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Book Bloggers, Publishing and Social Media

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I was fortunate to be able to interview Nicole Langan, the owner of Tribute Books recently regarding social media, bloggers and the future of publishing. As I know a lot of my readers are also writers and bloggers, I thought the answers would be interesting to many of you.

1. Can you tell me a bit about Tribute Books?
Nicole: Tribute Books began in 2004 and we’ve published over 30 titles since that time. Some of our books have gone on to win awards such as the Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year and the Mom’s Choice Award while others were endorsed by PBS and The Thoreau Society. We’ve covered a wide range of genres from children to history to sports.

2. Describe your new project for my readers?
Nicole: In 2012, we will transition into being an ebook publisher for young adult titles. Our main reason is the explosion in popularity of e-readers such as the Kindle, Nook and iPad. Over the course of 2011, we’ve watched our ebook sales outpace our print sales by 2 to 1. The under $5 price point of most of our titles and the ease of purchase and delivery are surely contributing factors.

3. What are you looking for in an author? Who finds illustrator if needed?
Nicole: We’re looking to work with authors who are savvy with social media – those who blog, tweet and update their Facebook status on a daily basis. I’m most excited about working with authors who enjoy promoting their book on a daily basis. Ones who know the ins and outs of the time and effort it takes to make a book a success because I’m ready and willing to work with them every step of the way.
(At this time, illustrations will not be needed since we’re looking to e-publish solely text manuscripts.)

4. Why epubs and not traditional hard copy books?
Nicole: Our main reason is the explosion in popularity of e-readers such as the Kindle, Nook and iPad. Over the course of 2011, we’ve watched our ebook sales outpace our print sales by 2 to 1. The under $5 price point of most of our titles and the ease of purchase and delivery are surely contributing factors.

5. What is your social media experience and philosophy?
Nicole: I am a big believer in the power of social media. I even conduct monthly blog tours for outside publishers and authors in order to help them increase the online presence of a book. Book bloggers are a powerful force in the book industry. With more and more book stores closing and book review columns being cut from major newspapers, readers are depending on bloggers to help them find the books they want to read. They are turning to the internet as a reference point to fill that gap.

Thanks very much to Nicole and Tribute Books

Nicole Langan, owner of Tribute Books

The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in The World: Review

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The truth about books on the subject of digital media. By the time they are published they are in fact out of date. Such is the case with The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in The World. While it doesn’t quite live upto the title, this book is an important offering for several reasons. First, in the world of social media case studies are slowly emerging to prove the importance of this marketing tool. In the traditional marketing field return on investment is the means of measuring impact. Nobody has been able to figure out ways to capture to ROI of social media until extremely recently. Enter case studies. The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in The World takes several digital ad campaigns and expands on how they worked why they worked and what the audience and budget was. The astonishing part of some of these case studies is that the budget was nothing and they are still viewed by the authors as some of the most successful digital campaigns in the world. In this field there are a growing body of resources on line, but not so many traditional offerings. For that reason too this book should appeal to traditional marketing personnel. While I was looking forward to reading this book, because it is a compilation of successful digital media campaigns ranging from big name brands like Pizza Hut to Pepsi, Turbotax and the presidential campaign for Obama, it leaves a little to be desired. Books about social media and digital media need to engage on an entirely different level than regular traditional books. They need to think outside the box. So this type of book needs to not only market itself on twitter and facebook and run a social media campaign with blog tour or some social media author interaction with readers, but it needs to update itself in some ways making it more relevant than the regular book. I have seen this done simply with authors of fiction lately and have done more than a few blog tours which generate buzz. I have also seen it done smartly with Shama Hyder Kabani’s book The Zen of Social Media Marketing. Readers, marketers, publicity people and authors should go buy that book if they want to learn creative ways to continue and extend the life cycle of a traditional book. Social network advertising spending is expected to increase to a staggering $4.3 billion in a bid to attract today’s media-savvy consumer, $1.64 billion in the US alone. It is the fastest growing media ever. This book attempts to capture some recent successes and does a decent job of that. But it is by no means the best digital media campaigns. There are some creative ideas here. For instance the Dockers Iphone pants dance campaign through Medialets was fun and interactive. A Doritos campaign that was shot outside an insane asylum was very appealing to a teenage demographic and savvy. But I can think of a few recent social media campaigns that were even more successful or well publicized than these. The first and most well known – absent from this book – is the obvious Old Spice guy Facebook and more campaign. Author Damian Ryan has been at the forefront of the Irish media and advertising business for many years.Calvin Jones is a freelance writer, journalist, blogger and online marketer.

