Oh, I know, an author, especially on his 7th book, is supposed to be calm, cool, and collected about praise, even from fellow authors. But I must confess that I am tingling with excitement at the constant stream of positive feedback coming in from initial readers and buyers of MoneyLove 3.0.
I knew the book was very good as I was writing it, just by the quality of the comments I got from my conversations with my 22 contributors, some of whom were actually more co-authors as I used lots of what they had to say on the various subjects about living a prosperous and creatively fulfilling life in the 12 Books of this 336 page volume. But while I expected some nice feedback, I was really not prepared for the effusive and ebullient nature of the forthcoming praise.
My favorite single word came from Barbara Winter, author of Making a Living Without a Job, who said “Bravo!” at the end of her email, which also said, “I’m astonished by how much you’ve packed into it.”
I was pretty sure my good friend, Tony Busse, who just had his own book launched, Go-Mode and the End of Mediocrity, would like it, but I could see even he was surprised by some aspects of what I’ve put together, as he wrote,
“It’s one of the most incredible things I’ve ever read. I’m really so impressed with what you put together here. The amount of innovation that’s involved in the book and then the depths you go to with your honesty, and what kind of caught me a little off guard a bit was your humor. It really is perfectly placed and it comes right off the page. I caught myself really laughing a number of times. It’s a very very pleasant read. Very engaging, pleasant, informative. I’ll tell you, it’s really some product! And I think it was genius turning the chapters into Books, getting people mentally prepared so they could segregate them into books. Telling the reader that they could read the books in any sequence–that was a genius move. It’s an excellent solution to today’s short attention spans.”
Premier prosperity teacher, Edwene Gaines, put it simply in an email to me:
“You rock! My prayers are with you. This is terrific!”
I know sharing these compliments is self-indulgent on my part, but I wanted to preface a secret I haven’t told anyone, even some of my best friends up until now: I was concerned that Moneylove 3.0 would not be as well received as the original 1978 book was. After all, I have been not been on the motivational speech and workshop scene for some twenty years now. And except for my blog readers and audio listeners, many people are surprised to find I am alive and well.
But could I live up to my reputation for innovation and provocative out-of-the-box thinking? Were my new ideas as clever and impactful as I believed? Was I right to add a lot more humor to this book, and to create such unique features as an Instruction Manual and an Appendix just for the TimeLove section? And was I right to call the 12 parts Books instead of chapters, so that people would see them as separate entities in a prosperity library they could pick and choose from?
And was it a mistake to reveal so much of myself, be so vulnerable, share so many of my feelings and own awakening processes, including talking a lot about my prison experience in the Introduction? Did I try to pack too much into one volume, one that is more than twice as long as the 1978 book?
Well from initial feedback from contributors, fellow authors, and those who bought the book early, some even placing their order before it came out–they overwhelmingly agree with all my decisions. However it succeeds in the wide online world, I feel blessed and vindicated, and affirmed–which is quite a joyful and triumphant feeling I just felt I had to share. My Compliment Bulletin Board is filling up fast, and will have to be enlarged. Maybe my hat size as well. Jerry
