Anyone who wants to write a personal finance book might want to start with facts and figures.
If, say, you want to write a personal finance book about credit card debt specifically… those facts and figures might look something like these ones directly pulled from Debt.org:
More than 160 million Americans have credit cards.
The average credit card holder has at least three cards.
On average, each household with a credit card carries more than $15,000 in credit card debt.
Total U.S. consumer debt is at $11.4 trillion. That includes mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and student loans.
Don’t ask me what the stats are for Canada or European nations. Though, considering the socialist policies that run rampant there, I would imagine they have a few problems in the credit card debt department too.
Socialism doesn’t normally breed a sense of fiscal responsibility in individuals any more than in governments.
Neither does the Me! Me! Me! Now! Now! Now! mentality that’s been creeping into Western society in general for far too long.
People are in clear financial trouble. Can your personal finance book help them out?
Everyone wants to retire with financial peace and prosperity. But most people just aren’t set up for such a happy ending.
That might be because they’re too focused on enjoying the present to plan for the future, which makes them inexcusably ignorant and immature. Or they might be completely confused about how to properly plan things out. Which is much more understandable thanks to questions like:
What stocks should I invest in and not invest in?
Should I focus on paying off my mortgage or student loans first?
How much should I be putting away every month?
When you write a personal finance book, those are the kinds of questions you need to answer.
Personal Finance:
Between credit cards and millennial mentalities, there’s an intense need out there for books that help people manage the money they have now. And with social security being well on its way to benefitting the dodos, there’s also an intense need out there for books that help people manage the money they’re going to want in the future.
The personal finance category covers both with the stated (and hopefully honest) goal of teaching people the real value of money and what it can do.
It’s easy to write a personal finance book in the sense that your potential readers are everywhere.
It’s difficult to write a personal finance book in the sense that your potential readers don’t realize they need you.
That makes the marketing journey a bit rough. But thank your lucky stars, because you have some seriously great fodder for the writing side of this equation.
All you need to do is look to your younger sister, who spends money on whatever new fashion trend comes along... even though she already has more than enough in her wardrobe.
Turn to your next-door neighbor, who just has to go to every single gaming convention in a 10-state radius... even though he hasn’t come close to paying off his student loans 15 years after graduating.
Or how about your colleague’s grandparents, who just got swindled out of $250,000 because they trusted some financial firm’s assurance about some stock?
Clearly then, finding facts and figures for your personal finance manuscript isn’t the problem.
Being interesting and convincing about it? Now that’s an uphill battle worth writing about. So we'll do exactly that on Thursday.