The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns In The World: Mastering The Art of Customer Engagement,
By Damian Ryan and Calvin Jones
Kogan Page Limited,
07/28/2011
ISBN: 978-0749-4-6062-4
ISBN: 0749460628
Paperback 224 pages
$16.99 and US $29.95

This one gets a $$$ out of $$$$$

Untold Story – An Unusual Look at How Princess Diana’s Life Might Have Gone

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Untold Story is quite unlike anything I have ever reviewed here. It takes a real character, Princess Di, who tragically died in a Paris tunnel car crash many years ago and manufactures a fictional future for her, had she lived. The main character in Untold Story is Lydia, a single woman living in a small town somewhat called Kensington anonymously and working at a shelter for animals. She is in a relationship with a man and seems reluctant to get too close to him. She has several girlfriends. As the story begins, her friends are all waiting for her to show up to a party and she is late for an unknown reason. The foreshadowing wasn’t something I really picked up on with the first read of this book, but on a second pass through the manuscript it is evident. Chapter Two jumps back to a month before the party when life was normal for Lydia. She enjoys a quiet life with her dog and her friends. Occasionally she tortures herself with a peek at the gossip magazines seeking glimpses of her children, or her former life. In a side plot there is a photographer writing a book on occasion of the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. He is travelling and pulling the book together much too slow for his publisher’s desire and here the two plots will collide. Lydia is very skilled at lying to friends and giving them tiny snippets of truth to keep them from questioning her background or to keep them at a distance. Eventually she begins to have the feeling she might be being followed. It is a not unfamiliar feeling for her. When, after many years succeeding in having faked her death, she is found by a photographer, she must make a difficult choice: confront the man or run. Monica Ali is a truly creative author and this is a fantastic and compelling read. Ali takes as the premise the idea that Princess Di was “a gorgeous bundle of trouble” and she supports this with a character who exists in the book as the accomplice who helped Diana to stage her death. Through him we see how trapped she felt towards the last years of her marriage to Prince Charles. He is painted as cruel and controlling. We see also that this fictional Diana’s children were being pulled from her already as she headed towards the inevitability of a divorce. So, Ali, seems to hint it might not have been such a leap for a woman like Diana to have faked her death. It would have been the only way to gain freedom. Ali is the author of two other novels, In the Kitchen and Brick Lane. She lives in the other London with her husband and two children. She was named one of Granta’s twenty best young British novelists.

Untold Story by Monica Ali, is to be released in hardcover June 28, 2011, by Scribner Hardcover (Simon and Schuster Canada) Fiction, 272 pages, $25.00

This one is a $$$$ out of $$$$$. Fun and unconventional twist on a topic many of us thought we already knew.

I received a copy of this book to review for free and a chat will be occurring on line about the book through Wanda @YMCBookalicious and YummyMummyClub

