t

h
e
d
\
b
\
e
\
"
e
r
e
se
C
r
e
t
by
Don
Lancaster
Don Lancaster
'
s
INCREDIBLE
SECRET
MONEY
MACHINE II
Syergetlcs Press
Box 809 Thatcher A 85552
(928) 428-4073
Copygt 1978, 1992, 2010 by Don Lancaster.
Published by Synergetc Pes
3860 West First Steet, Bx 8, Thatcher, A,85552.
(928) 48-073.
THIRD EDIION
FST PRIG-2010
Al rght resered. Reproduction or use, witout exress
persion, of editorial or pictorial content, i any maner,
i stictly prohibited.
No liabiit i assumed for damages resulting fom te us of
te inforation contained herein. The only warraty, express or
iplied, i "approximate quantty one."
Iterational Standard Bok Numbr IBN 978-1-882193-12-7
Pinted in a tinaja near Thtcher, Aron, USA.
INTODUC0N TO THE SECOND EDITION
Fourteen Years Later ...
Histor always repeats Itself.
Fir as a tragedy and then as a farce.
Somehow it Is has become the fall of 1992. This Incredible Secret
Money Machine is now foureen years old. And is selling better than
ever. But the last remaining mountain of them has just vnished out of
my storeroom. So a revision would seem to be in order.
Probably the greatest indicator of your ongoing enthUSiasm Is how
long you can keep your copy of an ISMM before it gets permanently
ripped off. The average time seems to be fifteen weeks. A half life,
sor of. Or maybe a time between reincarnations.
I guess I am not into revisionism, so I won't. With a few obvious
adaptions, most of ti book i a accurate and as useful now as I was
then. If not more so. Instead, I will leave things exactly the way they
were and jut add a few comments here on where we are and where
we seem to b headed.
And I will add a sorely needed and of-requested index to round out
this paricular edition.
When this ISMM was written, peronal computers were wondrous
beasties, and you had to continuously defend why you had one and
what you did with them. These days, of coure, a personal computer is
essential for any money machine. At the very least, you should be
comforable with a word processor, a desktop publishing packge and
a programming language that you can relate to.
Int - 1
Te choice of a machine is simple. If you think computer are jut a
work tool like any other, go IBM. Should you believe computer are
for fu and for computing as an end unto themselves, go Mac.
Here's a few other money machine areas that somehow seem worh
commenting on ...
netorking
One of the biggest mistakes I have made over the years is not
realizing just how imporant personal networking is. Or has become.
Networking is simply associating with others, either one-on-one or
electronically. Your personal netork consists of people you know that
are outside of your immediate family, work, or church. Who, for one
reason or another, will either share your interests or can advance your
mone machine. Or expose you to ideas and concepts that you would
not otherise tune yourself into.
Obvious ways to personally network are to go to club meetings, to
teach or take any course, to atend eents, write stories, participate in
seminar and show, visit unusual places, do volunteer serice work, or
rn a voice helpline. Or simply get off the beaten path.
It is hard to imagine any money machine these days that does not
have and aggressively use a modem. There are tens of thousands of
electronic bulletin boards which cover any and all imaginable special
interests. Jut a phone call away. The real biggies here are GEnie at
(800) 638-9636 and CompuServe at (800) 848-8199. Together, these
provide many hundreds of thousands of downloads on an incredible
vriety of topics waiting for you. At astonishingly low prices.
The boards that charge are often much cheaper than the ones who
do not. How's that again? The big boards are usually after-hours "load
levelers" for major national tax preparer or computer serice bureaus.
These can have local access nodes in hundreds or even thousands of
places in the country. So they are probably a local call for you, rather
than a long distance one. Because of their higher profiles, these big
boards also are more likely to have exactly what you need and higher
quality information in general.
It is probably not a goo idea to star your ow BBS. Most people
grosly underestimate the time, the dollars, and the stupendous energ
commitment it takes. They also ridiculously overestimate how many
caller they will get how often or for how long. With most boards, you
also will typically get only one upload for ever 600 or so dowloads.
It i vstly better to work with an existing board or become an assistant
sysop for one.
The electronic networking solution that's been by far the greatest
equalizer for me has been the Dialog In/ormation Service located at
(415) 858-2700. For Dialog can supply you instant abstracts of all key
paper in any technical field. From anyhere. At any time. While their
It - 2
$120 per hour charges might appear steep at firt glance, Dialog is
often by far the quickest and cheapest way to do any serious research.
Especially if you do not have the foggiest notion of where to begin.
Although you can subscribe to Dialog yourself, it is better to use the
serices of a qualified librarian who knows all of the shorcus and has
all of the expensive resource and access manuals.
Dialog also now offer a quarter-price late evning serice.
Another great BBS of special interest to money machine folk is the
Wole Earth Lectronlc Link, or the WELL for shor. Found at (415)
332-4335. Lot here on alterate energy, and small-is-beautiful.
I have much more info for you on what we are about to look at.
The brackets in the text send you to some downloadable files of mine
found in my PSRT roundtable on GEnie. Star with the director and
cross reference in files #478-482, followed by (#217 INTROAL.Tj.
a sensitivity to other
One of the more fundamental facts of life is that friends come and
go but enemies accumulate. It is super imporant in everhing you do
to try and look at things from "their" perspective. Bluntly, if you piss
someone off, they can retur to haunt you for year or even decades.
Brised egos tend to rot qUickly. And harm you forever in way that
you woul seldom suspect.
There are always multiple ways of dealing with any task. Some
confront; other do not. Some are low level; other are not. Sme are
quiet; other can b unnecesarily loud. Some apply only precisely the
minimum necessar force to do the job; other do not. Sme put you
center stage; other third party a granfallon or to.
The ploy of avoiding zero sum games cerainly still goes. Only much
more so toay. These day, i has a new name. It is now called seeking
out WIN-WIN situations in everhing you do. Epecially if it involves
other on an ongoing or long term basis.
ReF ploys
I'd like to rename and briefly expand on the original ISMM concept
of having other pay you for your fun. Just what deterines which
direction the cash flow In any trnsaction? In lots of insances, the
"obvious" answer that "they" think i goo for you is not necesarily
the only one posible.
I'll define a Reversed Cash Flow, or ReF as any metho you could
conjure up to cause all of the nickels to head on out exactly In the
opposite of the "usual" direction. A preferably end up in your ow
pocket. Knowing and using relevant and workable ReFs are key
secret to a succesful money machine venture.
Sme ReF example that have worked for me do Include: Having
the Foret Serce pay me to stay In a mountain vcation cabin a a
It - 3
fire lookout. Getting paid several hundred dollar a year (or similr
perks) for drinking rootbeer ever Wednesday night as a voluteer
fireman. Foring variou club and uer groups to gain big discount
on all types of ne softare, hardware, and adance freebie technical
info. Getting hired as a sop on a BBS to pick up free access and
actually geting paid a royaly as others call the serice. Receing free
toner for teting to yield negativ per-page tonr costs on my deskop
publishing. Or, becoming a developer or an Independent Software
Vendor that gives you free or discounted hardwre and sftare.
Scams? Yes. And, no, they do not appl to everbody. And an
specific RCF cerainly will only work for a scant few of you. Your
selecte ploy does have to fit into the big picure of who you are and
where you are heading. But, if you do tune yourelf into the RCF plo
and always ask yourelf how the cash flow for any trnsction can b
reersed, you'll be amazed at how many ways this virtually unknow
tool can b put to ue for you.
One of the greatest and the most general of RCF scams i the
adletorlal. An advetorial is any editorial material which purpredl
provides useful and apparently complete end reader information not
easily found elsehere. While leaving a ver strong perception in the
reader's mind of who you are and what you have for sale. Along wth
a ver strong urge to whip out their VSA car.
Your key to acceptable advetorials is a fair lalue receivd. Te
reader should walk away from your stor with lots of welcome and
ueful information that would be difficult for them to find elshere.
Stand-alone information that clearly needs no furher involvement or
input from you as an author or adverier.
At the same time, you wnt them to end up feeling that it would b
very foolish indeed for them to not ge some more from where what
they already got came from. Ideally, your advetorial should b strong
enough on its own to make your reader want to sve their magazine
foreer, or else tear ou your par of it.
Another ueful publishing ploy is the editorial exchange, in which
you accept ad space as parial payment for editorial materials you
submit as an author. This minimizes the magazine's cash out the door
while giing you an ad at little or no cost. But never ue any eitorial
exchanges for total payment. Always insist on at least parial cash.
This prevents giving your time and effor away for nothing at all I
retur. [#208 ADVOR.T)
bd scnes
If you are in a pokr game for twenty minute and do not know wo
the mark is, then you are the mark. By the wy, the term mark come
from the carey midway where sucker literally had a large 'X" duted
on their back with chalk. After a friendly pat on the back.
It - 4
Lfe seems to go in three year cycles. So ever now and then it pays
to take an inventory and see if what you are doing and who you are
doing it with is what you really want. Are you now handling something
for some organization that is being completely tharted by some petty
politics or childish ego games? Is the course you are teaching still
relevant? Are you doing what you want with who you want? Are your
biases and prejudices hurting you? Do you have., all the facts? What is
working and what isn't? What is fun and what is not? Are the hours
you are spending on any project paying for themselves or otherise
rewarding you? Are you ignoring obvious new directions? Is a guilt trip
getting laid on you? Have one time friends become psychic energy
sink? Are church or family demanding too much of your energy?
. Just like cleaning a closet, it pays to rearrange the scenery ever
now and then. Just decide that you are now going to cease certain
activties outright, de-emphasize others, change yet others, and begin
some things anew. And actually do it.
A usual, the best way to get something to happen i to ask for it.
The best way to prevent something from happening is to just say no.
By far the best way to prevent a tug-of-war is to not pick up your end
of the rope. Ofen, your best way to communicate is to tell someone
exactly how you feel.
Delay may be the surest form of denial. But dragging things out will
often only make a bad scene wore. Cut it off now using the minimum
possible force at the lowest possible effective level. And don't talk to
anyone else about it.
One of the biggest bad scenes around here at my Synergetlcs had
been our foreign sales. Besides displeasing customers and losing time
and money on them, we just weren't handling them well at all. S we
simply stopped all foreign sales. And have no regrets at all.
Investments
Not much new here. If it calls you on the phone, it is definitely not
an investment. Nor if i is now breaking new highs and drawing lots of
media attention.
Naturally, yu adjust your investments to suit your lifestyle, your
age, and your obligations. You do recognize that all investments are
cyclical, having times when they'll do well and others when they do
poorly. You avoid collectibles unless you are a collector, and works of
ar unless you are an artist. You use discount brokers and yuu do read
the Wall Street Journal.
A before, you invest in yourself. First and foremost.
Keough plans are now called 401-K's. Besides providing you wth a
free alterative to insurance, they remain an all around goo deal. The
same goes for IR accounts, but on a lower scale.
