only about IPOs. Coming from Dearborn in the stock pick area is Wall Street's Picks for 2000 by Kirk Kazanjian, and Harper Business is offering The Sage Guide to Mutual Funds by Stephen Cohn and Alan Cohn.
Titles on investing in Internet stocks themselves include The Gorilla Game: An Investor's Guide to Picking Winners in High Technology by Geoffrey A. Moore, Paul Johnson and Tom Kippola, revised edition, and The Internet Bubble: Inside the Over-Valued World of High-Tech Stocks -- And What You Need to Know to Avoid the Coming Shakeout by Michael C. Perkins, both from HarperBusiness. One of Dearborn's lead titles for the coming season is The 100 Hottest Internet Stocks to Own for the Long Run: Investing in the Internet Economy and the Companies That Make It Click (May 2000) by Gene Walden, author of several earlier 100 Best¦ titles in this category. Just in time, perhaps, to recoup one's losses after a hefty IRS bite come two April titles from McGraw-Hill: The 100 Best Internet Stocks to Own by Greg Kyle and How to Be an Internet Stock Investor by David Newton.
Guru advice on investing is pouring forth from all quarters of publishing. In June 2000 McGraw-Hill will publish Henry Kaufman's long-awaited professional memoir, On Money and Markets: A Wall Street Memoir, in which the world-renowned economist recollects his rise on Wall Street and explores the world financial markets of the 20th century. Also due from McGraw-Hill next summer are Investment Titans: Investment Insights from the Minds That Move Wall Street by Jonathan Burton and How to Pick Stocks Like Warren Buffett: Profiting from the Bargain Hunting Strategies of the World's Greatest Value Investor by Timothy Vick. "Stock market volatility is at an all-time high," says Jeffrey Krames. "Investors are looking for name-brand guidance and works to put the financial markets in perspective." In a similar vein, Amacom recently released Secrets of the Investment All-Stars by Kenneth A. Stern, and HarperBusiness will publish in May Money Masters of Our Time by John Train, "a reappraisal and revision of those money masters who have stood the test of time plus new money masters," says the publisher. Dearborn is in the game with Lessons from the Legends of Wall Street: How Warren Buffett, Phil Fisher, Benjamin Graham, T. Rowe Price, and John Templeton Can Help You Grow Rich by certified financial planner Nikki Ross (Apr. 2000). And from Wiley guru/legendary fund manager John B. Neff comes John Neff on Investing (Oct.), in which the author reveals his contrarian investment strategies (forget day trading, he says; what people need in volatile times is value).
On the lighter side, but of equal weight in terms of advice, is Do You Want to Make Money or Would You Rather Fool Around? by John D. Spooner. "Accessible and entertaining," says publisher Bob Adams of this October title, "this book is an invaluable way for readers to acquire a lifetime of proven investment wisdom."
Books attempting to get some perspective on the Big Picture in the new investment climate are everywhere. Recently out from St. Martin's is Fail-Safe Investing: Lifelong Financial Security in 30 Minutes by Harry Browne, which, says editor Witte, "is aimed at every reader. It is not a stock-picking book, but offers timeless, trustworthy principles for investing successfully." Also from St. Martin's, under the Truman Talley imprint, is Future Wealth: Investing in the Second Great Wave of Technology Stocks by Francis McInerney and Sean White, a title Amazon.com business editor Harry Edwards expects to be a major winter phenomenon in the category. Times Books' candidate for the Big Picture market is The Rules for Getting Rich by David Lereah (Apr. 2000), chief economist of the Mortgage Banker's Association. Times's Mahaney says, "This is for somebody with a serious interest in understanding economic indicators and trends. It covers the 10 most important investment reports and develops rules of thumb for the investor to use."
