It's time to face the truth: there's just no way to neaten this field into tidy generalizations. Is the market up? Is the market down? (And we're talking money and books here.) Publishers are expressing contradictory opinions about this subcategory, depending in large part on their economic prognostications. Is the economy still sluggish, or is it recovered and robust? Do investors hope to get rich or simply to hold on to what they have? Perhaps most importantly, are they looking to books about money matters and, if so, what kind?
Among the many financial trends cited by publishers are increased interest in retirement and retirement alternatives; a perceived need for a more financially literate public; evidence of a go-it-alone spirit in navigating investments and in finding supplementary income sources that bypass the stock market. By far the most often mentioned topic, however, is the rock-solid reliability of the real estate market.
"Nothing derails the housing market phenomenon, says McGraw-Hill publisher Jeffrey Krames. "It's a market-driven need. Publishers ignore it at their own peril." The real estate titles McGraw-Hill has lined up for the coming months are driven by the idea of real estate as a sound investing strategy—that boning up on the tricks of the trade will result in stronger financial yield. For example, Start Small, Profit Big in Real Estate by Jay DeCima (Nov.) offers a plan for building a real estate empire with little or no money down by buying dilapidated houses. Investing in Commercial Real Estate by Gary Eldred (Dec.) talks about methods for building wealth through safe, high-yield investments. January brings Insider Secrets to Financing Your Real Estate Investments, in which Frank Gallinelli tells investors what they need to know about finding, financing and closing real estate investment deals; and The Complete Guide to Investing in Undervalued Properties, the latest entry in Steve Berges's Complete Guide series, which looks at how to turn profits at very low risk in undervalued properties.
David Lereah, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, argues in Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom? Why Home Values and Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb Through the End of the Decade—and How to Profit from Them (Doubleday Currency, Feb.) that real estate is the best investment anyone can make nowadays. "Lereah suggests a host of reasons the boom will continue into the next decade," says Currency executive editor Roger Scholl. "He says we should make residential real estate a much bigger factor in our portfolio and shows ways we can increase our participation in this unprecedented real estate boom."
Real estate, of course, was not always held in quite such high regard. "Pre-2001, we couldn't publish enough about personal investing," says Dearborn Trade publisher Cynthia Zigmund. "After the stock market crash, sales slowed. Real estate is now the investment of choice—it's strong and we expect it to continue. We're finding basic books are digging deeper, talking about tax liens, multi-unit properties, investing in certain kinds of properties. Before it was just 'investing' or 'flipping.' Now it's little-known but lucrative areas." Creating Wealth Through Probate: The Best-Kept Secret in Real Estate Investing by James G. Banks (June) is a good example, Zigmund says. "It tells how to buy properties at 30% of market value." She also cites an April release, Make More Money Investing in Multiunits: A Step-by-Step Guide by Gregory Warr.
Two October titles from Amacom provide further opportunities for budding real estate tycoons. In The Landlord's Financial Tool Kit, Michael Thomsett offers tips and advice along with forms and practical applications in specific categories—real estate investors are involved with about 200 different mathematical calculations, says the author. M. Anthony Carr's Real Estate Investing Made Simple: A Commonsense Approach to Building Wealth shows readers how to get started in real estate investing by taking them through the process of locating properties, arranging financing, evaluating market variables, building an investment team and negotiating contracts.
No credit? No problem. Out last month from NAL, No Credit Required: How to Buya House When You Don't Qualify for a Mortgage by Ray Mungo and Robert H. Yamaguchi shows interested buyers how to manage a real estate purchase without an established credit history, tracing the path from no-credit homeownership to hefty profits.
