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March 26, 2008 (LA Times)
As the stock market gyrates, authors' proposals flourish. But will their financial advice be relevant by the time a book's in print?
NEW YORK -- About a year ago, one of America's bestselling business books was Michael Corbett's "Find It, Fix It, Flip It!: Make Millions in Real Estate -- One House at a Time." Today, one of the hot finance titles picked up for publication is Stephen Leeb's "Game Over: How the Collapsing Economy Will Shrink Your Wealth by 50% Unless You Know What to Do."
As the U.S. economy deteriorates and millions wrestle with questions about their faltering 401(k)s and when -- or if -- to cash out long-term stock investments, major publishers are scrambling to cash in.
They're working feverishly to find the next "big book" that reflects a more sobering view of the economy and offers solutions to help Americans survive the current fiscal woes.
In a 48-hour period last week, Penguin Portfolio outhustled rival publishers to make a preemptive buy of "The New New Deal" by financial guru Eric Janszen; Doubleday and HarperCollins beat the drums about their forthcoming books on the Bear Stearns Cos. collapse; and Business Plus, an imprint of Grand Central, jumped at the chance to acquire Leeb's title, which makes no bones about the health of the nation's economy.
"There's a growing appetite for information out there, because people want to know what they should do," said Adrian Zackheim, head of Penguin Portfolio.
Others believe the key to publishing a successful business book in tough times is to avoid relentless pessimism -- and to realize that readers tire of hearing bad news. During the Great Depression, Janszen said, "we reached a moment when people stopped reading about soup lines. They wanted to know how things would finally be fixed."
This was the inspiration for "The New New Deal," said the author, a former chief executive who also founded the financial website Itulip.com. After he wrote a February cover story for Harper's magazine about the economic slowdown, publishers expressed interest in a book-length treatment; Janszen quickly polished a proposal and won a six-figure advance from Penguin.
Much of the book will focus on the cyclical nature of economic bubbles, and why the nation's current fiscal climate poses daunting challenges. As Janszen argued in his Harper's piece, the mammoth task of finding new sources of energy and converting to a "green" economy could be one way to spur long-term improvements in the U.S. economy.
Even though the book won't appear until next year, the author assured his editors that the current economic turmoil is likely to continue well past the presidential election.
"I made a joke and borrowed what Churchill said about U.S. foreign policy to predict how our leaders will respond," he said. "We always do the right thing, but only after exhausting all other options." more...
AntiSpin: None needed in this case. Good news is that publishers are about to stop publishing get rich quick books and start publishing books that offer constructive solutions to problems created by government and the speculative finance that funds it – or should we say, used to fund it.
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