My Foolish Heart by Susan May Warren

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I expected Susan May Warren’s My Foolish Heart to read like a romance novel. And it does. But to dismiss this book as simple pulp would be doing it a grave injustice. There is real substance here with a main character who suffers paralyzing anxiety attacks and, we learn, was sole survivor in a terrible car crash. Isadora, Issie, is a radio host of a talk show about love called The Foolish Heart. She dispenses advice and listens to romantic issues and yet she is so deeply scarred by her post-traumatic stress disorder she is barely able to venture from her home and therefore also unable to fall in love. She lives in Deep Haven and is the daughter of the town’s well loved former football coach. Football is almost as much a character here as are the grown high school students who never left town or left briefly and came back. Caleb is an ex-vet who was injured on duty in Iraq and has returned to town to audition for football coach. His nemesis Seb Brewster is also auditioning for coach. Caleb has been physically scarred over part of his face and yet, when he moves in next door to Issie she can’t help but noticing how attractive he is. Lucy is the town’s donut shop owner. She is Issie’s friend and as the plot reveals also has a history with Seb. My Foolish Heart is about a town healing after the death of their beloved coach. It is the first book I have read by Susan May Warren. She has three others in the Deep Haven series. Warren has clearly done her research on anxiety and PTSD. She delves really graphically into the psychological and emotional issues that are coupled with these disorders. For this reason her characters are unique and deep and multi-faceted. Caleb calls into the radio show one night and falls for a voice without knowing the woman behind the voice is also his neighbour. He is both physically and psychologically scarred by the past. Can they both get over their many obstacles in order to find each other? The author Warren has written more than 30 novels and was once a missionary in Russia. She is married with four children and now lives in Minnesota.

This one is a $$$$ out of $$$$$. I received a free copy of this book for review. That in no way impacts my opinion.

My Foolish Heart by Susan May Warren, published by Tyndale Fiction, US, $13.99, 358 pages paperback.

Please Look After Mom: A Review

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Please Look After Mom is a beautiful, sad and lyrical tale for anyone who has ever had a Mom or been a Mom. This one came to me as part of the national book club influencer program for http://www.EverythingMom.com and I found myself reading it with difficulty. This is not an easy story. The plot begins when the mother of a successful family in Korea goes missing at a train station in Seoul. It is an amazing rapid start to the plot that cannot help but hook you instantly. The mother, it is revealed, has been suffering stunning headaches and previously battled breast cancer. Through each one of the grown children, the mother’s story is revealed slowly as that of a young girl who grew up in poverty in the Korean countryside and could not be educated or kept safe beyond a certain age. So instead she was presented to a man, a stranger, for an arranged marriage. Together they build a home and have four children. The young mother excels at feeding and nourishing things. Her gardening ability is unparalleled. Everything she touches blooms and her young family grows strong and successful. But they move on and for the most part still see their mother as she is defined within the context of home. The mother is a martyr and she goes to great extremes to nourish family and farm. This is a book with a unique narrative style utlizing the second person throughout. That is a quite uncommon technique as most novelists employ first person or third person. Often second person is tricky and not well done. But here the effect is one of drawing the reader fully into the story almost as their own character, a family member themselves participating in the retelling of the mother’s life and the search. It is a remarkable accomplishment. Some chapters are told from the viewpoints of the different children and the husband as well. As we meet each one of the adult children we discover them realizing how little they know of their mother’s inner life. It is a sad statement of fact that the daughter, a writer, when preparing a poster seeking help to find the mising mother, doesn’t know her mother’s true birthdate. A further sad statement on the marriage is revealed in the chapter when the hard as nails father of the family returns to their marital home and lays in bed overcome with grief that astonishes even him. He reflects on his habit of always walking too far ahead of the mother as a habit that may have led to her disappearance. And he understands too late how uncaring this one daily ritual must have seemed to his spouse. He understands too late also that he should have fought harder for better health care for his talented and undemanding wife. He feels guilt and shame and suprising amounts of love. Similarly each of the children realize the many sacrifices their mother made daily and they wonder if she was ever happy. They are all healthy and very successful in their fields. “After Mom went missing, I realized there’s an answer to everything. I could have done everything she wanted me to. It wasn’t important. I don’t know why I got under her skin over things like that.” Please Look Ater Mom is sad and beautiful and not for the faint of heart. It is a great story of sacrifice and, despite its fictional basis, speaks volumes about family relationships. It speaks to of the heart’s many facets and the grief that comes with losing your strongest anchor in the world. “Even though Mom’s missing, summer will come and fall will come again and winter will come, like this. And I’ll be living in a world without Mom.” The daughter has always had such a complicated relationship with her mother, but she alos realizes her mother’s impact too late. She wrestles as an unmarried female with whether her mother succeeded in life, or was ever happy or content. She grapples too with how good a daughter she was or was not. Her desparate search is weighted with all of the events in her past and her unexpressed sentiments. It is pure tragedy. It is a rare book that causes a reader to reflect on their own life with an eye to change. This one has that ability.