Nor does one need to be a financial genius in this particular area. Recognizing the importance of real estate titles, Wiley's popular For Dummies series this month adds to its ever-expanding business reperoire RealEstate Investing for Dummies by Eric Tyson and Robert Griswold. Publisher Diane Steele at Consumer Dummies is on the lookout for what she calls "nichier, adjunct titles." The greatest challenge, she tells PW, is not second-guessing the market but listening to consumers and following their lead. "We did 401(K)s for Dummies two years ago because we thought, everyone has a plan, everyone needs the book, but it wasn't greeted with interest at all." Among Wiley's bestselling titles, Steele says, are Homebuying for Dummies, Investing for Dummies and Personal Finance for Dummies, the last two recently revised. In keeping with the niche concept, this year's Taxes for Dummies is focused for the first time on the needs of online filers and last-minute filers.
If the most resilient Dummies finance books are those that cover the basics, other publishers have believed it all along. Harcourt has stood behind Andrew Tobias's million-selling The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need for 25 years; the latest revised edition is due in January. Tobias notes that when he first wrote his book, checking accounts paid no interest, trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange was a tiny fraction of what it is today and "the largest mutual fund family offered a choice of 15 different funds." (Today, he says, there are more than 150.) What else was different? "There were no home equity loans: no 410(K) retirement plans or Roth IRAs; no variable annuities to avoid or TIPS to applaud. There was no Internet, no e-Bay, no Amazon—not even a Home Shopping Network."
Becoming Financially Literate
Given so much that's new, there's an ongoing need for primers to help the ordinary person navigate today's increasingly complex labyrinth of financial scenarios. "Our biggest concern," says Dearborn's Zigmund, "is to get consumers to understand that they need financial literacy. No one is taught it in schools. A book like The Budget Kit: The Common Cents Money Management Workbook by Judy Lawrence, which has gone through three editions since its 1993 publication, is one of our strongest backlist titles. It addresses basic needs, which don't change, like how to balance a checkbook, how to budget household expenses." If a book looks friendly, feels friendly and is priced at $20, Zigmund says, people will pick it up, but they are still afraid. "The intimidation factor stops them from learning more and then buying a book. It's still a challenged market."
On the subject of financial literacy, Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter's Rich Dad juggernaut, which burst onto the market in 2000 with Rich Dad, Poor Dad and has kept its grip since, is reaching out to a very young audience with Rich Dad's Escape from the Rat Race: How to Become a Rich Kid by Following Rich Dad's Advice (Little Brown Young Readers, Jan.), which presents its concepts in graphic nonfiction format, i.e., comic-book style, in an attempt to get preteens interested in learning about finance. The book stars Timid-E. Turtle and Red E. Rat, who shows Turtle how to make money work for him. Warner Business Books executive editor Rick Wolff tells PW, "The Rich Dad books are a mainstay of our publishing program. Their lesson of educating oneself when it comes to your finances is a lesson that everyone wants to learn." Initial printings for books in the series, says Wolff, are about 300,000; given the new book's narrowed focus, he adds, it will have a 50,000-copy first printing.
Educating the younger set is also the goal of Hyperion's Clark Smart Parents, Clark Smart Kids: Teaching Kids of Every Age the Value of Money by syndicated radio talk show host Clark Howard with Mark Meltzer. The June 2005 title dispenses advice on matters such as allowances, first jobs and paying off college loans. "Kids comprise half the callers who phone Howard with questions during his radio show, " says publicity director Katie Wainwright. "His book will equip any parent with the knowledge they'll need to teach their kids how to be 'Clark Smart.' "
Also covering the basics and geared toward the under- or uninformed is A Girl's Guide to Money: Make the Rent, Control Your Credit Cards, Afford a Car, Cut YourCell Bill and Still Have Money for ShoppingSprees and Nights on the Town by Roni Jay (Ulysses Press, Feb.) "A Wall Street prospectus this isn't," says publicist Michele Matter. "It's a handy guide bursting with all kinds of indispensable advice."
