In Praise of the Tightwad Gazette

Years ago (has it really been nearly 30 years???) a newsletter titled 'The Tightwad Gazette' went viral (this was long before the internet but after it was featured on TV and in magazines it was pretty much instantly famous).  The lady who wrote it, Amy Dacyczyn aka The Frugal Zealot, was a genius at saving money.  She was able to raise a family of eight on her Navy husband's income (which, believe me, isn't that much!).

I loved the newsletter and I loved the books (The Complete Tightwad Gazette was the final compilation of information in her newsletters and her previous couple of books on the topic of being frugal).  So last night I was wondering what every happened to her and of course the internet answered my question.  Here are the latest things I could find on the Frugal Zealot who completely retired about six years after starting her famous newsletter:

• Here is an interview she did with the Simple Dollar in 2014.
• Here is a YouTube video of an interview with Amy in 2009.
• Apparently there is a Tightwad Gazette Fan Club on Facebook.
• And here are interviews with her grown children about how they were raised (at the time there were naysayers who felt that by living frugally she was somehow torturing her children...spoiler alert: they turned out just fine).  Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5
• Here is a letter Amy wrote about food shopping.
• Here is a Washington Post article about her.

Back to Writing

One of my daily goals is to write a bit on my book every day (two days and still going! Yeah!).

The one and only book I wrote a couple of years ago is still selling and each month I get a bit of money into my bank account from it which is nice.  I was working on another book last year and kind of left it by the wayside.  Part of the reason for this is that I got discouraged when I read a couple of negative reviews about my current book (here) and part of the reason was probably sheer laziness.

But two things made me hop back on the writing bandwagon.  First, was the idea that if I write even a little every day, the book will eventually get done (as opposed to working on the book for hours then not touching it again for weeks or even months--it will never get done that way!).  And the second, was reading the bad reviews.  Fortunately (thanks to Reddit), I've developed a tough skin, also, I think the comments can be used constructively.

So I have decided to do a second edition of the Washington book.  I will shrink up the spacing between the items (this will make the book more listy and shorter and cheaper to buy) as well as add more information about each item (as one of the reviews suggested).  It is also a good idea to have an editor, or at least a second set of eyes on it to point out things that I missed or things that could be done better, so I will have someone--or a bunch of someones--read the proof edition before I get it published.

Daily Update:

• Walk: 2 miles (only 996 more to go!)
• No spend: $0 (Yeah!!)
• Photo: Yep (done on our walk)
• Paleo: Completely paleo

The Last You Will Hear About My Book for a While

Today everything is finally all done for the book (except for the marketing and promo stuff that I will do throughout the following week).  Here is the website for the book, the FaceBook page, and {{ta da}} the link on Amazon!  Thanks everyone for being so supportive!
My "to do" list for the next couple of days:

• fix the Kindle link for the book so it is listed with the print version (not sure how I messed that up).
• contact Blogger and find out why my blog is still coming up in Spanish for some people :(
• baking for the party tomorrow: flan, lemon cake. brownies, and chocolate chip cookies
• cutting up vegies for hubby's cooking for the party tomorrow (I don't/can't cook so hubby does all of the gourmet cooking but I make a fabulous vegetable cutter-upper person)
• I don't get many visits to my other blog and my Vegas blog so I put together a Tumblr blog here with all of the short links and photos I have been posting on the other two blogs.  Eventually I will close down the other two blogs which will make less work for me and give me more time to work on my next book!
• email info about my book like a madwoman to tourist organizations, friends, and anyone else I can think of to get the word out about it.

Now I'm off to make cookies :)

My Book is Published! And Other Stuff

Or for those of you who are (still) finding my blog in Spanish... Mi libro es publicado!  Seriously, I have no idea what is wrong with my blog so keep and eye on this space, I may be switching over to blog.com soon.
On a happier note, I think I have everything done for my book to be published, both the paperback version on Amazon and the Kindle version.  I believe it will take about 48 hours for it to actually be listed so my project for today is to finish the website for the book and make a Facebook page for it.  I am also going to order about 20 books and have friends in Washington shop them around to various bookstores, Chambers of Commerce, tourism organizations, etc.  I need to develop a guerrilla (read, free) marketing program!
p.s.  When the Amazon link goes live I will of course post it here.