Please Look After Mom, by Kyung-Sook Shin, is by Random House Canada. $29.95 hardcover and 237 pages (translated from the Korean)

This is a $$$$ 1/2 out of $$$$$.

I received a copy of this book for free in order to review it.

Giveaway: Secrets To Parenting Your Adult Child Book

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While many of us are still knee-deep in diapers, or sorting through the ups and downs of the turbulent tweens, I don’t have to tell you how fast children grow. The blink of an eye, a weekend at the grandparents and it seems some mornings that you could almost swear your child looks an inch taller. From the time they are tweens, perhaps even from the time they start walking they begin the journey away from you. And while I know there are countless resources and parenting books for parents of toddlers and newborns, I’ve yet to see a tome dubbed the Teen Whisperer or the Young Adult Whisperer. In its place is this: Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child, by Nancy Williams. Is this a book that is needed in the marketplace of parenting books? Oh yes, I would argue there is a great need and I wish frankly that it had existed a decade ago so my mother could have read it. Years ago we might have laughed at this notion: the adult child. We might have even shrugged it off as a thing that didn’t exist. But the economy took a dive and grown children began leaving home a lot later. Marriage began happening a lot later than in previous generations and married career couples began waiting often until their 40s before they had their own children. Emptynesters often waited longer to become emptynesters, parenting adult children still living at home. It was most unexpected. So what are the ground rules, or guidelines for this new phase of your relationship? How do you respectfully live under the same roof as two grownups? How do you guide this adult without overstepping your boundaries? How do you continue to nurture in a supportive way the emotional health of this person who is still struggling to become independent? Luckily Nancy Williams, a licenced counselor and life coach, has some advice. Williams, also a parent of two, offers some ideas such as: active listening means not interjecting into their conversations comments like “I know just how you feel.” In fact Williams points out, you probably don’t really know how they feel because this social phenomenon is quite new. “We must be careful to withhold comments that may appear judgemental and avoid comparisons with other children _ their siblings, their friends, our friend’s children.” This is so vital to maintaining a supportive relationship. We all know how awful it feels to be compared in a negative way to someone else’s accomplishments. It undermines our confidence and also makes us question how conditional the love of a parent is. Williams challenges parents to be listeners, to use their hearts while listening and to respect that each person is unique and know that your goal for that person, your adult child, might be entirely different than their goal. Respect their vision, she says. Good advice for any stage of parenting. Become a positive coach. Use phrases like: “Tell me more,” “How can I help you with that?” Also don’t forget simple communication tools like using I statements. Secrets To Parenting Your Adult Child is a great communication tool to have on hand in general for any person with a a child in their teens and beyond. Williams can help you get to that next level with your child. While she won’t be able to help your adult child find a job or move out on their own in an economy where jobs seem scarce, she provides some good solid practical advice.

Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child is a $$$$ out of $$$$$. The price is right for this book which fills a niche that doesn’t really get much attention. Good communication skills are vital for all relationships and with your children you certainly want to be there throughout their lives, not just until they turn 21. It should be given to all parents when their children are 18 and up.

Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child by Nancy Williams, Bethany House, US, $12.99 Christian Life and Parenting, 216 pages.