How would you like a zero risk investment that pays 18% year in
Ito-5
and year out, absolutely tax free? With no need to so much as repor
your investment income? Simply pay off all of your VISA and Credit
Reserve bills and tHen keep them that way. There is no other safe
investment you can find anyhere at any price t1at can offer you een
remotely this good a retur.
Supply side economics don't seem to make too much sense in the
averge money machine. Remember that a dolar unspent equals five
or more dollars uneared. You should always think of any dollar that
goes out your door in terms of the larger number of incoming money
machine dollar needed to create it.
I've recentl expanded my trading of high beta stock. Buy low and
sell high and all that. Ver sadly, those great Henr Lankford price
histories are now themselves histor. But quotes are easil gotten from
on-line BBS serices. Unlimited closing quotes at $5 per month. Or
complete stock histories in machine readable form for ten cents a
minute of downloading time.
I've recently written a ver useful stock trading analysis program.
One thing the program brings home is that you will get eaten alive if
you are not greedy enough. You'll do much better on the longer and
larger price swings than tring to second guess things on a daybday
basis. Which is similar to the engineering concept that most of the
energy in any waveform usually will lie in its low frequency harmonics.
[#221 GEIEVS.PS) and [#223 GENIEST.T)
My curent steg is to buy on a 30% drop and sell on a 30% rise of
any high beta stock within its "normal" trading range. If your price
seems "high", you'll get more aggressive on selling and less so on
buying. Even shorting on any extreme up move. If the price seems
"low", you get more aggressive on buying and less so on selling. You
keep averging dow, no matter how much it hurs.
Some of the stocks I have found attractive include Adobe Systems,
which has conSistently given me a 60% average annual retur, year
after year since day one. Others of interest do include Seagate, Apple
Computer, and Chips & Technologies.
Beyond owing your own home outright, I'm not at all convinced
that real estate is that great an investment. At least I've never done
well with it. Ignoring hidden closing costs, real estate commissions
tend to be ten times higher than those of other investments. Unlike
most other investments, you are penalized for holding any land or
buildings through propert taxes. Your pOSition is a matter of public
record. liqUidity is an outright joke. Bank and savings & loan fiascos
are not. You might have liability, utility, improvement, maintenance,
emotional involvement, and collection problems as well. And the
property values change much more slowly than high beta stocks.
If this does not dissuade you, do remember that the three most
important value factors behind most any piece of real property are
location, location, and location. And always get your own appraisal
It - 6
well before you ever close on anything. Do this Independently and
separately from any apprasial done for you by a realtor or a lending
institution. And do not tell anyone about it.
PostScript
Ever few years or so, a new idea comes along that just leaps out at
you with its freshness, uniqueness, and its overall vibes. An idea that
you just know i inherently "right," is absolutely "correct," and above
all is now and will be "you". Something elegantly simple that you can
genuinely relate to, grab on and go with.
For me, RTL integrated circuits; nickel-a-bit shift registers that fired
the opening round in the personal computer revolution (TV Type
writer, September 1973 Radio-Electronics); the incomparable KIM-1
microcomputer; and later on the Apple lie. All of these were "ideas of
the decade" that ] centered several money machine concepts on and
profited from.
The PostScript computer language falls into the same category of
being intrinsically wonderful. PostScript is one totally general purpose
computer language that's roughly comparable to Forth without the
religion. It is fast and fun to use and a beginner can immediately star
producing award-winning results with it.
As one of its rather minor and almost inconsequential features,
PostSript i quite adept at making mark on pages. Infinite vriations
of mixed text and graphics marks that totally blow away all the earlier
primitive atempts at electronic page composition. All done in a totally
device independent way that freely lets you use any host computer and
any outpu printer or typesetter. With stunning qualit.
If your money machine has anything at all to do in any way, shape,
or for with dirtying up any otherise clean sheets of paper, then you
absolutely must be using PostScript.
And do be certain it is genuine Adobe PostScript II. The imitators
and hanger-on here are utterly apalling.
Useful staring points for PostScript are my Intro to PostScript
video and my LaserWrlter Secrets book/disk offering. Plus Adobe's
PostScript Cookbook and their newly revised PostScript Reference
Manual. By one of those astounding coincidences that seem to infest
much of my writing, I do seem to have several of these In stock for
you here at my Synergetlcs (602) 428-4073. And the PS found in my
GEnie PSRT, of course, is shor for PostScript RoundTable. Lots
more in file [#120 WHTlSPS.TXJ and [#109 RAWPS.TXJ.
ptents
What more can I say? Over the years, I have seen hundreds of
example of money machine people being severely done in by the
patent system. Even murdered by it in several hear-attack-during-
lot - 7
litigation cases. And not once did I see anyone approaching the patent
system on a small scale basis and profiting from it. Ever.
Once again: Unless you are well within a Forune 500 context, any
and all involement in the patent system in any y, shape, or form is
absolutely certain to cause you the net loss of time, energy, money,
and sanity. Besides ending up a totally ueless and utterly unnecessar
psychic energy sink.
Th, problem is not the patent system per se, but all the popular
mythology that has built u around what patents are and how they are
supposed to work. That quarer you mailed in for your classified ad
"inventor's idea kit" in the seventh grade has done more damage in
more ways to more people more often than you could possibly ever
imagine. [#162 NOPATNT.TT)
stalking the wild paradigm
A paradigm is just the way people perceive things to be. And a
paradigm shift will occur whenever someone upsets the apple car.
Which might happen whenever any vstly new or different way of
doing things becomes obvou. Or something become much cheaper
or more widely available.
In general, money machines do not work well in the "business as
uual" times. It is only when some sudden and dramatic change or
other fundamental shift in perceived values takes place that all of the
new opporunities emerge.
Your key opportunity here: The people who are now doing the
shifting of the paradigm usually will not have the slightest notion
what they are dOing, since they will always be rearwardly focusing
on the way things were.
Wheneer a paradigm shifs, all sors of brand new money machine
opporunities immediately open up. Epecially if you are quick on your
feet and able to view things from a different perspective. Or can
reduce the cost of something b 50: I, totally changing the markets to
something utterl foreign to (a totally misundertood by) "them" and
the wy things were.
There are three obvious cases here. In the first, a paradigm shift
does not take place and things remain pretty much the way they were.
We can call this Buslness-as-usual. It's not in the least friendly to new
money machine ventures.
Some examples of Business-as-usual technology that seems to be
getting nowhere fast are solid state Peltier cooler, alterates to the
QWERT keyboard, and those touch screens. The coolers remain
ludicrously ineffiCient, while the keyboards and screens go heads up
against deeply ingrained cultural beliefs.
In the second case, a paradigm shif occur and someone tries to
ignore It. This leads to sucker bt and ratholes Into which an Infinite
lot - 8
amount of time and money can be dumped with no visible effect. One
example here is the belief by DEC that personal computer are just a
passing fad and that V will eventually reign supreme. Other obvious
sucker bets today now do include the NeXT computer, that UNIX
operating system, the TrueType absurdiosity, Dv1 video, and Teletext
systems and serices.
In the third case, a paradigm has clearly shifte and others have yet
to take advantage of that shif in a big or mainstream way. We can call
these GoFer situations. Herein is where your main money machine
opporunities lie.
I've recently covered dozens of GoFer opporunities in my Blatant
Opportunist and my Hardware Hacker columns. But as I see it today,
the two biggest opporunity areas lie in Book-on-demand publishing
and desktop finishing. Plus a small handful of other interesting new
areas where paradigms have clearly shifted. [#243 PARIGM.TXT)
Lt's look at a few of these in turn ...
book-on-demand publishing
Since the original ISMM was written, things have gone ver, ver
wrong with traditional book publishing. As an author with 26 bok, 2
million seller, and over 1600 articles in print, I seem unable to get
any traditional pUblisher to so much as retur a telephone call.
What went wrong? The day of sending a tech book in and having It
promptly published and then selling forever are clearly over. We're
seeing all thee mergers that leave fewer place to snd a book.
Then we had those franchise chain booktores drive out all of the
mom-and-pop operations. While all of the mom-and-pops typically
stocked 60,000 titles, the chains usually carr ten copies each of a
mere 6000 titles. And those chains will typically pull a book after 22
week on the shelf. Add to this some really bad author grinding out
monumentally atrocious trash on unreleased computer systems that
they knew nothing about and spent no time with.
Add the re of those Infamous publisher's committees who, while
knowing absolutely nothing about you or your reader, will sit on a
book for fourteen months and then reject It as "untimely." These
turkeys have honed triage to a fine ar. If there are other book on
your topic, the market is "saturated." If not, it is "unproven". And If
you actually sell some books to verify the market, you are guilty of the
unpardonable sin of "skimming".
Along with the "creative accounting" and retur credit rates that
ofen make an auhor's advnce the only cash they will evr see.
But these problems were all minor compared to the big monkey
wrench the IRS threw into the work. Believe it or don't, the IRS now
pays publishers to shred books. In fact, more book have recently
gotten shredded to please the IRS than were bured In all the dark
It - 9
ages put together. Sad but true.
This Orellian monstrosity came about by a requirement that all
lefover volumes are carried at their full value, rather than their scrap
or remainder value. The result of this monumfantal stupidity was the
virual elimination of backlists. If a title drops a notch on the best seller
list, all of the remaining copies promptly get shredded.
But danger and opportunity are the opposit sides of the same coin.
They even share the same Chinese ideogram. The way around all of
this total crash-and-bur of traditional publishing is a newly emerging
opportunity which I like to call Book-on-demand publishIng. When
doing Book-on-demand publishing, volumes are printed and bound
only when and as ordered.
It is usually ver much cheaper and ridiculously faster to Book-on
demand publish, especially if you do not know how man copies you
are actually going to sell in what time frame.
With Book-on-demand publishing, authors can now be paid a living
wage. Their royalties can now be paid on an hourly basis. As only the
needed books are produced when and as wanted, there are zero
remainders, returns, damaged, or shopwor copies.
Changes and corrections can be handled at any time. And each
reader's name can be embossed in gold on the cover. Or otherise
customized. And there are no inventor penalties since there is no
Inventor. Your time from an author's submission to your final and
out-the-door sales is measured in minutes rather than year. And you
have total control over your own product.
Best of all, you get to make your own mistake, rather than paying
others to make them for you.
As you might have guessed, I am very big on Book-on-demand
publishing. The process work quite well for me now and is getting
much better. Within several years, the quality of Book-on-demand
should appear as good as the finest of traditional publishing. At
significantly lower costs. I could eventually see Book-on-demand
distribution on CD ROM where hundreds or thousands of possible titles
share an attractive end-user printing and binding kit.
The downside? Book-on-demand is not quite there yet. It does not
at all address distribution problems. Binders and duplex printer need
Improvement, as do cost controls and production shortcuts. And it is
best used for markets of 5000 or fewer known sales.
If we were to reduce Book-on-demand to a few key secrets, it would
go something like this ...