A basics book that takes the next step—from barely coping to managing so well you're suddenly rich—is Missed Fortune 101: A Starter Kit to Becoming a Millionaire (Warner Business, Jan.). Author Douglas R. Andrew makes mincemeat of commonly held beliefs about such matters as prepaying mortgages, investing in 401(k) plans and buying life insurance. The author had self-published a more specialized title and wrote this one at Warner's request to address the needs of a broader, nonspecialized audience. "We publish prescriptive, practical books, which is what people are looking for with personal finance," says Wolff. "People don't want obvious stuff, like how to pay off your debt. They want new insights, new angles, ways to make their financial dreams come true. We look for that; it's easier to sell. You find an author passionate about an insight with something new to say and you've got a good chance of making it work."
People may indeed want new insights, but they also want not to be buried under a mountain of debt, as many now are—by one account, 43% of Americans spend more than they earn each year. Two titles from Portfolio address the debt problem head-on, in books geared toward the working person with no trust fund or secret inheritance. "The perception is that debt is an issue, so we hope our books are speaking to a need," says associate publisher Will Weisser. Jean Chatzky's Pay It Down! From Debt to Wealthon $10 a Day (Sept. 2004) is a primer on how to get out of debt by an author with a huge following from numerous platforms (Today, Money magazine, AOL, CNBC). "Audiences trust her. She's like a friend to the viewers," says publisher Adrian Zackheim. "The book has 65,000 copies in print, up from its initial print run of 50,000. Jean's earlier book, You Don'tHave to Be Rich, had 55,000 copies in print at the end of its life, so the new one still has life in it." Jon Hanson's Good Debt, Bad Debt: Knowingthe Difference Can Save Your Financial Life (Jan.), the first book by a man who was once mired in debt himself, is about the kinds of debt you want to incur and those you don't. "In this field, there's a little skepticism toward unknowns," says Weisser, "but we're trying to build Jon on a grass-roots level. He's speaking and doing engagements in Ohio, where he lives. We're looking for a long-term build."
Readying for Retirement
Even those without debt are financially challenged if they've reached retirement age without adequately preparing—or if their plans went awry in the tumultuous markets and corporate fiascos of the past few years. "For a few years people weren't interested in how to make money last. Now they want to know what to do. Work part time? Volunteer? There's renewed interest in this," says Dearborn's Zigmund.
"It's amazing how many people are over 50—forget 65—and they still have to make money," says Entrepreneur Press editorial director Jere Calmes. "More and more personal finance books are about starting a business. People retire early by choice, and they're living longer. There's time to start a new business and grow your income while in retirement. You don't need a lot of capital, just a phone, a fax, a computer and contacts. That's a big change." He points out that Colonel Sanders was 65 when he started his first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise: "That's not amazing anymore."
Among the press's new titles are Make Big Profits on eBay by Jacquelyn Lynn (May), which explains how to supplement your income without quitting your job; and The Retirement Revolution by Patrick P. Astre (Aug.), which offers investing advice to people who broke the rules in the '60s and need to find new ways to do it again. Two new entries in the publisher's 202 series that deal with money issues of interest to aging boomers are James Stephenson's 202 Services You Can Sell for Big Profits and 202 Ways You Can Supplement Your Retirement Income with Big Profits (both Aug.).
A book with big expectations, David Bach's Start Late, Finish Rich: A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age (Broadway, Jan.), offers basic values-based advice on how to gain control over your financial life instead of on narrowly focused stock-picking strategies. The book, says Broadway editor Kris Puopolo, taps into "a widespread hunger on the part of consumers for advice on how to transform and improve the overall quality of their lives." Bach's message—it's never too late to finish rich—has made him a superstar in the finance field. Also due in January is Bach's The Automatic Millionaire Workbook: A Personalized Plan to Live and Finish Rich... Automatically, a companion book to last January's The Automatic Millionaire, which has 750,000 copies in print.