Giveaway: (Open to Canada and US. Ends June 15th)
Mandatory:
1.You must follow thriftymommasbrainfood on GFC (see side bar)
2. Leave me your email address so I can contact you if you win.
Extra ENTRY:
1.Tweet about the giveaway – once per day. One extra entry. The tweet can be like this: “I entered to win the Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child on http://www.thriftymommasbrainfood.blogspot.com/”

Skinny – A Fun and Frightening Look at Kid’s Camps

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Skinny, by Diana Spechler is as divine as a gourmet dessert. I suspect this is one novel that will be found on many beaches, and in the hands of many at the cottage, this summer. Skinny is delicious, smart and funny. Skinny is a unique story inspired by the author’s summer stint at a children’s weight loss camp. It is a work of creative non fiction. It takes a serious jumping off point and an austere subject – health issues, both physical and mental, relating to childhood obesity, and it spins that off into a tongue in cheek almost satirical look at an industry that is perhaps out of control. It is a savvy title that can at once refer to the weight loss industry itself and the ‘skinny’ or truth at the heart of the relationships people have with food. There were moments when Skinny reminded me of a Michael Moore documentary on food. There were other moments when the main character Gray also harkened back to the main character at the heart of the Margaret Atwood novel, The Edible Woman. As the novel begins Gray, the main character, 26, is dealing with deep grief and guilt. Her very obese father has recently died. “After I killed my father, he taught me that honesty is optional,” she states. In the wake of his death she finds that she is unable to stop eating. One day, as Gray hunts through her father’s financial papers and emails, she finds evidence she has a half sister, Eden. Eden’s private life is quite exposed through social media and so Gray already thinks she knows a lot about her half sister when she signs on as a camp counsellor at the weight loss camp Eden is attending. The characters in Skinny are composites, which shouldn’t be surprising as these characters are much too funny, ironic and colourful to be entirely real. Take Lewis, for instance. Lewis is the camp founder who, without spoiling the ending of the book is slightly hypocritical and completely full of himself. He is a full blown narcissist who takes $11,000 per child for a summer that promises to transform children from overweight, bullied, victims to svelte, healthy members of society. Sheena is the very comical former foster child from the wrong side of the tracks who ascends to activities coordinator and wins the love of all the campers. She is also slightly deranged. Mikey is Gray’s moody boyfriend back home and Bennett is the well sculpted summer fling, an assistant at the camp. Spechler is a talented writer effortlessly moving between flashback type scenes and present day. She writes with skill and expertise, and the flow of the narrative is never strained, despite the jumps back and forth in time. Her flashbacks are so organic that the reader hardly knows they are happening and isn’t ever jolted. Spechler is also the author of Who By Fire.  She lives in New York City and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Details, Never and Glimmer. Skinny is contemporary in its topic matter and cultural references and somewhat horrifying in its harsh look at the obesity industry. If even a portion of this story is true as the author says it is, Skinny will be slightly horrifying for a whole group of parents that spend money sending their children to overnight camps. 

Skinny, by Diana Spechler, Harper Perennial, 368 pages, April 19, 2011, New York, Paperback $14.99.
Thriftymommastips gives this one a $$$$ out of $$$$$.
I received a copy of the book free for review.

Smart Female Characters and Adoption History Lessons: A Review of the Novel, Angel Sister