1. Use a fast PostScript II duplex printer and SCSI hard disk.
2. Do your own repair work and toner cartridge reloading.
3. Precompile your PostScript code to maximize speed.
4. Always edit after typesetting, and never before.
5. Be sure to keep everhing in house, local, and simple.
It - 10
Needless to say, I could (and probably will) write an entire tome on
Book-on-demand publishing. For here and now, though, my BOD is
probably the single greatest emerging money machine opporunity
ever. And there are many possible ways to profit from it. Today and in
the future. [#410 DEMAND.PSI
desktop finishing
These days, it is trivially easy to grind out high quality custom text
and graphics on your kitchen table. The only little trick remaining is
converting those piles of pages into useful final products.
Unfortunately, the traditional bindery materials and machines are
often outrageously overpriced. Worse still, they are usually marketed
only through unbelievably incompetent and arrogant sales people.
Instead we need brand new ways of handling all of the traditional
bindery operations. Delivered directly to the zillions of new small scale
end users at sane prices. Perhaps in the form of kits or blister packed
semi-kits priced in the $9 to $99 price range.
I will call this new approach to low end binder desktop finishing.
Here are a few suggestions on some of the stuff that is desperately
needed now ...
* simple card slitters Making custom business cards is easy,
but accurately cutting them is definitely not. Some new method
to automatically cut up all your cards is needed, either in a
single whump or in a two-step pass. Possibly using giant razor
blades that are surprisingly cheap. Or useful preperfing.
* toner cartridge refllllng- The carridges used in laser
printers list for $135 and are only good for several thousand
copies. Yet you can easily refill these in a simple two-minute
process that costs as little as $5.50. A whole cartridge refilling
industr has emerged, complete with its own trade jourals and
industry associations. While toner recharging is now highly
competitive, lots of opportunities remain. (#224 GURU69.TJ
and [#226 HACK40.TXTJ.
* Omnlcrom and Kroy Color Both of these are obscenely
overpriced and monumentally mismarketed product lines that
instantly conver plain old toner into brilliant foil color. The
materials are basically hot stamp foils that cost under two cents
per sheet in quantity. The process works out surprisingly well,
especially for spot color on letterheads and busines cards.
* applying heat and pressureA low cost pair of powered
hot rollers of a variable and a precisely regulated temperature
have lots of new uses for deskop finishing. Firt for Kroy Color
It-ll
or a sanel priced substitute. Second for traditional laminating.
Third for Bakerlzlng, an amazing new zerocost proes t
can ue a special reusable mylar sheet to calender toner,
making it ultr black, highly glossy, and Sler durable. Fourh,
for any toner transfers to printed circuit boards or similar
substrates. And fifh for any traditional dr film photopolymer
applons.
* shear nonsenseTraditional cutter and trimmer prices are
totally unreal. They sar o at $900, and all of those lowend
manual moels are purposely way overpriced to tr and step
you u to een costlier electric or hydraulic computer controlle
versions. Intead, we need a $99 clamping guillotine cuter or
cutter kit. Ed ur net cost.
* bound and deterlned- Of the many dozens of binding
sysems I have peronally tested, a mere four have ended up so
much as even marginally useful. They include the Personal
Velobinder, wire binding, the Unibind system, and Unibind's
great new Plsaer covers with printable spines. As I see it,
what we reall need now for desktop finishing is a fast and
simple hot or (preferably) a cold glue binding that can let you
apply any and all cover materials; allows all custom spine
lettering, requires less than $99 in specialized machinery, can
precisely handle any sane stack thickness, cos less than a
quarer per whack, holds all pages securely, and cycle in under
one minute per document.
* anaerbic Jogging A jogger is baSically a way to shake
pages into alignment. It is handy for gathering and punching,
and essential for binding or padding. The cheapest old line
joggers go for $400 or more. Bu Black and Decker does buid
orbital finishing sanders for $23.99 or so. It seems to me you
could glomp on some simple pan and floating base snap-on k
to build up your ow jogger for around $30.
* the wet dram- This one is pret far out, but it could open
some exciting ne markets. Picture a magic machine that you
shove toner images in one end, and have them come out the
other e we where the toner image is and dr othere. Wet
with what? A full color durable ink? Or wet to dust with a
thermography powder for raised lettering. Or Braille for the
blind. Or wet with superglue. Or wet to dust with fuzz flock.
Or silk scren ink. Or etch rsist.
* enve'opes- The print qu on envelopes today can rnge
from atrocious at worst to just barely unacceptable at best.
What can b done? Most envelopes are puff, double thickness,
It -12
and have a third-layer diagonal flap. What's obviously needed
here is a total redesign of the envelope so that the sender and
sendee addresses are both laser printable on a single flat and
unpuffy sheet that later folds over onto itself.
* and a lew loose ends- We need a cheap comer rounder.
And a low end folder, especially one that does stuff other than
a simple business tri-fold. Shrink wrapping and vacuum packing
stuff could definitely be improved. Something like a Meals in
Minutes vacuum packer using heavier plastic stock. Although
there already are some ways to handle die cutting on your laser
printer, much improvement is possible. Padding presses used
for temporary binding of notepads and calendars. New transfer
masks for silk screens and sign cutting. A simple manual coater
to apply a varish or a uv-curing overlay. Sanely priced pad
printers designed to print on golf balls, pens, eggshells, ad
specialties, whatever. [#76 DTFlNISH.TXTJ
other emering opportunities
Naturally, everone's viewpoint is different. But it seems to me that
Book-on-demand publishing and desktop finishing are probably far and
away the greatest pair of money machine concepts available today.
Especially when properly combined with the PostScript language.
Opporunltes that can be an end in and of themselves, or the means
to getting to where you are really headed. Or both.
It seems to me there are also lots of other paradigm shifts taking
place that can lead to other money machine opportunities. Here are a
f
ew o
f
them, albeit more technical ones ...
* Santa Claus machines- Otherwise known as desktop
prototyping systems, these are tabletop systems that instantly
create real pars In much the same way that a laser printer
produces hard copies. Some are based on light hardening of a
liqUid photopolymer, while others will sinter or fuse together
power. Much remains to be done here, especially on the low
end for hacker and hobbyists.
* dirct toner printed circuits- Toner makes an excellent
etch reist. All you have to do is properly transfer it to a printed
circuit board. Which can let you etch boards in minutes for
pennie, insead o
f
taking months and hundreds of dollar.
* wavelet theorIt's coming on like Gangbuster. Elegantly
simple new math that completely and totally blows kunky old
Fourier analysis out of the water. In the process, It is totally
revolutionizing everthing from picture compression through
seismography. There is no advanced electronic topic anywhere
It -13
that will not be profoundly impacted by wvelets.
* visible laser diodes- The prices are now dropping radically,
and an easy-to-use $5 replacement for a helium-neon laser
should soon be with us. They are small, bright, rugged, reliable,
and easily powered from a single flashlight cell or two.
* waterllves- A waterknife can cut anyting from chocolate
cake to steel ingots. QUickly and cleanly. Cool, too. What is
needed is a low cost home shop radial arm waterknife that does
everyhing from precision woodworking and dressmaking on
through pizza slicing.
* magnetic refrigeratlon- Although still in the lab, magnetic
refrigeration applies magnetics and special materials such as
gadolinium to pump heat. And does so as much as fifty times
more efficiently than any existing systems. While intended for
supercold applications, this process also can work near or
above room temperatures.
* navlcubes- The first person to come up with a $5 device that
alays knows where it is and which way it is pOinted I going to
run away with a ver large bag of nickels. Recent advances in
accelerometers, laser gyros, and GPS international electronic
navigation serices make it possible.
* dildonics Also known as virtual reality. Super simulator
that combine a total visual display, power gloves, a treadmill,
and tactile sensors or whatever to create a controlled artificial
environment. Uses range from military Simulators through
architectural walkthroughs to mind-blowing multi-peron video
games. Ultimately, dildonics will impact everhing from moel
railroading to microprocessor controlled pary dolls. Although I
can see some ver interesting product liability issues arising on
the latter. Painful, too.
* brain parity- Within a very few years, machines will be
smarer than people. Perhaps within a decade. Driven primarily
by stunning advances in low cost but enormous memor chips
whose technology is already in place. Which will lead to one of
the most powerful and most fundamental paradigm shifts of all
time. Ever. There ought to be a dollar here somewhere. See
GEnie PSRT file [#116 EMERGOP.TT) for more details.
* fuzy logicInstead of clean cut yes-no deCisions, fuzzy logic
weighs factor and deals with probabilities. It reasons more the
way that people do and is more adept at dealing with the real
world. Some important early applications will be in home air
conditioning, producing more comfor at lower cost, and for
It -14
automotive transmissions and engine controls.
* hyperedfa- This is simply information you can nonlinearly
access six ways from Sunday. Apple's Hypercard and Roger
Wagner's HyperStudlo are typical products. The model is a
room full of Rolodex cards which can contain wors, picture,
sound, or activities such as phone dialing or animation. While
especially useful for training and educational stuff, hypermedia
represents a fundamental change in how we communicate.
* shard SCI comm- At this writing, PostScript laser printers
are being ridiculously and horribly baud rate limited with the
primitive communications systems used by Apple and IBM. An
instant 50: 1 or higher speedup in laser printing times Is now
possible, based on a simple two-host local SCSI network. But it
i being fought tooth and nail by "them." [#106 GURU64.T)
* CD ROM- A single compact disk holds up to half a billion
characters of information. That's as many as several hundred
books. Mailed once a month, a CD ROM is the equivalent of
rnning a modem contInuously for the whole month and then
some. We are now at the chicken-and-egg stage. You can now
master your own CD ROM tor $1500 per hundred copies. But
within a very few years, erasable CD disks will be as cheap as
floppy disk are today.
* frctals and chaos theor- Nobody's yet all that sure what
good this stuff is, but it sure looks pretty. Stunningly so. And if
the underlying strange attractors for any weather patterns and
stock market pricing are ever discovered, some very profound
happenings may be coming down. See [#84 FRACTFRN.PS)
and [#106 GURU64.TXT).
* ac speed controls- To date, we have no effective low cost
solution to controlling the speed of a small ac induction motor
over a wide range. But the first person to come up with one
will walk away with a rather large bag of nickels. The recent
drop in power semiconductor costs and new improvements in
switching technology now make some stunning breakthroughs
possible. A related opportunity: Converting car alternators into
low cost power stepping motors for robotics and machine tool
controls. Or switched reluctance drives.
* caller IDThere's scads of new telephone services coming on
line, but none other has created the hacker interest that caller
number identification has. Among its other superb features,
when you come back from lunch, you have a complete list of
everyone that tried to phone you while you were gone. The
opportunities with linking the id to value-added serices seem
Intr - 15

limitles. [#275 HACK43.TX) and (#276 HCKG43.GP)
The nubers In parentheses I've jut shown you are the GEnie PRT
downloads that you can grab for more background info. I do have
much more availble for you on any and all of these topics and other
lik them. Ju give me a call for furher reference.
wher to from her?
