Career Success

Recently Random House purchased Ten Speed Press, which not only publishes two of my books including The Joy of Not Working (over 225,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages), but also distributes three of my books.

Shortly after, Random House sent a letter to me cancelling the diistribution Agreement that I had with Ten Speed Press for my self-published books, including  How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free (over 100,000 copies sold and published in 7 foreign languages), which has been the best-selling retirement book on Amazon.com for the last two or three years. 

Dont' believe me? Type "retirement" into Amazon.com's search feature and you will see that How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free comes in the number 1 position — out of over 200,000 books that Amazon lists for retirement books.

Thus, now I am looking for a home for my self-published books.

Here is the letter that I am sending to seven American distributors along with copies of my books How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and Career Success Without a Real Job.

Dear Distributor:

As you likely know, Random House recently purchased Ten Speed Press, which not only publishes two of my books, but is also distributing my self-published works. Random House just gave a six-month notice to cancel the distribution Agreements for my self-published titles including those for How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and Career Success Without a Real Job.

Random House offered to take over these two books under a normal author/publisher Agreement but I don't care for their terms, particularly for How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, which both Random House and Ten Speed Press initially rejected over 5 years ago.

I have made How to Retire Happy one of the best-selling retirement books in the U.S. through my marketing efforts. If you type "retirement" into Amazon.com's search feature, you will see that How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free comes in the number 1 position — out of over 200,000 books that Amazon lists for retirement books. Also search for "retirement book" on Google and you will see that Amazon.com's page for How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free comes in the number 1 spot.

The attached copy of the February 2009 statement from Ten Speed Press shows the total copies of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free shipped for 2006, 2007, and 2008. The statement also indicates previous shipments. These sales don't include 4,000 premium copies to Allstate Financial and Ford Motor Co. Thus, with March sales, this book has sold over 70,000 copies in the U.S. Another 10,000 copies of the English edition of the book have been sold in Canada and 25,000 copies have been sold in foreign editions.

I am looking for a U.S. distributor that will distribute my books under a similar Agreement as I had with Ten Speed Press and as I have with my Canadian distributor Sandhill Book Marketing. For How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, I will likely issue a revised and updated edition called the Premium Second Edition once I select a new distributor. It will be published under my VIP books imprint that I use for Canada.

I have plans for at least two other self-published books in the next year or so. One is The Joy of Not Being Married: The Essential Guide for Singles (and Those Who Wish They Were) and the other is an inspirational fable called Look Ma; Life's Easy (already published in Spanish, French, Russia, Chinese, and Korean — but not in English).

Besides the copy of the Ten Speed Press sales statement, I have attached some other items to give you an idea of my marketing efforts over the last few years. I also do a lot of creative marketing on the Internet, such as giving away over half — the top half only — of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free as a free E-book on my websites.

Presently I have a number of free promotional E-books including 101 Reasons to Love a Recession and The Joy of Being Retired: 101 Reasons Why Retirement Rocks (and Work Sucks) that I will be using as viral-marketing tools to promote my hard copy books. Another one is The 777 Best Things Ever Said about Money, a quote book that was published in hard copy by a Japanese publisher. For the record, I now have 101 book deals with publishers in 27 different countries.

My books have sold over 560,000 copies worldwide. Let me know if you are interested in distributing the Premium Second Edition of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, Career Success Without a Real Job, and my new releases.

Incidentally, I will be attending Book Expo (for the first time). My visit to New York will be from May 28 to May 31. We could meet to discuss a distribution agreement.

If you have any questions, just e-mail me at vipbooks (at) telus.net or telephone me at 780-434-9202.

Kindest regards,

Ernie J. Zelinski

Will I find a U.S. distributor? I don't know. 

But I know this. If I find a U.S. distributor as good as my Canadian distributor Sandhill Book Marketing, I will do much better than Random House taking over my self-published books.

Note: How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and Career Success Without a Real Job, two great business promo giveaways by VIP Books, are now distributed by the National Book Network.

Also See The Joy of Being Retired: 365 Reasons Why Retirement Rocks and Work Sucks