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Angel Sister is a sweet, moving, tale that has all the elements of a good story. It is a story of family and forgiveness and survival, but Angel Sister is also an unlikely adoption story of sorts set against a backdrop of depression era America. Kate Meritt is the middle daughter in a big family struggling to find their way and stay strong during a terrible economic time that has tested many and left others destitute. Kate is a spirited girl who speaks her mind. With a tangle of dark hair that is often unkempt, a penchant for saying what she thinks, and a stronger interest in playing outside than in, she is not like her quiet girly sisters. “Brothers are alright, but a sister, she can understand things about you without ever saying a word. It’s like your heart divided and made another person.” Kate’s mother reminds her she is fortunate to have sisters, but Kate sometimes seems so much more mature than the rest of her siblings, that she is not so sure any of her existing biological brothers or sisters are a blessing. Kate’s father Victor is an alcoholic with what would be known today as post-traumatic stress disorder from fighting in the war. The mother Nadine is the daughter of the town’s preacher, a man who has always inspired more fear than respect and who clearly objected to his daughter’s choice of husband. He is a slightly foreboding presence and an influence on their entire community, a rural spot ironically named Rosey Corners. Kate is out running a jar of jam to her grandfather, Father Reece, the preacher, one day when she finds a small girl Lorena Birdsong, abandoned on the church steps by a family that apparently had little choice but to flee town with no money, no jobs and a very sick young son. What is interesting about this book is the historical insights into a time when this is really what life would have looked like for so many in America. As well, the author gives us a unique look at the early phenomenon of adoption before it was really even regarded as such. Adoption here is a very sad and unfortunate result of the economy. It is not legally binding in any way, but more so a kinship arrangement in which a town got together and decided what would be best for the child and the community in general. It is common sense in a lot of ways. But Kate is the one who has found the little girl Lorena, dirty and waiting on the church steps for someone to be her “angel.” She takes one look at Kate and quickly decides Kate must be her angel. The elder girl and her family really are in no position to add another child to their stressed full, but loving home, and yet her heart and conscience tell her the girl belongs with them. Kate cleans little Lorena up and takes her home with her. Conflict arises when Kate and the family fall for the child, but the church and community agree she must go live with a childless and somewhat unfriendly couple. At the point it is announced by Grandfather Reece in the church that Lorena shall go live with the Baxters, a couple of people stand up to protest, but it is Kate’s voice that rings out loud and clear. Unfortunately at that precise moment she chooses to speak out, the preacher has a stroke in front of the congregation. Poor Lorena Birdsong goes to dwell with the Baxters and Kate keeps an eye from afar as the plot gets more complicated. I won’t spoil the end of the story for my readers, but there are multiple levels of plot complications towards the end of the book that make this novel a really interesting book despite a rather slow start. Gabhart is a lovely writer and her characters in Angel Sister are really dynamic, especially the females. Kate is a charming and really three dimensional youth you will enjoy spending time with. I picked this book to review because of the title and the hint of an adoption plot. I enjoyed it because of the great female characters and the historical insights into a period of time that seems to echo, in more ways than one, the current socio-economic climate of southern Ontario.
Ann Gabhardt is the best-selling author of several novels. She has written The Outsider, The Believer and The Seeker.
Angel Sister, by Ann Gabhart, 2011, Revell Publishing, 407 pages, $14.99
This one gets $$$$ out of $$$$$
I received this novel for free to review, and this in no way impacts my original review.

Five Trends To Watch in Publishing

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Five Trends To Watch in Publishing:
An Industry in Flux
by Paula Schuck