Well, that's sor of up to you. But there are lots of reasonable and
workable new networking opporunities for extending your money
machine well beyond what you are reading here.
Lt's see. I do offer a no-charge voice helpline you wl find at (602)
428-4073. Your best calling times are on weekdays 8-5 Mountain
Standard time, year round.
Yes, visitor are welcome. But note that gurs are supposed to b
hard to reach. First because it adds to all the mystique and second
because the Gur's and Swami's union local #204 rle demand it. At
any rte, there's a seven hour drive involved in geting to the nearet
airpor. And, sadly, to the nearest decent bookstore or even remotely
edible restaurant.
On the other hand, the 10,400 foot high mountain in my front yar
is sverely infested with tlnajs and waterfalls, and my back yar is
obenely littered with simmable streams and hot springs. The side
yars? They are called Wilderness Areas. Fishhooks on the right and
Gila on the left.
I am also curently the syop for GEnie PRT, a forum that you'll
find ver strong on money machines, Book-on-demand pUblishing,
hardware hacking, midnight engineering, stock investment analyis,
meowr pffttting (don't ask), and, of coure, tfnaj questing. The
charge for a typical file dowload is twent cents or so. You can get
your voice connect info for your area by calling (800) 638-9636. Other
areas of GEnie you might find of interest are HOSB for home office
and small business topics, and DTP for desktop publishing. Plus the
free stock quotes, reviews, and all of those other computer and tech
suppor roundtable.
One superb money machine publication is Bill Gate's Midnight
Engineering, at (303) 225-1410. I have got a Blatant Opportunist
column here. But the bes money machine magazine of them all does
remain the Whole Earth Review at (415) 332-1716.
I also have a Hardware Hacker monthly column in Electronics
Now magazine (516) 293-3000 and a Resource Bin column in Nuts &
Volts at (714) 371-8497. I also do run an occasional story in Jeff
Dunteman's great P Techniques magazine at (602) 483-0192.
Sadly, my LaserWrlter Corner and the Ask the Guru columns are
curently seeking a new home. Computer Shopper has told me there
It -16
Is no longer enough room in their magazine for stories which only
generate 85 end user helpline calls a day. So, these are now being
electronically published on my GEnie PSRT. Yes, I do self-publish full
reprint sets. Both hard copy and electronically. .
Columns have a way of changing magazines suddenly, so give me a
call on our helpline to find out what is current or new. We also do
custom consulting in a number of fields.
Most of those "good guys" names and number for useful suppliers
have been gathered together into the Hardware Hacker and Ask the
Guru reprints, while an annotated "best of the best" appears on PSRT
as file [#80 MAVOR.TJ.
Finally, I've stared up a very loosely knit consultant referral serice,
mostly made up of individual money machine ventures. The referrals
are free to the seeker. To get listed as a resource, send me a letter of
who you are and what you do. There is a flat five percent referral fee
to the prOvider, payable on a when and as completed basis.
a /nal thought
Many year ago, I was attending a folk concer. The opening act
was a single and an unknown flute player, performing in front of the
closed stage curtains. His job was to warm up the audience for the
high priced help that ws soon to follow.
He was goo. Very goo.
B as he went along, the music started getting strange and finally
dowright weird. He was playing chords on his flute, along with notes
with unblievbly strong tonal structures. Eventually, the music tured
into bunches of Impossible sounding and god-awful suawk.
Almost all of the audience got bored and restless as the music
seemed to deteriorate. Just then, I happened to notice a friend beside
me who had played in and had taught concert band. He was literally
on the edge of his chair with his mouth open.
He brefly turd to me and said ver slowly, ''ou can't do that with
a flute. I i not possible."
Of the thousands of people in the audience, at the most only five
realized they were now witnessing a once-in-a-lifetlme performance
involvng the absolute master of a ver difficult musical instrment. To
neary eerone else, It sounded like a bunch of god-awful squawk.
Always play for those fiv.
- Don Lancaster
Thatcher, AZ
Intr -17
Cnents
zero
Find Qut How I Make Money-Send Fve Dolar and
Ninety-Five Cent to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
one
Secret I-Strtegy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
two
Secret I-Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
three
Getting Stared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
four
Keeping Informed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
five
Communications I-Wors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
six
Communications II-mages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
seven
Some Unmatter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
eight
Ta Dodges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
nine
"Invstment" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
this book i dedicated t the quest for the per tinaja
All opinions exresed ar slely thos of the author.
-
ZERO
-
Fin Ou How I Make Money - Sen
d
Fiv Dlars An
d
Ninety Fiv Ces to .
If this was one of those get-rich-quick books, we would probably
str out by telling you how many zllions of dollars I am making and
how I need a wheelbarow to haul it daily to the nearest bank.
Well, I don't use a wheelbarow. The ratrap carrier on my fve
sped bicycle works just about as good, and there's no point in going
to the bank ever day, parcularly since it is closed on weekends. And,
no way am I into zillions of dollars. Just into the fractonal megabucks,
nothing more. At least just yet. But it's something I can live with for the
tme being.
Al of this good stuf is done with my incredible secret money
machine. Your incredible secret money machine is your own small
computr, craft, or technical business. Done within the guidelines of
tis bok, your incredible secret money machine can make you filthy
rch beyond your wildest dreams.
We are going to look at lot of the nuts-and-bolt detils of gettng
your money machine of the ground and fying rght side up. That's
what this book is all about. But, before we even star, there's a few
entance requirements we have to agree on. Here are the basic beliefs
you must have to build your money machine on:
/rt, you have to be heavily Into a technical or crf trp
on a total lifestyle basis.
The absolute single most important thing in your life has to be
doing something technical or artistic in a better and a different way
than anyone else. You can decide what the trip is-it can be action
in-motion photography, low-cost hobby computer hardware,
5
improvng weaving looms, doing quality prntng and presswork,
developing snely priced small business computer sofware, building
furniture, developing alterate energy systems, siling, ceramics,
robotcs, underground housing, porraiture, blacksmithing, commu
nity access communicatons, or just about anything else that is both
highly personal and creatve.
Your own tp has to be the absolute center of everthing you do,
everthing you work with, and everthing you believe in. Doing it has
to be much more impornt to you than making money, more impr
tant than worring about what pople think, and more imporant than
behavng, comptng, or complying the way that other think you
should.
second, yu mut want to sty In contrl.
You have to feel that everthing in your money machine refects
you and that pursely keeping the sale of your money machine
small is the only way to keep in contol. This means you won't want to
spend much of your tme hassling other, reprng to others, or com
ptng with others in any way, shap, or form. For your money
machine to work, you have to want to spend much of your tme,
energy, and efor improving both yourlf and the general goodnes
of the technical or craf trp you are into.
thir, yur Income ga's should b Jut enough to keep
ging
Getng flthy rch should b nowhere in your plans. So long as you
can contnue doing what you like in the direction you want to g,
that's all that should mater. The great irony of your incredible scret
money machine i that the les you stve for income, the mor of it
will come your way, and, more imprantly, the mor you will be able
to do with what you already have.
Any tme or efor spnt direy toward makng money is tme not
available for your main trp. This is wasted tme and energy that even
tually hurs you rather than helps.
fourh, yu hav t b gntle.
Your incredible scret money machine has to be gente on yourlf,
gentle on people, and gentle on the envronment Your money
6
machine should be forever small and decentlizd. It should never
compete head-on with other. It should complement and advance
what other are doing. Your money machine's product should gen
uinely help people at a fair or more-than-fair prce, never being a rpof
either to suppliers or to customer. If your parcular money machine is
into high technology, make sure it is apprprat tchnology usd only
when it clearly and genuinely i the best approach to what you are
doing.
and so . . .
Unless you are willing to let thes four beliefs be the foundaton of
everhing you do with your money machine, ver litte of this bok
will work for you.
Let's se if you can't scond guess some of what we're going to
show you about your money machine by tking a simple quiz.
If your money machine is to be basd on our four guidelines, which
of the following do you think are impornt?
Not Avid at
Esental Impornt All CoD
Adequate advance fnancing
0 0 0
Agresve marketng 0 0 0
Creatve management 0 0
0
Solid patent protecton 0 0 0
Tght employee securty
0 0 0
Pactcing the busness of busines
0 0 0
Go high tfc loaton
0 0 0
Stong legl and fnancial advce
0 0 0
Heav us of other people's money
0 0 0
T ot new pruct screcy
0 0 0
-
7
Nowand I hope you are ready for thiscore yourself one pint
for each "avoid at "all costs" box, and zero for everthing else. A pas
ing sore is + 10.
Surprsed? That's why the whole incredible scret money machine
idea works. We'll see why everything on this list is ver bad f your
money machine, as is much more of traditonal business advce. Since
our four basic gUidelines are vastly different from the "do unto others
before they do unto you" philosophy common to much of the busi
ness world, it's no wonder that we need a different set of rules. A
we'll see in the next chapter, having enough advance fnancing is the
absolute single wort thing your money machine can have.
Let's go on and take a much closer look at your incredible scret
money machine. We'll frst check into the key strategy and tctcs
secrets, followed by ways to get stared and to keep informed. From
there, we'll go on to communicatons, both words and pictures. I am
personally ver heavy on communicatons, since that is the key to my
own money machine. Afer that, we look into some unmater, t
dodges, and a fnal look at "investments," whatever they are.
A we go on, you'll fnd that this is a book of contrar opinion
whose main point is that doing the exact opposite of traditonal belief
and advice usually lets you end up far ahead. Everthing here either
works or seems to work for me. I believe and follow prett much
everthing we're about to look at.
Now, admitedly, it may be that my own money machine works in
spite of some of this rather than because of it, but I'm not about to
change things to fnd out.
Many of the ideas we'll be loking at are not mine, but are bor
rowed from people I believe in. For instance, you'll find lot of te
small-is-beautful of Schaumacher and Callenbach, and much more of
the approprate technology of Brand and Baer. Convivialit belongs to
Illich, while the intelligent ignorance concepts a fm Keterng. Any
thing far off belongs to the Bating Hamburger Snatcher. Do-more
with-less, of course, is pure Fuller. And ganfallons are a
Vonnegutsm.
By the way, nothing is made up. Al examples and ideas are basd
on real people running or getng run over by their ow real money
machines.
8
So .... Onward and upward.
Or, far of.
O whatever.
Your incredible secret money
machine only will work if . . .
* You are into a technical or
craft trip on a total
lifestyle basi.
* You want to stay in con
trol.
* Money for money's sake
doesn't matter.
*You are gentle to others
and the environment.
9
0 1
- -
- = ; - - -
- . . .
-
C ' - . :
- : . .
OE
Sert 1-Stratey
You can call any largr, long-term detail of getng your money
machine in gear a strteg, while an everday fne pint is a tactic. In
ches, checkmatng the king is the ultmate srategy, while concentt
ing your pwer toward the center is an intermediate stategic goal. A
move of "pawn tkes queen, check" might be a good tactc or might
not, depnding on the skill of your oppnent.
