A message about "The retirement book."
 

After the discussion here about the Happy Retirement Book, we sent a short email to the author telling him about the Villages and TOTV and asked if he would consider marketing his book here to our 15,000 members.

His reply was swift, to the point and snotty.

Some excerpts from the email,

"I have no interest in marketing that will not pay off."

"There are many creative ways for me to market my books as has been proven by the success of my book and the last form of advertising that I would consider is what you are offering."

"...do not send me any more e-mails."

Geeeezzz, what ever happened to "no thank you?"

Well, okay then!!! :yuck:

I, for one, will not be reading his book.



JLK

not gonna read it either - living a happy and fulfilling retirement is more important than reading about it!

The author must not have read it either. He doesn't sound all that happy.

I too would rather live it........ Don't like to read anyway

Wow! What an unbelievable response. Hopefully the jerk will never move to TV.

He'd probably get lynched if he did!!! :throwtomatoes:

Bill

I will not read this book. I thought his reply to you was very rude. He must have had a very bad experience in marketing his books.

I sure hope his writing is better than his marketing skills.

Nuff said. It doesn't seem like he is a happy person.

People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be - A. Lincoln

His response is appalling -- on so very many levels. And it is most certainly rude. And to think two well-mannered girls from Ohio (where all the girls have lovely manners) had started to talk about his book here on TOTV.

I actually did a double-take when I read what he said. That is a nasty tone. He could have been polite about not wanting to do business here. Being polite would have cost him nothing.

He uses quotes in little boxes on the pages of his book. His response, in juxtaposition to those happy quotes, sure puts a damper on his credibility. Let me see what I can find as an example.....

Ah, here we go.....

"Friends and good manners will carry you where money won't go." (Margaret Walker)

and here's another one....

"Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles." (George Eliot) -- Oh my! I think this guy better read his own book before he finds himself with so many wrinkles that he will be shriveled up beyond recognition.

If he does not want to deal with e-mail inquiries about doing business -- when he makes his email address available (go figure) -- maybe he should think about crafting a nicely worded response that does not make him look like this one did.

Boomer

Sometimes Authors may have people working for them and answering their e-mails for them. I just have an extremely hard time thinking that an author would say what was said. Maybe it was an employee with a grudge against The Villages. Just another opinion!

well said, Boomer. Have to say, I'm about halfway thru and still, I must say, getting some good ideas (for me at least). You'll all be happy to know I didn't buy the book - was a retirement gift for Ohioboy. Your comments all appear to support TalkHost in that the author doesn't seem to have the attributes of most happy people, does he?

Just picked up another from the library called "How to Retire Happy" by Stan Hinden. The copy I have was printed in 2006. I think I have seen his books reviewed before, maybe in the Sunday paper, maybe even read it before, who knows. Per the Table of Contents, appears to hit the financial planning end more heavily, but of course, being financially stable is a big part of retirement for most of us. So - we'll see what I take from this one.

The last set of articles I read on how to be happy in retirement should have just put a picture of TV and the caption is "go there".

TV has everything to be happy!!!!

Hi Ohiogirl,

I am going to read it, too. But I am glad I found that copy on my bookshelf from when I bought it and did not get around to reading it. Sure would not want to have bought it twice.

I was recently in a conversation about whether or not we want to know anything about the author when we read a book. I said that I always look at the author's picture and info if it is in the book. Others said they did not. I guess this is a case of too much information about the author. So maybe I will pretend that he was having a bad day...don't we all sometimes. But hey, manners are not that hard.

Miss Judith Martin Boomer

I know this is rather late, but I just saw it.....Stan Hinden was a writer for the Washington Post......when he was suddenly faced with the idea of retirement, he realized how unprepared he was for the rest of his life. So, for the remainder of his time at the Post he wrote periodic articles about preparing for retirement. Very well written, and filled with good advice. A nice man too.

Think maybe someone from his staff might of emailed you back. If it bothers you send another back to him.

Oh Boomer. Where are you???? Boomer we miss you. There is NOBODY that has your style of humor, your style of writing and your good ole Ohio common sense. Oh please return to the forum.

Did you move here and are too busy to tell us?