Anyone following trends in print media and book publishing will know that this is nothing if not an industry in flux. I am fortunate enough to have front row seats to the evolution of books and media and it is at once a challenging and exciting time. The publishing world was quick to recognize the threat, but they were also, in print media incredibly slow to act upon it and challenge their traditional genre. But over the past few months I have noticed a number of increasingly savvy and interesting approaches to forcing interactivity upon readers. So if ebooks are the new norm and social media is the fastest growing media ever, how then are books, three dimensional handheld books, making themselves relevant or reasserting themselves in an industry in flux?
In the past few months I have seen a number of really creative ideas.
1. The new standard for book tours – is the book blog tour. I have run several here at thriftymommasbrainfood. The virtual book tour makes a lot of sense. Authors don’t need to knock themselves out quite as much criss-crossing Canada to flog their newest release. Instead they do so by pitching bloggers, simply sending books out to a select group with on line influence. There are often accompanying contests, giveaways and reviews.
2. CDs/trailers other media. Sing You Home by blockbuster best-selling author Jodi Picoult has a CD tucked inside the front of the her latest novel, you are to play the CD as a supplement to the chapters. The songs by Ellen Wilber are essentially a soundtrack to the book. This book was published by Simon and Schuster Canada.
3. Complementary use of social media. I just finished a book being promoted by Graf-Martin Media called The Heart Revolution. The author is Sergio De La Mora. The book itself is an empowering faith-based book teaching people to reconnect with their heart and trust the power of that to drive your actions throughout life. Punctuating the book, published by Baker Group, are several links to web sites. The links take you to sermons on line. Creative.
4. Kids books are employing on line games and tricks that kick it up a notch. Best example I have seen of this lately is The Search For Wondla, by Tony Diterlizzi, also published by Simon and Schuster. Main character Eva Nine’s life comes to a computer near you if you hold parts of the book upto a camera on your computer. Bizarre and yet how very logical for sci fi children’s fiction, especially for this generation of children.
5. But truly the smartest thing I have seen so far is The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani. A book about marketing with this fast-growing media form, the savvy author takes her material to an entirely different dimension. She clearly indicates at the start of the book, that buying it also gives you access to to the continuously updated digital version. Access the site for http://www.zenofsocialmedia.com/ and put the password in provided in her book and receive her latest data and expert opinion. 

Money and Marriage by Matt Bell

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I have been reading excellent bloggers this week on how to smartly title a blog post so that it gets noticed. Now normally I would think that a literary title about money might be savvy, but it turns out that I am wrong. All the smart bloggers I admire say simple is best. Apparently Google doesn’t really get literary flowery post titles. So what does that have to do with Money and Marriage? Well clearly this title is succinct. But essentially it tells you everything you need to know to buy the book. Money and Marriage. There is arguably no greater issue in a marriage than money. It can make your relationship challenging to say the least. Luckily author Matt Bell is here to help.
“Couples who disagree about finances at least once a week are over 30 % more likely  to divorce than couples who disagree about finances a few times a month.”
Money and Marriage: A Complete Guide for Engaged and Newly Married Couples contains many excellent guides, charts and activities designed to help new couples discover more about each other’s financial goals, debts and worth. Remember that marriage course you had to take before you walked down the aisle? Well Money and Marriage is like that course, neatly contained in a book, for your finances. Matt Bell begins by outlining the many ways in which men and women are different in terms of spending, saving and investing. Men, for instance, follow business news more often than women. Men cite investing and entrepreneurship as high on their list. Women cite saving and spending as key issues with money. Women are more likely than men to give time and money to charity. If our approaches to money are so different, then is it any wonder than most couples argue about it a lot?
Financial literacy is nothing if not a hot topic these days in light if such severe economic woes in much of North America. Bell, also the author of Money, Purpose, Joy and Money Strategies for Tough Times, provides a helpful guide to start couples on the right track in their new lives together.
There are some helpful practical and common sense tips here, that I like. For instance, continue learning outside the workplace for as long as your are able, especially before children arrive. You increase your worth as a worker if you are always on top of trends and information. Also many workplaces have some sort of tuition reimbursement or cost savings program. Accelerate your payments whenever possible. Avoid debt and where you have debt prior to your marrige be honest with each other about it. Also contact the bank or credit card company to ask for a lower interest rate on your credit cards. Often this is a simple phone call and this is a practical strategy I use here as well.
For this review and book tour there is also an excellent contest going on. I hope every one of my readers takes time to enter. Thanks to Matt Bell for the great giveaway!

Matt About Money Nest Egg Giveaway 

Money and Marriage, by Mat Bell NavPress, 2011, $14.99 softcover, 219 pages

Thriftymommastips rating is $$$1/2 out of $$$$$. The price is right for this book about money. I learned a lot about how spending habits and investing strategies differ by gender.This is clearly an American book with US references throughout. That’s perfectly fine and Canadians can still use a lot of the common sense information here. I am unsure that prayer and money belong together in a book.

I received a free copy of this book to review. This, in no way impact my honest opinion.