Your money machine is drven by a combinaton of the sttegy and
tctcs of this and the nex chapter. Not ever prnciple wl apply to
ever money machine. The incredible scret money machine belong
ing to a fee lance sience author is obvously going to difer fom that
of a sained gass arsn, and both of thes wl difer fom the
machines belonging to a computer ar feak or a graphics designer.
But, as you lok around yourlf at the incredible scret money
machines of other, you'll fnd that the beter rnning machines us as
many of thes scret as possble. So, let's tm to sme stateg
fr:
strtg secrt-have a many differnt soure of
Income a psible.
You can cl them customers, clients, usrs, patons, or anything
you like, but any money machine wil need a contnuous source of
nikels to keep rnning. At the bginning, you h a choice of hang
one humongus su of nikel, sver smaler su, or bunches
and bunches of ver small sures that add together to handle the
care and feeding of both you and your machine.
Having only one surce of income is so incredibly spid that we
won't even tk about i here. Whatever that single source is, it will
11
cnly be usng you to its own proft, having you do what it wants
rther than what you want yourlf and your money machine dong. It
may even insist on such dumb things as your being at a cn place
at a cerin tme, wearng spedfied costumes, or paying tbut to
other in its hierarchy. It may even think it is giving you scurt or that
it owns you in some way.
Several differnt sources of income a much betr. Its usually e
ier to fnd tn places to scrp up a thousand dollar a year than one
that can get you tn.
But, your money machine wl work best of all if i has hundrds or,
beter yet, thousnds of tny soures of income. Ther are severl
good reasns for this.
No customer will think he owns you if he is one among unwashed
thousands. Customer expectatons wl also usually be lower since they
are probably dealing in a smaller way with you. Your customer wl
only come to you when they genuinely think they need you, rther
than fgurng out things for you to do to keep you busy all the tme.
Beter yet, if you can get enough small customer, they wl str to
obey the sttcal laws of large numbers. This means you wl be able
to predict future sales and cash fo with good accuracy. And, should
you los a customer or to, i's not to bad i there's lot of other lef
over. Those same laws of big number wl war you when you a
about to lose bunches of customer- nd maybe even suggest what
you are doing wrong as well.
Eventually, several of the smaller cusomers wl become bigger ones
that take up more and more of your money machine's prduct. This is
fne when it happens, but it is not smething you want to aggressvely
go afer when you are starng out The impornt, even crudal, pint
is to never let any one customer dominate your money machine to a
point where he is in contl.
Should you ever end up with one ver large customer and many
small ones, arange your money machine and your whole lifestle to
live within the nickels generated by all the smaller soures combined.
Fore yourself to be independent of the income generated by the big
gie. Funnel this exa single-surce income into imprving your money
machine, into the "invesments" of the fnal chaptr, or into having
fun-ut always keep this extra income ste fom your bread
and-buter smaller income soures.
Sometmes, working through a few major customer can't be
helped. This i obviously the cas with a book, unles you self-publish.
When this happns, make se your major customers in tm bas
their sles or their customer on many small soures. Having many
clients or customer yourlf is best, but having them "once rmoved"
is sl a workable rout.
12
s
t
t secrt-have complementar sour o/Income
You can cl t the "if the rght one don't get you the lef one w"
apprach. Arnge your money machine t give you at leas to pruct
or ss that behave difernty with rgard to the efor you put in and
the nk you gt back. Her's sme ral-word .examples:
combine a prnt shop with a secialty direct-mail bookstore
mere a paperback book exchange with a copy serice
wt usr-orented textbooks and design electonic kits
silk sreen funky T-shirs, signs, and electonic PC bords as wen as
being the only local litho serice
provide custom millwork along with authentc replicaton of 17th
centur ftur
be both the bes sign painter and the best auctoneer in twn
ofer wilderess guide serice along with tail map sles and free
lance wildlife photography
rn a photo studio in combinaton with a beginner's photoaphy
shool and by-the-hour darkroom rentls
and, no way could I make this one up . .
combine a tnsendentl meditton temple with a frewood haul
ing serice
Each of your complementr actvites should cover the weak sots
of the other. One may be low proft or low volume but steady and
sure. Another may be ver rewarding and pay ver wen, but tke
extensive tme or effor. Or be sasnal or high rsk.
This complementr idea is nothing new. A car deler may offer
new car, usd cars, car repairs, a body shop, fnandng, and feet
leasng serices. Each reacts to economic conditons in a differnt way.
Tte companies and realtors always seem to be nex dor to each
other, as do insurnce outfts and svings-and-lon insttons. In an
tes cass, all bets are hedged with complement sures of
income.
Eventualy, one of your complementr money machine par may
tke over and dominate the res. This is fne and almost unavoidable,
s long as it happens wen afr your money machine is sed and
13
rnning wel enough that a hedge is no longer needed. Mos ofn, the
p of your machine that tkes off will surrs you. It rrely wl be
the exact don you stred out in. This points out another reasn
for the complementr sourcesto exos yourlf to as many possi
ble direcons for your money machine. Once you are insde your own
money machine, realit will asume a newe persectve and change
rpidly, s you'll want to expos yourlf to as many optons as you
can.
Your complementr income sources can be just about anything.
Ofen, the frher out they are, t beter they wl be for you. But,
there is one super-imporant limitton to what you pick for your com
plementr soures. Remember that the frst and most impornt goal
of your money machine is to be into sme technical or crft tp on a
totl lifesle bass. Everything you do should aim directy at this goal.
Ideally, al your complementr sources should do this for you.
At the ver least, any and al nickel sources should be conssent
wth your belief, goals, and lifstle. Under no circumstnces should
you ever be into anything just for the money.
strtg secrt-'was wr tward de/erd Income
What you do for your money machine should generate nickels b
today and tomorow. You should work toward automatcally guaran
teeing yourlf a long sng of future nickels that needs lite or no
more atenton fom you.
This is admitedly ver tcky to do, but if you can pull t off, your
money machine will fy by itslf, feeing you in the future to do biger
and beter things.
Book rs are a good exmple. Once you've wrten the bok,
it can generate income for years on end, without much furher atn
ton on your own. Manufacring royaltes for electonic kts are
another route to fture nickels, but this tends to be rskier, much
shorer, and has a far lower retur. Sofare tapes for retil computer
sore distbuton are a new and largely unexplored way to brng future
nickels to your dorstep.
There's more subte but equally impornt ways to do the sme
thing for jus about any money machine. Simply arng things so
your customer or client wl want to return for more. This is an obvi
ous route toward some future income.
Working out an ar technique and perfectng it so that future prod
ucts wl b simpler and easier to do is another example. For instnce,
if you are into computer a, getng your sofare up and running,
fnding a pt r, and gtng decent fr-tme result wl tke lot of
14
tme and efor. But, once your "font end" efor is complete, genert
ing new arork and copies in the future is a mater of loading the
rght rndom number, or even letng the por computr draw ever
thing it knows and then picking only the good ones.
Drafng a st of underround housing plans, how-to detils on a
slar coker, or alterate enery system resarh may also tke a lot
of font end tme and efor. But once this efor is done, there are
long-ter plan sles, stores and arcles, kit, asmbled unit, teach
ing opprunites, products that expand on what you have already
done, and even T-shirs and psters.
It's always a god idea to hedge your bets by having your presnt
efor work toward sverl future income goals. A hobby computer
product development can be sveral magane arcles, a technical
ppr, a design contest ent, a bok chapter, a kit design for a manu
facturer, a thesis or project for a shool cour, and a way of taining
yourlf for more and beter things. Bsides all this, it should als be a
challenge and a lot of fun.
Always look for at leas a "to tone" approach to the tme and
energ you put into your money machine. Do things that pay you
reasnably well now, but that also have the long-term ptental to
generte nickels on their own without much frher help.
sttg secrt-have a much pronal value added a
you can
Your pernal value added is the ex effor, ener, and tme you
put into your money machine that makes the diference beteen what
gs in the hopper at the top and what comes out te botom. For
your money machine to work, your peronal value added has to be far
and away the snge mos impornt par of your fnal pruct.
A a fernstnce, let's talk about an ordinar piece of tping
paper.
If you are rnning an offce supply store, you can make a penny on
this piece of paper. That penny refect the difference beteen the
wholesle prce and your slling prce. Your pernal value added
here consst of what you put into making your store atctve and in
how you relate to your customer.
I, instad, you are running a typing srce, you can now buy the
papr for a penny and sll it for ff cents or more. Now, you have
over ffy tmes the retur since your personal value added consists of
putng informaton on paper just the way the customer want you
to.
15
Things gt much beter if you make up the words yourslf instead of
using thos smebody else already wants. A medium length stor in a
larger magazine should pay you sverl hundrep dollar for a dozen or
so sheets of paper. This will averge out about ten dollas per page,
another 20: 1 improvement.
Put the paper into a book manusrpt, and the sheet can be worh
sveral hundred dollars to more than a thousand dollars per page,
provding it's a run-away best sller like this one. *
And, if you are into consulting, critquing, or ad copy, your words
can be worh as much as $25 to $50 each. Let's see, at 225 words per
page and 500 pages per ream and $50 per word, that's ... you fgure
it out.
In each example the sheet of paper Is the sme. The only difference
is the personal value you have added to make up the difference
beteen the bare paper input and the out-the-door nickel-fetching
result.
Maximizing your personal value added protects you in many ways.
If what you are oferng is basically a par of you, no way can any large
corporaton compete successfully against you. F that mater, it
should be hard for anyone to g one-on-one against you, f ever
one has his own way of doing things and his own way of looking at
products.
Should infaton change the cost of your materals and supplies, this
will only have a negligble effect on your selling prce if the bulk of
your added value is your own doing. You'll never be forced to "cut
costs" by going to inferor materials and supplies if your total costs are
a very small par of the value of what you are providing.
Computer software, parcularly for the hobbyis market, is another
example of a product that is almost pure personal value added. So is
auctoneerng. So are most forms of teaching and instructon. So is just
about anything arstc where the fnal slling prce ver much exceeds
the basic materals cost.
Note parcularly that your personal value added must be dircly a
par of what goes out the door. Hassling or "managing" people in no
way provides any added value. Nor dos tme spent in "marketng,"
whatever that is.
sttg secrt-get In contl 0/ In/onatfon /ow
Raw inforaton is the highes ener suf there i Its a the eases
thing to add lots of prnal vlue to. You should aim at being your
cusomer's ch bes, and most u inforaton suc.
-There is no pint i wrtng a bok if I's no a rn-away bes sler.
16
This is easy to do if you are on any electronics trp. Many manufac
turer have taditonally avoided putng any usful informaton out for
students, hobbyist, and other small sale users, except on a rpoff
basis. Most ofen, they bur anything useful in tde jourals, data
sheets, ap-notes and technical papers that the average student never
heard of and has no easy acces to. The lite he can gt his hands on
is often shallow, out of date, confuSing, and mises the mainsteam. It
can be dull and lack vibes to boot.