The Big Squeeze
While baby boomers plan to work well into their '70s, for the most part because they will have to due to financial constraints (including but not limited to the uncertain Social Security situation), they are going to have to quit working sooner or later. How they are going to cope with all of the financial demands created by marrying late and having children late, as well as the longer lives their own parents will lead, is the subject of many books in upcoming months.
From the College Board and Holt comes The Parents Guide to Paying for College by Gerald Krefetz (Sept.), expert advice on how to cover the spiraling costs of college with help from the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, including info on the Lifetime Learning Credit, HOPE credit, child tax credit and education IRAs. Kiplinger's entry into this particular race is Financing College: How Much You'll Really Have to Pay -- And How to Get the Money by Kristin Davis, a book promising to help you afford to send your child to the college of his or her choice.
Reassuring-sounding titles about how you can, one day, retire will be hitting the stores soon. Kiplinger, which last year published Retire Worry-Free: 12 Steps to Financial Freedom by the staff of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, has a new one in this category, Retire & Thrive: Remarkable People Share Their Creative, Productive & Profitable Retirement Strategies by Robert K. Otterbourg. Observing that "early retirement is a hot subject right now," Bob Adams of Adams Media will publish How to Retire Early and Live Well with Less Than a Million Dollars by Gillette Edmunds (Feb. 2000). The author, a financial journalist, began living off his investments at the age of 29, and claims he can show others how to do it, too. Holt hopes to catch the same wave of consumer interest with Retire Early -- And Live the Life You Want Now: A 10-Step Plan for Reinventing Your Retirement by John F. Wasik, a January 2000 title that says 21 million Americans -- those with a household income of $100,000 or more -- are in a position to retire early and start living their dreams sooner than they thought possible. David Sobel, senior editor at Holt, calls it a "brass tacks practical book, offering new ways to cut back on expenses to leave more money for investing." Wiley adds another soothing title to the mix in January with Set for Life: Financial Peace for People over 50 by Bambi Holzer with Elaine Floyd, which the publisher says contains simple strategies for real people.
For consumers wondering where to retire, once the money starts rolling in, John Muir is publishing three dreamy titles that will make one want to check out of the rat race right now: Live Well in Mexico: How to Relocate, Retire, and Increase Your Standard of Living by Ken Luboff (former publisher of John Muir Publications), Live Well in Ireland¦ by Steenie Harvey and The World's Top Retirement Havens¦ by Ken Luboff. Donna Galassi, sales and marketing director for John Muir, says, "Most people don't have the time, energy, or money to research and track every investment possibility. Most people simply want to stretch their income as far as possible while maintaining a comfortable lifestyle."
Other retirement-related titles are those dealing with assets that will survive one's bodily existence. Bearing a comforting subtitle is Holt's second edition of The Complete Guide to Wills, Estates & Trusts: Advice That Can Save You Thousands of Dollars in Legal Fees and Estate Costs by Alexander A. Bove Jr. (Feb. 2000), while Pass It On: A Practical Approach to the Fears and Facts of Planning Your Estate by Barbara Shotwell and Nancy Randolph Greenway (Mar. 2000) is billed by publisher Hyperion as "an accessible, entertaining guide to estate planning."
Lastly, Dearborn addresses a particularly somber topic -- but necessary nonetheless -- in its third edition of On Your Own: A Widow's Passage to Emotional and Financial Well-Being, in which Alexandra Armstrong and Mary R. Donahue draw on testimonials and interviews. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, says the publisher, there are more than 12 million widows in the U.S.; this August release presents insights on emotional and financial topics.
If publishers have missed anything this winter/spring, any subcategory or micro-niche in personal finance and investing, it clearly is not from lack of effort and gusto. The 78 million baby boomers now in positions of authority and driving the economy, as well as all of their relatives, have gotten publishers' attention in a big way. Every money information need is an opportunity to make money and, with the current mind-numbing rate of change in the world, we can be sure new needs will be discovered tomorrow, if not in the next 10 minutes. But publishers can always take heart, because there is always next season's list to satisfy those needs.
