{"id":1034,"date":"2011-09-15T19:53:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T00:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/?p=1034"},"modified":"2014-12-12T22:36:05","modified_gmt":"2014-12-13T03:36:05","slug":"investing-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/?p=1034","title":{"rendered":"Investing Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been productive with my long weekends: I wrote a book! It&#8217;s a book aimed at beginner investors, and recommends a passive indexing strategy. The main strengths of the book are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s a short book.<\/li>\n<li>It covers the basics in plain language.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s written by a Canadian for Canadians.<\/li>\n<li>It has pictures of bunnies.<\/li>\n<li>It has step-by-step instructions for how to apply the basics of index investing to actually get starting investing, including how to set up an account and how to place a trade, with some key screenshots to help.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Though it&#8217;s only been about two months from when I first started to now, IMHO, the book is <em>done<\/em>. The formatting is there, the text has been revised a few times, and I even sacrificed a counterfeit $10 bill Tim Horton&#8217;s passed to me to mock up a cover image. If you&#8217;d like to review the book (preferably to post on your blog and the Amazon\/Indigo reviews when available) please send me an email at holypotato@gmail.com and I&#8217;ll send you a copy. I have two formats at the moment: regular letter-sized (best for reading on a computer or to print in hard-copy at home) and Kobo\/Kindle formatted PDF (not quite as smooth as an epub or Kindle native format, but looks really sweet on my Kobo), both as DRM-free PDFs. <\/p>\n<p>Most of the material is not exactly unique to me or new for an investing book: basic stuff about why saving\/investing is important, what&#8217;s a stock\/bond\/fund, what&#8217;s an RRSP\/TFSA, etc. What is unique is that it&#8217;s written by me, and that it includes the kind of hands-on material that I&#8217;ve never seen anywhere else that&#8217;s needed to actually get started on your own (how to open an account, how to enter a trade, where to go to find CC&#8217;s rebalancing spreadsheet), and just inside, written in large, friendly letters are the words &#8220;Don&#8217;t Panic.&#8221; (Though in contrast to the HHGTTG, the words are not all-caps.) It is, as I mentioned, short: just 37 letter-size pages once you discount the pictures and things like the title page and ToC; in kobo format, just 89 screen refreshes <em>including <\/em>all the filler.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to buy a copy right now (just $5) before I sort out publishing, again just send me an email at holypotato@gmail.com and I&#8217;ll sort out PayPal with you and email you both PDF form factors.<\/p>\n<p>So I have just a few main questions that maybe you all can help me answer (whether you feel like reviewing the book or not):<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Do I go for a self-publishing model, or try submitting to a traditional publisher? If self-publishing, e-book only, or physical copies too? If a publisher, which one?<\/li>\n<li>Should I publish under my &#8220;real&#8221; name, or Potato? On the one hand, I might want to offer education services alongside the book, which is really a real-name kind of thing. On the other, I have more &#8220;brand recognition&#8221; for investing discussions as Potato&#8230; though people who aren&#8217;t familiar with my writing might take it somewhat less seriously with the pseudonym, and those who <em>do <\/em>read enough to recognize Potato as being a serious force in Canadian personal finance probably don&#8217;t need a beginner&#8217;s book.<\/li>\n<li>If I do publish under my real name, do I &#8220;out&#8221; myself in the process and use this site to promote the book, or do I just not mention the book again here and hope the connection isn&#8217;t made?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Another option (Wayfare&#8217;s sage suggestion) is to just split BbtP: do all the finance stuff on a new blog with my &#8220;real&#8221; name, and keep all the video game\/political ranting\/science\/random stuff here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been productive with my long weekends: I wrote a book! It&#8217;s a book aimed at beginner investors, and recommends a passive indexing strategy. The main strengths of the book are: It&#8217;s a short book. It covers the basics in plain language. It&#8217;s written by a Canadian for Canadians. It has pictures of bunnies. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}