Herein lies a gold mine. If you frst fnd and then gather the really
usful and curent informaton fom thes obsure surces and then
put it into a lucid and clear form your customers want and can under
stnd, you're almost cerin to have a successfl money machine.
You'll be providing a temendous serice and gneratng lot of nickels
as well.
Offerng a cour, running a shool, or simply teaching other one
on-one are other ver good ways to get in control of informaton fow.
The measure of how well you do this is how well your students feel
you are giving them usefl informaton in the most intrestng way at
the best possible prce to them.
Your own contrl of informaton can make you a beter craftr
son, offerng more value added in your products, even if you aren't
directy slling informaton to your customer. Even gatherng the
informaton surces of other and putng them in one place can be
ver efect. If you have available al the ceramics books there ar or
stok al the alterate energy books, you're well on your way to con
tol of the informaton fow proes. When stocking the work of others,
completnes and the rght overall vbes are keys to your customer
seking you out for specifc help.
In any cas, always fnd ways to gather inforaton fom obscure or
diffus sources, concentte it smehow, and then put it into a lucid
and clear form that you or your customers can us. Always make the
cost of a customer getng informaton fom you far lower and far more
pleasnt than his using any other soure.
strtg secrt-put nothing between you and your
cutomer
When you sell a product fom your money machine, it should go
dircly to the customer. There should be nothing messing up or other
wis colOrng the sles channel, parcularly another prson or a sp
cifc loaton.
Free lance authors meet this scret the easiest. They wrte their stor
anywhere and anytme they like and then mail it to a magazine or
book publisher they think wants it. If they called their shots rght, a
17
check comes back, or maybe even bunches of monthly checks. The
only thing the publisher ges on i your product itlf. No way is
where the product orgnated or how it was puhed on them by sme
one els an infuence in the ps. Five year and ff thousnd
dollar worh of matral later, the author may or may not drop in on
the publisher who may or may not buy him a Big Mac with chees.
The author's needs are direcy met on his own trs with an abslut
minimum of outide infuences.
Crafs pople wl have a lt harder tme meetng t g of a
clear channel beteen supplier and usr. One ver god approach to
slling pter, weaving, glas ar, paintngs, and so on is to fnd a ver
high ener and ver ocasonal channel that wl stongly at cus
tomer. A and crafs fair, steet boths, exhibit, conferences, and
shows are obvious routes. The high energy channel will pull in both
direc sles and all-impornt contcts for future sles and exhibitons.
The combined presnce of other exhibitor wl atact fr more pople
than you could by yourlf. Similar possbilites include co-ops, guilds,
and arsn lofs.
An approach that works ver well for hobby computer hardware is
direct mail. This is an obvous route to any sale of a hardware or
informaton product. Direct mail is ver good for things like kts, where
the fnal usr will have ex added value of his own to put in the
fnished product.
With direct mail, you make yor product known as best you can
through a limited and ver spcifc amount of adversing. You com
bine this with as much "fee" adversing you can snar in the for of
product releass, technical acles, paper, word of mouth, club pre
senttons, and s on. You then handle the products on an order-and
ship bass.
There are lot of advantges to direct mail. The lack of a retil mark
up let your product sell at much lower coss. Buy decisions are slf
generated and highly motvated. Rarely wl the customer think he was
"sold" anything, espcially if your adversing is hones, your deliver
immediate, and your prces reasnable. In fact, immediate deliver of
an electonic or hobby computer product will so completely blow your
customer's mind that he won't believe it.
Any retail store locaton with its expnsive fxures, fnance chars,
fxed overhead cos, and hired help, simply isn't needed. Nor is the
whole imag tp that goes with it. Always avoid your own retl loa
ton and any t of "sles" or "agent" or "marketng" asiates of
your own. In cass where you have to go a rtil rout, careflly pick
the sores of others on a direct or consgnment basis, and always do it
on your own terms. Tr to work with other money machines where
you can. Always be in tune to whether the fnal purhasr or ur
receives fair value for the product generated by your money
machine.
18
sttg secrtave 0.834 employees
Employees are a hassle, a waste of tme and poney and a pschic
energy sink. You should avoid them at all costs.
Your incredible scret money machine should have 0.84 employ
eesthat is 8.4 percent of you, nothing more,no les. The remaining
16.6 percent of you should go for fun and rewind tme. Spend much
less tme on your money machine and the job will never get done.
Much more and you'll be grinding yourlf down.
The instnt you add an employee, you add an incredibly Inefcient
and nois mind-to-mind communicatons channel that drmatcally
lower the effCiency and potental o your money machine. On top of
this is the hasle of paperork, t and other regulatons, and sched
uling so your employee is bus just enough of the tme to be
worhwhile.
So, if you have no employees, how do you get the things done that
you don't have tme for, don't want to do, or "know" that other can
handle beter? A much as possble, you should handle thes things by
buying or tding specifc serices fom other money machines, bought
only when and where needed. Tr to fnd others whos own money
machines a up and working and use them to do the things you can't
handle yourlf. Always force yourself to ask if the serice or efor is
really needed at al.
An asoiate approach can aso solve the employee prblem. If
whoever you are living with digs bookkeeping and accountng better
than working for a living, split up the project with each of you doing
the pars that sem most suited to you. Or, if you are into two separte
money machines, each do par of what the other hates wors. Or work
w a loosely knit group of other arsans on a cooperatve or group
basis.
Employer/employee relatons also brng on a whole new master
slave tp and the need to funnel tme and efor in directons away
fom your main goal of adding as much personal value as posble t
your money machine. When and wherever possble, go on to use the
srices and money machines of oters. Sty away fom all boss
worker hassles.
sttg secrt-fnt money will be blown
Having enough advance fnancing for your money machine is about
the wort possble thing you can do and is almos cerin to sutte the
whole machine.
A glib but accurte reason is that if you have the money, you are
only going t send it. And spend it on things that are totlly unneces-
19
sr and in ways that wl commit you down the rod to even higher
futre cost.
For your money machine to work, you h to s out sared,
lean, and hungr. Such fivolites as fod, clotling, and shelter should
be totly foroten in getng your money machine sed.
There are lot of good reasns for sdiously ag excess money
when you str your money machine. It's real difcult for any beginner
to increas the amount of money he i handling by mor than 20% or
so a year without srng to do stpid things with it or woring to
much about it.
Money machines expand fases and bes when they bo and
pyramid their own output on their own terms. At any tme, the mater
a, plant, and proesses you us should refect the presnt or known
near-future market for what you are doing. Bfore going to any vol
ume proes, always hand-build frt dozns, then hundreds of items
to make sure they sl and are propry shaken down.
Using other people's money i equally bad. You might feel bad if
you've spnt it all and have nothing to show f i This i what usually
happns to other people's money. Wor yet, the other ple may
expect sme sor of a ret on the cash they put up, and might even
think you are obligated to them smay. Your fedgling money
machine has enough srup toubles without people like thes making
things wor.
Of course, some money is needed to str jus about anyhing. But
the key is t keep a sns of s and to star out as simply and
cheaply as pssible. I a fancy piece of equipment is abslutely esn
tal to do anything at all, borow one, lease one, or rent one. Maybe
buy an old used one that you are s works. The key rule i to never
buy a tool or machine tl you are abslutely cerin that your presnt
way of doing things is costng you much more money than the tool wl
retur. Never buy anything that won't pay for itlf in thre months. If
it can't do it in three months, it's never gonna do it.
One of the sddes (actually the fnnies) money machine disser
I've personally seen is the sga of the Esment Engineerng Cor
praton. It all stred one f day when a really shar indual engi
neer came up with an imprved fre sprnkler. It was a bit out of his
feld, but it was a mechanically beautful device. No way did he lok
into the totl market and the way it was head-on compettve with
severl bigies with a well esblished disbuton. Anyway, he d
have a chance-if he had built up a few of thes on his own and tes
sold them. From there he could h bootrappd his produ to
match what he was reasnably sure to sll.
but, no mate wht don't le anyhing interere wth your nx hng gidin o cng
tp.
20
Instead, he rounded up a dozen other engineer (no slesmen,
accountnts, or people-just engineers). Together, this mob came up
with ten grand and formed a Sub-S cororaton. Now, it tured out
they needed three fairly accurte holes drilled in one of the working
models, so the frs thing they did with the ten grand was run out and
buy a horzontal borng mill. If the holes had to be that accurte, they
should have been eliminated from the design. If they were in fact
needed, a loal machine shop could have done the job for a few dol
lars. Then, they took the rest of the money and bought some horen
dously exensive injecton molds for the sprnkler bodies. In fact, these
molds were so fancy, the plastc company even used them in its own
ads to show the mind-blowing things that could be done with this
parcular plastc.
Later feld tests, of course, pOinted out several major defects in the
sstem, and lots of heavy changes had to be made. No allowance was
made for thes having to be sold by middlemen, so the fnal retail
prce was unreasonably high, prcing the beast rght out of the market.
Finally, the other engineers got hacked off at the first one and threw
him out of his own company.
The really sd thing is that this was a workable product that could
have gone on to bigger and better thingsbut the poor money
machine got drowned in a sea of cash and incompetent advice before
it ever had a chance to get going.
Some money machines may be capitl intensive, needing a lot of
machiner to provide an output. Prntng presses especially have a
way of gobbling up nickels at an incredible rate. Once you buy one,
the press is always too small, has maintenance problems, or a special
job comes up and makes you run out and buy a better one. Even
here, the key is to keep a sense of scale. Use equipment on the cheap
est available bass. This is probably purchase-rental on a press since
old presses guarantee bad vibes. You should always gear the size of
what you need to your expected near-term retur.
If it looks like lots and lots of font money cash is the only way to go,
srap your whole money machine and pick a new one. Even when it is
up and running prfectly, your money machine at it largest shouldn't
have more than a year's income ted up in your total plant and equip
ment. This one year limit has been called the convivial workplace and
forms the dividing line beteen the good guy or gal crafsprsons and
the bad guy industaliss.
The really big reason for avoiding font money is that the interes on
it forms a fxed expense that, come hell or high water, has to be paid
for out of curnt money machine sles. Ever having any fxed obliga
ton is bad, and much more so if you sddle your beginning money
machine with heavy obligatons like this well into the future. This is
one of the reasns that slar energ is havng problems getng of the
21
ground. The interes on the money needed to build the ssem is so
high that having fee fuel dosn't make much diference. Don't let
your mone machine get in the sme bind.
strtg secrt-cah /ow I evrting
There are lot of pssible accountng methods, but there is only one
that you should u when starng your money machine and that is
simple cash fow.
In cash fow accountng, you keep tack of how much money comes
into your machine and how much goes out, just like a piggy bank.
