Incredible Secret Money Machine

[Recommended by Kevin Kelly, which counts for a lot in my book. -egg]

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Incredible Secret Money Machine

When I first started to get serious about making money I ran into this book written in 1978 by a hippy-hacker living in Arizona. His advice was aimed at "craft and technical" types who wanted to create a small business "doing their thing" whether that was creating ceramic pots, designing outdoor gear, or writing computer code. He talked about doing a starting up before that term was subverted by the implication that your start up would take over the world. Instead the author preached one-person self-employment that made you a living. The concept of entrepreneurism as a small-time life-style has evaporated from the culture, and now entrepreneur and start-up means "get big fast."

That did not appeal to me then, or now. But making a living doing what I was passionate about did. I learned how to earn a self-employed living from this book, which was mostly about what not to do. (I have been self-employed now for most of my adult life.) A lot of Don Lancaster's specific examples are now terribly dated, but his core principles still stand and are worth listening to particularly if you are starting out. (If you are already successfully self-employed this book won't help you much.) His idea that you should aim for a business that grows organically (income > expenses), is a total life-style approach (your business is you), and is dependent on your own value-added rather than market domination is as potent as ever.

If I had to sum up this book in my own words it would be; "If you are willing to build your business on expertise, you can make a living instead of making a fortune — and occasionally the fortune comes anyway."

Best of all, unlike any other "make-money" book I know of, this one is free. You can read the author's PDF version of the original paper book.

-- KK

Incredible Secret Money Making Machine

Don Lancaster

PDF, Free

Available from The Guru's Lair

Sample Excerpts:

Getting filthy rich should be nowhere in your plans. So long as you can continue doing what you like in the direction you want to go, that's all that should matter. The great irony of your incredible secret money machine is that the less you strive for income, the more of it will come your way, and, more importantly, the more you will be able to do with what you already have. Any time or effort spent directly toward making money is time not available for your main trip. This is wasted time and energy that eventually hurts you rather than helps.

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As a ferinstance, let's talk about an ordinary piece of typing paper. If you are running an office supply store, you can make a penny on th...