Another project for this week is having a "going away" party for one of the cousins.  She comes to Las Vegas for a few months each year and on Wednesday she will be heading home so we told her and everyone else that we will have a party for her.  The only problem is that this is a tight month financially (we paid a year of house insurance, six months of car insurance, gave money to one of the kids for house repairs, and we live on a fixed income!) so our budget is stretched super this this month but since we set up the party, we need to pay for all of the food for the party.  Yikes.  So we are putting together an inexpensive menu and I will blog about our success (or lack thereof) next week.  Have a great Sunday!

Another p.s.  If you have ever had the idea of writing and publishing your own book, I highly recommend that you do so.  It is such a cool experience and these days you don't have to suffer through rejections from multiple publishers...just write and self publish and it really is as easy as that!

All I Know About CreateSpace...So Far

Whew!  I finally got my book set up to publish on CreateSpace today.  Finally!!!  So far this is what has happened (and what I've learned):

• This is the easiest self publishing process I've ever seen (it's actually the only self publishing process I've ever seen but it is so super easy that I was really surprised).
• I wrote my book over the past few months.  It took a ton of research.  Thank God for Google.
• I then signed into CreateSpace and was able to choose the finished size of the book I wanted (it will be a travel guidebook so I wanted the shape to be conducive to travelers) along with the already formatted template which saved me from trying to figure out margins and all that stuff.
• I cut and paste my manuscript into the formatted template.  Then had to reformat it (twice) so that it looked right.  
• I then proofread the book.  Twice.  I have the sinking feeling that I still missed things and I really should have had someone else proofread it but I was in a hurry to get it done and didn't want to pressure anyone to quickly proofread the book.
• Fortunately I did the index in an Excel file as I was writing the book.  Having to index after the fact would have taken forever.  I did have to go back through and proofread the index as well as tweak it so it would fit within the margins of the template. 
• I then uploaded my 5x8 templated manuscript into the 5x8 book format and was promptly told that my margins were wrong (I believe it was because the book was so big--350 pages--that it needed more margin on the bound edge).
• After stressing about having to change the margins and reformat the book again, I decided to change the size of the book to 5.5 x 8.5 which seems to have worked!
• CreateSpace does not like my Chrome Browser so I had to do all of this on my old laptop which still has the IE browser on it.
• Next I had to create the cover of the book.  Fortunately CreateSpace has a cover creator feature which allows us non artistic types to create an OK cover for the book.  The cover I made is nice enough but not amazing (the cover creator feature doesn't allow a lot of design changes but I was a bit freaked out over making and uploading my own cover in Publisher because I am seriously not good at visual design stuff).
• I then set the price for the book.  I checked Amazon for similar books and set the price at $12.95 which is about what similar books cost but because the book is so big I will only make about $2 in royalties for each book.  Lesson learned.
• I declined the feature which allows the book to be sold through expanded distribution channels such as through Barnes and Noble and to wholesalers that sell to libraries and independent book stores.  The cost was $25 for this feature (everything else so far to this point is free) but since the book is of such limited interest--you have to be in Washington State for the book to be useful--I kind of reasoned that selling it just through Amazon would be fine (I may be wrong).
• I next need to get the book set up for Kindle which was a task I have no energy to do today so I will work on that tomorrow.
• Now I am waiting for an email which says the book is ready to go so that I can give it a final preview before I send off to have an official printed copy of the book made (an ARC, advanced reader copy) in order to do the final final run through before I officially put it up on Amazon.

I can totally see why it would be nice to have an agent and a publisher so that people who know what they are doing could do all of these things that I have no idea about but it is a good learning experience.  I actually don't think this book will be anywhere near a best seller--it is very location specific and I have no idea if people will think the book is interesting or useful but just getting a book bound and printed with my name on it will be a huge accomplishment.

Next step--publicity!  Again, I have no idea how to do this  :I