You enter each and ever tansacton as it happns in sme simple
way, like wrtng it on a "cash out" pad. Once a week you do a run
ning balance of your totls. Once a month, you lok at your botom
line to see if you are winning or losing. Afer severl months go by,
you project your annual returs.
You don't count anything for materals unusd but on hand, things
produced but not sold, the value of the place where you work, or
things you have delivered but have not been paid for. This sr of
accral accountng can be imporant for a large cororaton, but wl
only deceive you if you include thes things too eary in the game.
You should set aside income as it comes up for t obligatons, rete
ment funds, and other fxed expenses that will be paid out at a later
date.
A ver imporant rle is to keep your bookkeeping methods ver
simple but acurate and up to date at al tmes. Never let them gt
behind.
While having only enough income to contnue your technicl or
craf trp may b one of the keys to your money machine, it in no way
means that you shouldn't pay lot of ver clos atenton to al the
cash fow involved. This is one parcular place where crafperns
srew up badly. The reasoning is that since they aren't in anything for
the money, that money dosn't mater. The great irony in this is that
the les you are in smething for the money, the mor crcial it
becomes to keep tack of each and ever expens and then to min
imize them.
strteg secrt-accept no les than a 200% annual
rtum on cah /ow
We've already sen how you have to maximize your prnal value
added for a successfl money machine, and how you have to min
imize cash and font end exenss along with any fxed obligatons.
One sure tes of whether your personal value added is high enough is
22
whether your income far exceeds your costs. For a vable money
machine, you should accept no less than a 200-prent annual retur
on cash fow.
For instnce. in a given year, if you have a totl of three thousand
dollars in exenses, it should be oft by at least nine thousnd dollar
worth of income. This leaves you wit to nickelS generted for ever
old nickel put up and retured.
Now, a 200-percent annual retur on an "investent" sems like
an impossible dream to taditonal fnancial people. Thes day, thos
knd of people are hard pressed to fnd a long-ter investent that
breaks even, let alone gains anything in the face of infaton and
txes.
But we aren't tlking about anything tditonal or big busness.
We're tlkng about your secret money machine that's drven by a few
nickels and lot of your personal value added ener. On top of this,
the 200-percent annually dosn't have to be ted to a singe sle. A
monthly sles retur of 20 percent, or a daily retur of one percent per
day is just as good, provided you consistenty do this day in and day
out throughout the year.
The, 200-percent goal means that far fewer dollar have to change
hands to keep you in nickels. For insnce, if you wanted an income of
$20,000 per year, for a 200-percent retur on your nickels put in, you
can do this wth only $30,000 in gross money machine sles. Many
taditonal bUsinesses, wth their multple employees, high fxed cpitl
costs, limited value added, and intnsc communicatons barer cn
only show a lO-percent retur. In fact, lot of them would be delighted
wth a lO-percent retur. For the sme $20,000 income, this means
the totl gross sles have to be $200,000 when thes inefciencies are
thrown in, a value almost sven tmes higher.
strteg secrt-give tem something e
This scret combines the reasn behind the bakers doen wth an
old show busines maxim. "Something ext" is smeting added and
unexpected tat your customer get over and above what he has paid
for.
Some examples:
* Enough premium yar n for a frt project with a lom kt
* Giving an editor exta arwork in an atctve folde
* Adding complete doumentton to computer s
* Poviding sokets and tes points on an electonic kt
23
*
Including a plant with a macrme hanging
*
Politely answerng dumb questons at a crfs fir
* Tak
ng bok reader beyond what they exect
One of the greates something extas of all tmes has to be that
plastc nut strer that Heathkt puts in most electonic kts. The thing
couldn't possibly cost more than a nickel, but it dramaly simplifes
mountng hardare and pars. At the sme tme, it sys that Heath
cares about the problems you may be having putng things
together.
They since have added a piece of bent metl to some kit that lets
you remove integrated circuits sfely. This is even lower in cos and
handier sl.
Your something exta should smply sy, "Thank you. I care."
Whatever it is, it shouldn't be expensve but must be unexected. If
you can't think of anything else, te a rbbon around your product on
the way out the door.
sttg scrt-go lor It. NOW
So much god stuf in the way of money machines is passed up
becuse you are afid to act, afd to jump, afid of what other
think, or simply assume that there is a big and organied "they" out
there wose only. pur in life i to laugh at you or hasle you.
Ther is no THE.
B aserve. The best way to get smething is to ask for it The bes
way to stop something is to sy no to it. The best way to infuence
other is to Simply tell them how you feel.
... and leve tem wantin mbr
The concept of "leave them wantng more" wil var g with
the parcular money machine. In a book or arcle, you s when you
have rasnably infored, rther than buring the reader in tedium or
detil. This tells the reader that you resect his tme and commitment
to what you have to s. In a crf sle, you set your prce and your
tnscton in such a way that the customer wants to come back. In a
rp ssion, you shut up before you have overted your cas. And,
of coure, in a live perormance, you sop the encores long before the
audience sops clapping.
Ideally, you should leave your client so that as son as they get
word that your new book is out o that your new slverithing clas is
open, or that your going to be exhibitng at sme far, tey wlrn out
and enthusascaly fok to your money machine.
2
9 Z
" f l d 0 5 0
1 r d v 5 1 u a l o J ! $ U 1 0 a
" q t n
p
U 1
V l d
1 5 n ! 5 1 a : u o P 1
d n 1 5 $ U 1
l
l a t 0 5 $ u 1 0 a
It the greasy whistle that get
squeaked.
TWO
Secr I-T
Let's tm now fom te big pictur to te everday nit gt
detl of gtng your money machine wrkng. One tctc by ItH
may or may not break you. But te more you u tem, te more
per te bas you c build on.
tctic scrt-know the difernce between cold cah,
J-dllar, and megabuck
Cold cash I what you gt when you supply a qualit product to a
known bunch of customer at a bargain prce. It Is the only te of
Income your money machine should seek.
The leter "j" i the engineer's symbol for an Imaginar number.
j-dollar ar Imaginar dollars that simply do not exist. So many sr
ing money machines end up chasing thes ephemerl j-dollar and
end up with nothing to show for it.
One j-dollar chas strs when you assume sme need exis when It
rally dosn't. It's easy to spnd lot of tme and efor only to fnd out
that the supposd market couldn't care les about what you have to
ofer. Some older electronic will-o-the-wisps include spcialid tmer
for sors car rallys, ballisc chronometer, photogphic shuter tes
ters, and jus about anything els electnic that "should" be uf In
the photo market. There's lots of other examples. Usually, you get into
the situaton where the people whom you think are your market either
don't have the money, do the job otheris, don't believe you, or are
smar enough that they don't need your help.
If you are Into smething ver spcifc and specialied, make sure
there's enough nickels available to feed you.
Another j-dollar snipe hunt takes place when you assume something
about a market that simply Isn't s. A quick qui:
27
There is a vast smal business computer maret that wl be
much more proftble than the cost-snsitve hobby com
puer market.
o Tre o
False
Absolutely and totlly fals. Yes, there probably is a small busines
computer maret. But, subtact out the businesmen who wl only
deal with name-brnd biggies, and old-line managment who will only
go into computer on a kicking and sreaming basis. Include the need
for a song sles force, sfare exprs, and a wel-estblished
maintenance srce. Add your imag and adversing cos. Allow for
the fact that your usr wl be totlly unsophistcated epsilon minuss
who won't even lok for the on-of switch if the thing sems broken.
And throw away completely the hobby computers who i both
knowledgable and highly motvated. What do you have lef?
Not a vas and pble new market, but one wit its own set of
s problems. Not the leas of which is that everone asumes the
opposite, so you'll have lots of compettors losng teir shir along
wt you.
A key rule is to smple a new sles area for your money machine so
you are sure that the nickels are tere. And if things sem rough in the
feld you are i, don't ever assume tat the problems wl mlly
slve themsles just by your blindly jumping into something else.
Msloatng your market is anoter good way to g chasng afer
tos wonderul j-dollar. Your products have to be available to peo
ple who want or need them. Anyone else couldn't care les.
I know a crmics tpe whos poter is extemely well done, org
nal, snstve, and shows incredible fture potental. But, she les in a
blue colla tpe of town where disretonar income is laely un
known, as is just about anything in the way of arstc tse or apprecia
ton of fne ar. Bsdes, she's a hippy and they're al redneck. A a
result, things smply aren't sllng and her money machne is having a
rough tme of it
Now, it ts out that this parcular town is in a ver unusual loa
ton. If she would lok in any direcon of te compas, she would fnd
a mind-blOwng market only a shor drve away.
To the sut is a town st in one of the mos senic lotons in the
wes. It puls tourst fom al over te count and photpher fom
everwhere in te word. It has a ver lively fne ar tde. To the east
is an old mining communit that has tured into an a colony that
includes co-op arsn lof. To te norh is an exrmentl arhitec
tr complex tat's ofen usd for rok concer, fair, crf demon
stons, atrte lifesle conferences, and so on. A to te wes is
28
one of the larer cites in the ste with its museums, crf sores, mall
shows, steet fair, and univerit communit shops.
A our sttegy scret of the last chapter told us, put nothing
beteen you and your customer. Especially a shor drve.
One more super way to chas j-dollar is to asume pople wl buy
or do what is good for them. Organic fod may be nice, but if its
going to sll or be popular, it has to t good and be atactvely
packaged. Bicycling may be great, but if the neighbor ar going to
laugh and if car are going to atck you contnuously, no way. Same
for public transprton. Solar cookers may be where it's at, but no
way wl thev sell untl they gt cheapr and more fun to us than a
barecue grl. Cost calcuator for use in suprarkets wl never sl,
bu pople who are smar enough to wor about fo c
won't g to a superarket in te f place. They'l be in a c-p or
buying wholesle instad.
Now, if you feel as I do that thes things are imprnt, fne. But,
you'll never sll them by shovng them down smebody's throat. Your
product has to fl a need in your customer. And, if the need isn't
there, or if you can't help it along with communicatons or informaton,
you're chaSng j-dollar.
Megabucks are thos big pie-in-the sk lightning bolt that make
you instnty flthy rich beyond your wildest dreams. You do this by
tking your new carburetor idea and selling it t Detit . . . or sung
IBM and then collectng for their infnging your computer patent ...
or havng an instnt bes sller once you get your bok wrten and
then have to beat the publisher away with a stck . . . or that big
"whiplash" insurnce stlement.
Well, the unvarished truth of megabucks is that you wl get shel
lacked ever tme you go afer them. Swampfelders rules tell us al we
need to know:
In any megabuck situaton ...
* The ods of you ever gtng one red cent are invarably much
lower than you think.
* If the megabucks a ever gten, they will be rceived far latr
than expcted and in a non-usful way.
* The fnal amount, if any, will be minisule and fuher reduced by
third p rpf such as txes, commisons, atorey fees, and s
on.
* I the fnal acountng, you wl a lo money.
* Any megabucks you prespnd wl magnif out of all prpron
and become an embarsment to you.