"As boomers get older and near or reach retirement, they are beginning to realize that they want more than just a fat portfolio—they want a whole life," says Perigee senior editor Michelle Howry. Robert Michael Fried focuses on the personal side of financial successin a January release, A Marketing Plan for Life: 12 Essential Business Principles to Create Meaning, Happiness, and True Success Howry also notes that the entrepreneurial spirit is experiencing a strong showing. "More and more people aren't content to just work for a big corporation. A lot of readers, particularly women, are finding that true financial independence is achieved only when they follow their dreams and strike out on their own." For this group, Perigee offers another January title, Earn What You're Worth, in which author Nicole Williams posits that the key to success isn't saving more money; it's earning more money. The author will host Oxygen TV's career makeover show, Making It Big, which debuts in March.
Investment Strategizing
On the investing front, the waters are still choppy, says Bloomberg Press publisher John Crutcher, "When the boom fell out of the markets and folks could no longer think it was their personal acuity making their portfolios go up, and when a recession hit, books about money stopped being fun for the average guy or gal. Tough market? Yes, it is." But not, he adds, a market without promise: starting next year, the Bloomberg name will be added to the titles of some of the house's books. The first, The Bloomberg Book of Master Market Economists, edited by Thomas R. Keene of Bloomberg News, is due in June. In Crutcher's words, "Given that the contributors are the cream of the crop, widely influential in the markets and frequently cited in the financial news, we expect broad attention for this title." The Bloomberg books that succeed best have been fashioned for sophisticated investors, says Crutcher. "In July we'll be publishing a revised and updated edition of Investing in Hedge Funds by Joseph Nicholas. In 1999, when we published the first edition (it's now been through five printings), there were an estimated 3,000 funds with $400 billion in assets. In 2005, there will be an estimated $1.1 trillion in assets in 9,350 funds."
Another new thing in the marketplace, says Krames at McGraw-Hill, is the globalization on the investing area, because of cable TV and networks such as CNBC, where you can get Asian and European coverage in the middle of the night. According to Krames, "Some topics—technical analysis, reading stocks and understanding stock patterns—are relevant anyplace in the world." One of McGraw-Hill's top-selling investment books is What Works on Wall Street: A Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time by James P. O'Shaughnessy. In May, the 1996 book will be available in a revised edition that, per its cover, "features all-new data."
As important as platforms and brand names are in this category, it still helps to have a gimmick—or at least an original slant on the markets. Next month HarperCollins publishes a trade paper edition of a January 2004 HC title, Winning with the DOW's Losers: Beat the Market with Underdog Stocks by Charles B. Carlson, based on a "worst to first" market strategy: last year's losing stocks that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average will be this year's winners.
Conventional wisdom doesn't always work, claims Wharton School professor Jeremy J. Siegel, who argues in The Future for Investors: Break the Conventional Wisdom to Build Your Wealth (Crown Business, Feb.) that investors are better off putting their money into old, reliable companies whose products have not changed in years rather than falling into the investment trap of thinking new products and technologies are more promising. Another "unconventional" title can be found on a May 2005 release from Thomson Texere: Counterintuitive Investing: Profiting from Bad News on Wall Street. Author Harlan Platt, says the publisher, "makes a compelling case for stocking up on bargains—stocks with market risk but not company risk. The goal is to buy the best of the fallen stocks while avoiding the worst, and Platt helps readers determine the difference."
Also capitalizing on the allure of Wall Street is Take Stock: A Roadmap to Profiting from Your First Walk Down Wall Street (Career Press/New Page Books, Apr.), wherein Ellis Traub shows how anyone can profit in the stock market as long as they have the tools to determine whether a company is sound and how much to pay for its stock.
Developing proactive strategies seems to be yet another trend in investing. "Technology and necessity are driving people to try new investing techniques, and individual investors are getting into areas that previously were for institutional investors," says James Boyd, executive editor of Wharton School Publishing, an imprint of Financial Times/Prentice Hall, a partnership that launched last July. "They want to make money faster, which is leading them to consider such things as more active trading in the commodities and Foreign Exchange markets, short sells, buying and selling real estate and starting their own entrepreneurial ventures after or close to retirement."
