10 Things I Didn’t Know About Becoming A Published Author by R. La Mont

 

Write Now Literary is pleased to be organizing a two-week book tour for A Beginners Guide to Wealth Building by R. LaMont. W. The book tour will run August 10-21, 2020.

               

Genre: Non-Fiction

 

Book Title: A Beginners Guide to Wealth Building

               

Genre: Financial Literacy

Meet R. La Mont

Retired: Partner at the Institute for Fiduciary Education (www.ifecorp.com). Event planner: International investment education seminars for large institutional pension and endowment funds.

 

Retired: State of California for 28 years (16 years at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, Investment Officer II).

 

13 years — Trustee for the Sacramento County Employees Retirement System (SCERS) Retirement Board...6 years — President, African and African American Alumni Association (5A)...3 years — Trustee, Cal Aggie Alumni Association, University of California, Davis...3 years — Trustee for the Cosumnes River College Foundation...3 years — Mortgage Broker, Summit Funding, Currently — Board Member and Financial Education Consultant, Greater Sacramento Financial Literacy Group.

 

Adjunct Professor, “Essentials of Personal Finance” — University of Phoenix, Sacramento Valley Campus, Teacher of the Year).

 

Passion: To share his knowledge of financially literacy through the Art of Storytelling.

 

“A Beginners Guide to Wealth Building ” is a book on the Fundamentals of Money Management.

It is written in simple English to demystify the cryptic world of investments including, the importance of income tax deductions, the importance of budgeting, how to construct a stock, bond and mutual fund investment portfolio. You will learn to do a Spending Personality Assessment Review, a technique used successfully for more than 20 years to teach you how to better manage your money.

This book is transformational. It will empower you to be your own champion and master of your financial universe. You will find this book informative, at times funny and very rewarding.

 

 

Excerpt

 

Investing Today for a Secure Tomorrow

Defined Contribution Plans (DC Plan(s)) - IT’S A GOOD MOVE!

 

Here are a few of the worst financial mistakes being made today:

25% of people have no savings (1 out of 4 save $0 for retirement).

More people are spending time thinking about vacations than about their retirement.

According to USA TODAY article, having $1 million in retirement savings might not be enough.

 

 

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 10 Things I Didn’t Know About Becoming A Published Author

 1. Time I didn’t know it would take one to two years from start to finish in getting a book written and published. Book 1–Six months to put together. It sat on a shelf for 17 years. Book 2–Two years from beginning to publication. Book 3–One year to write, 10 months of editing to publication.

2. The Team I didn’t understand the team effort. I built my publishing team one person at a time starting with the book design. Next came editing, formatting and publishing. Content reviewers came later. My team continues to grow. I now have a marketing agent.

 3. Writing vs. Being a Writer I didn’t know the difference between writing and being a writer. My third book is my first novel. I didn’t know the techniques of writing including dialogue, punctuation and the use of past and present tense in sentence structure. To compensate for my weakness, I bought a Pro Writing Aid software package for dialogue editing. I also joined a Writers Guild to become a better writer.

 4. Importance of Editing (The Biggest Deal) I didn’t understand the importance of editing. My second book is a financial resource book written in the 1st person. The editor was everything. She was the grammar checker, development and content reviewer as well as the proof-reader. We both missed important things (the graphs). I fixed them later.

 5. Publishing Skillsets I didn’t understand the skillsets needed in publishing a book. I had no clue of the different types of editors required to produce a high-quality book (i.e. developmental, proof-readers, grammar, line, content and critique editors). This is still a challenging mystery in finding the correct editor(s) for my work.

 6. Formatting I didn’t grasp issues of formatting a book (soft vs. hard cover to e-books). I let Amazon format my e-book. The charts and graphs couldn’t be deciphered. I had to pull it from publication. I revised the original textbook putting the graphs and charts in the appendices.

 7. Printing Costs I underestimated printing costs. A local printer costs twice a much as an Amazon printed book. With Amazon you get cheaper pricing, but you have lose quality control. Books came printed in dark brown rather than black. With my local printer I could show them the difference. They easily corrected the problem. Amazon was difficult. I went through many bureaucratic layers before talking to a human being.

 8. Publication Costs vs. Marketing Costs I didn’t understand the different costs structures. There is a difference between publication costs and marketing costs. Once my book was completed and published, I needed a professional to market it. I made a major plunder. I thought if you wrote a book people needed, they would buy it. Not the case. Thousands of books are written. You have to find and appeal to a target market that supports your kind of writing. Financial literacy is not a book people read for entertainment or enjoyment. It’s a resource guide to prosperity

. 9. The Costs of Everything I underestimated the costs of everything from start to finish. The first costs was my time. My sweat equity in researching and writing my book. I needed a team not realizing how many players it took to produce a book. Example: I required a graphic artist to design my book cover (front, back and spine). I needed a team to critique my work and verify its content. This was important for medical descriptions and terminology. I was lucky in my second book. My editor could multi-tasks editing, grammar, punctuation, content and development. In my third book I needed different types of editors. I’m still not sure of when to use any particular one. Research suggest it takes up to 12 different editors depending on the type of book. I’ve learned regardless of your editing, publishers may want their own editors to edit your work before they’ll publish. I would advise anyone who is contemplating the writing journey to prepare a line item budget for everything above, including time. Nothing is free.

 10. Trust I thought I could trust my team and walk away. That was not the case. I contracted and paid for work thinking it would be done perfectly. I found no one is perfect, including me. I have a great team. We get along very well. But, I still have to keep an eagle eye on everything. In the final analysis, the public will not judge the team. The public will judge me, the author. I strive for excellence, but I always find something. Some are to small to fix. No one is perfect.