Forex Revolution: An Insider's Guide to the Real World of Foreign Exchange Trading by Peter A. Rosenstreich (Financial Times/ Prentice Hall, June) is aimed at this crowd, as are The Practical Guide to Technical Analysis:Power Tools for the Active Investor by Gerald Appel (May) and The Secrets of Economic Indicators: Hidden Clues to Future Economic Trends and Investment Opportunities by Bernard Baumohl (Wharton School Publishing, Oct.). Baumohl's book, says Boyd, "is for both for the general investor audience who want to have insight into how the economy works, like unemployment figures and what it means for the economy, and for institutional investors and brokers."
"An investor who purchased the Standard & Poors 500 in the summer of 1998 stands at exactly the same spot today," financially speaking," says Nancy Laichas, director of publisher services at Brown Books in Dallas. "No longer is it a smart thing to 'buy and hold.' " Brown's titles, Laichas explains, reflect a resurgence in the popularity of technical analysis and the emergence of what she calls "behavioral finance." Among their latest releases are two October paperbacks from the investment advisory firm Dorsey, Wright: Keep Pedaling, Zen Farmer: Dorsey, Wright Essays on Investing, compiled by Dorsey, Wright & Associates and Judd Biasiotto, and Finding Religion Among the Rapids: Dorsey, Wright Essays on Investing by the same writing team. These books, says Laichas, aim to empower investors to regain control of their financial health. "Not only will you become a better investor, but you will be inspired to approach life with a 'don't just ride the bus, get off and participate in life' vigor and enthusiasm."
Is there a connection between serious investing and volatile emotions? According to Rob Ronin, a financial psychologist, "In financial circles, the impact of emotions on investing is often discussed in the same manner as the weather: Everybody talks about it but no one knows how to change it." With his IST system, Ronin thinks he may have found a way: Investor Skills Training: Managing Risk & Emotion in the Market (Traders Press, Dec.) presents a step-by-step plan for protecting existing capital while describing the skills that are needed to make more. "Becoming a successful investor is more dependent upon learning to avoid bad decisions than making brilliant ones," Ronin says. "This book gives readers the tools to help them reduce technical and emotional mistakes."
Emotions at another level are dealt with in The Lazy Man's Way to Riches: Outperform Your Competition and Enhance the Quality of Your Life by Richard Gilly Nixon, first published 1n 1973 and now, four million copies later, celebrating 30 years with a 30th-anniversary edition just out from Wiley. "The book is more about self-motivation and how to improve your life, and how your improved life will improve your finances," says publisher Joan O'Neill. "This self-help approach, we find, is an opportunity in the field."
Opportunity would seem to be the word du jour, as publishers are checking economic forecasts in their quest for new publishing opportunities in this arena. Investors, meanwhile, are seeking the next big thing in their own quests to protect their investments and—who knows?—maybe even, with a bit of good fortune and good book wisdom, make their gardens greener.
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Using such zippy lines in its catalogue as "Attention Parents: Your kids may not listen to you, but they'll listen to Suze. Buy this book for them," Riverhead Books is putting its muscle—including a 300,000-copy first printing—behind Suze Orman's latest opus, The Money Book for the Young, the Fabulous and the Broke (Mar.). "The book is aimed at people in their 20s and 30s, the so-called Generation Debt, who are leaving school with massive debt and entering the job market at a very difficult time," says publisher Julie Grau. "Suze has come up with a prescriptive course of action aimed at people who have probably never picked up a personal finance book. We hope their worried parents will buy it, too." The book's table of contents lists such topics as credit scores, office politics, credit card management, student loans, options for retirement investing, buying a home, merging finances with a mate and more.
Want to invest but don't want a big risk or a low return? Two books recommend taking your greenbacks and going for the gold. In The Coming Collapse of the Dollar: Making a Fortune by Investing in Gold and Other Hard Assets (Doubleday Currency, Jan.), authors James Turk, a digital gold seller (