29
The pschi ener blown in puruing megabuck wl always
exceed their value by not less than a far of tn.
So, is there no hope for megbucks at al? It trs out tat your
money machine has one ver rea, ver simple, and ver sure route to
megabuck that avoids al of 5wampfelder's hles. An tis is done by
always concenttng your money machine on cold cash tnsctons.
When you se a j-dollar or a megabuck heading your way, either
duck, laugh at it, or rn the oter way.
tctic secrt-separt fglit fm stuidt
It should g witout sying tat your srng money machine
should do almos everthing as cheaply as pos and in a low
ener and low profle way. For insnce, buying brnd-new met
fling cabinets for your strng money machine isn't even spid. Us
ornge crtes, if you cn possbly aford tem. I not, fnd sme
cheaper substt, or beter yet, get rd of whatever it was you wanted
to keep there in te fr place.
For prctcally everthing i your new money machine,
Think simple
Think cheap
Think sungy
Think low energ
Think small
But, there's at leas to exceptons to doing evering as cheaply
and smply as possible.
The fr, of coure, is that anying that goes out te door should
show high qualit and personal conce. If you are a begnning
author, usng newsprnt on bot sdes for your rough copy and inter
mediates is fne and a good idea. But the fnal, out-te-dor copy
should be te bes qualit bond paer you can reasnably get, tped
on by a new con rbbon. The idea here is to sparte what is
impornt fom what is not You then us the most reasnable qualit
for your fnal products that you possibly can.
Our second excepton applies to a ver few of te key tols you u
in your money machine. Is a corectng Selectrc realy beter than a
Brther porble? Is a Nikon beter than an lnsmatc? I a Tekrni
sope beter tan an Eico? You beter believe i
30
One or two of your key money machine tools should be the fnest
qualit you can get, and more than good enough to do the best work
you possibly can. Pride of workmanship is one big reasn, as is your
abilit to put a better product out easier. Just the rght vibes that a
good tool gives you is enough to change your whole outlook on your
money machine and its products.
So, think sungy, except for a few key tools. Make thos frst
rte.
Some common sense is stll called for even when you are gettng the
best pssible tools. The tool has to be painfully needed. Whatever you
are using now must be costng you energy and money so badly that
the new tool cres to be used. The new tool has to pay for itslf in
three months or less. And, of course, keep your cash outlay as tiny as
you can. Now, really bad or really old used tools should be avoided,
especially in electronics. Quality rebuilt and guaranteed items are
another mater entrely and ofen a good route. Leasing is another
way, as is purchase-rental. Simply borrowing eqUipment or rentng
tme on somebody else's tools can also solve the problem for you.
Another rule is to never buy something brand new at the list prce
unless (1) all else has failed, and (2) you will immediately lose a lot of
money, energy, and customers if you don't do so.
tactic secrt-Identi your blind spt
Everbody has something they are really into. But, for everything
you are really good at, there's bound to be other things that you sim
ply ignore or don't think are imporant. An engineer may be an excel
lent designer but totally tured of by the give-and-take of politcs or
unable to stomach the dealing and manipulatng of people that is
involved. A politcian can't understand a no-compromise situaton or
initiatng something unpopular or unproftable when it is needed
instead of long afer the need has gone. Some sholarly types may be
outstanding at classifing, dissctng, and compiling things, but are
totally unable to talk plainly, make any value judgment, or see the big
picture at all.
All of thes things are blind spot. They will ver badly hur your
money machine unless you carefully pin them all down.
Tere's te cas of a manufactrer who pernally doesn't like to
wte. He does have a brther-in-law who usd to sll prntng equip
ment, s he st up te mos enorous in-house prntng faclt you
coud imagne. And my, dos he gnd out paper. Tons of it
But, his maintenance and repair manuals are the most confsing
and the most poorly wrten in his indust. His data sheets and ad
copy are preposterous, grossly misleading, and arstcally atocious.
31
His proofeading i so wonderful that even prce have gone out the
door missplled.
Another indivdual simply doesn't care much for number, parcu
lary those on the account books. A a result; he ofen forget to bill
people tl much later, sometmes undercharges for what his work is
worh, and, in gneral, cut into his own pft. He is probably a
paying far too much in the way of taxes.
The whle thing here is to recogniz both what you are ver good
and ver bad a Fnd your blind spt and then do something about
them.
Once you fnd your blind spots, recognize that you probably won't
ever really corect or eliminate them. To d this makes you into some
body els. Instead, either arange your money machine to accept and
live with the blind spts, or els have someone else whos bag is your
blind spt bail you out.
If you don't like to deal with people, become a wrter and work long
distnce through the mail. I one-on-one rapping is your tp, do as
much teaching as you can. If you hate number, gt smeone else to
help you with them. If you hate to wrte, get someone else to care
about the communicatons needs of your money machine.
Ideally, your money machine should need as lite of your blind spot
as possible. If this doesn't tum out to be the cas, reset to zero and
star over with something more suitable.
ttic scrt-bwr t gnalon, m sn
A gnln is any lar bureaucrtc fgment of pople's imagna
ton. For instnce, there's rally no such thing a the Feds or the Gen
eral Veeblefelter Corporaton. There are a bunch of people out ther
that relate to each other, and there's some stuctures, and some papr.
In fact, there's lots and lots of papr. The people sit in the stuctures
and pas paper back and forh to each other and charge you to do
so.
Al thes pople, structures, and paper are real. But, nowhere can
you point to the larger concept of "goverment" or "cororaton" and
say, "There it is, kiddies!" The monolithic, big "they" is all in your
mind.
So, what do granfalloons have to do with money machines? Jus
this. E tme you deal with one, you wl gt tken. Ther is no big
"they." Only indivdual people. And if the indivdual who is promising
you things dosn't have a stong and total infuence on the individual
with the big bag of nickels, you're in deep trouble.
In everday terms, this means to sll your product to people, not to
corporatons or goverment. People make their own purchasing deci-
32
sions. They stand by them. They're usually highly motivated when
they do so and they car their own wallet in their back pocket. If you
ever sell to a company or other organization hang more than ffteen
people, chances are that there is enough squabbling and In-fghting
that the person who is buying may not be in control of the person with
the nickels.
An author I once knew was called clear across the countr to do
some wrtng for a shlock smiconductor house that was going to hit It
big with a new beast called a "microprocessor." Since nobody in their
publicatons division ever heard of these, they wanted someone to bai
them out and put together some basic informaton for them. Al for
cash-type money, of course.
The author even got a royal tour, accidently being let into the scret
mountain laborator and even saw the reign of teror that the poor
deSigners and technicians were living under.
The author was kept waitng for three days for a magic meetng that
was suppsed to be a mere formality. The meetng was to take place
between the publications division, the technical informaton people (a
vasly different crew from a different plant), and the honchos behind
the microproessor. Well, the meetng eventually took place. At which
time one honcho said that the program was secret and no outside help
could be used. Which ended that. Except for one ver hacked off
wrter. And one unpaid one.
This was the classic gnfalon sueeze play. Here we have one prn,
thinking he is the ganfaloon, doing one thing, while another one dos the
exact oppsite. Bth to the detment of the gnfallon a well as the
money machine involved.
Deal with the people, not granfalloons.
tctic secrt-use te black
w
'do
w
efect ...
A black wdow spider usually spins a web and waits for the next
meal to drp by. No way does she go out and tr to sell her next meal
into coming over for canasa. The same basic idea is a good tactic for
your money machine. Whenever and wherever possible, let people
come to you and seek you out, rather than vice versa.
This is hard to do, especially if nobody knows you are around. But,
if a prson seeks you out, he has made an ego decision that he wl
defend. Should he buy fom you, he will defend this decision, even if
what he bought doesn't meet his needs. No way will he ever admit he
got taken.
Oppositely, if a peron feels he was "sold" something, he will easily
fnd minor and even unreasnable faults with it to vent his displeasur.
33
A customer that comes to you is intnsically a happier one than one
you chas afer .
. . . and the "S" technique
The "SE" stands for Suppres Ego. This is a good rule anytme you
are one-on-one rapping with anybody, parcularly a potental or real
nickel source. Let the other prson's ego trp bounce of you and show
empathy to it, regardless of how misguided or obnoxious it seems.
But, if the vibes get too heavy, only put up with as much of this as is
consistent with the potental nickel retur, and no more.
To us the old Dale Caregisms-be a good listener and take a
genuine interest in others at al tmes. It's old and shopwor advice
but it works.
Rather than trying to sell something, spend the energy enlarging and
stengthening your web.
tctic secrt-avoid psyhic ener sinks
A psychic ener sink is any contnuing source of bad vbes that
makes you mad enough or involved enough to funnel energ and
tme away fom your money machine. Obvious exmples are divores,
anyhing and everhing plitcl, bar, lawer, and, of cour,
tlevison.
But, psychic energy sinks come in many forms and guises. A neigh
bor who insists on fooding you out when he irrgates with ten times
the water a sne individual would us is a rather obvious psychic
energy sink. A computer that thinks you owe it $17.22 when you
don't can either be lots of fn or a real hassle, depending on your own
attude.
Some things are benefcial or innouous in ver small doses but fast
become psychic energy sinks if they take up too much tme or if they
involve you with politcs or bad vibes. Establishment stuff like the PA,
souts, organized loal spors, and other churh and community orga
nizatons are good examples.
Your family can become an utery botomless pschic enery sink if
your parents or relatves live too clos to you. A good rle that is
esntal for money machine surival is to keep all relatves far enough
away that it tkes a consious and deterined efor for them to visit
you.
Another sad money machine disaster was the cas of Bill Benson,
who was completely done in by psychic energy sinks.
Bill was a superb photographer, specializing in acton-in-moton
34
photogrphs of destructon deries, swamp buggy rces, scr
matches, and so on. He combined this with a studio, darkroom ren
tals, a beginner's instructon cours, and a ver at t but not-to
bright female assistant. He made us of a white elephant building that
was perfect for photo use but a fnancial disster to earier renter
because of its loaton and weird shape.
Bill obeyed most of the sategies and tactcs that make for a good
money machine. His inventon of puttng all his exhibit photos on a
velcro backing and using a main exhibit cloth on the side of a van
made for quick setup and quick sles in the feld. His mobile color
processing lab was equally a masteriece. Oh, there were a few rough
edges here and there. Like a misoncepton of what is workable in the
way of direct mail, going way overboard on sttonar, having no real
cost contols, and using a telephone sstem that was more suited to a
small town than a two-room building. But outsde of a few rough
sots, the act was together and working.
Enter pschic energy sinks stage lef and stage right. Not one but
to wives, one afer alimony, the other afer some medical malprctce
megabucks. Enter to earier business entanglement involving sme
one else's bankruptcy and wrngly sizing some of Bill's working
equipment. And exit a surce of j-dollar that never materalized. The
whole money machine collapsed in a heap of rubble. Bill vanished
fom the midwest town he lived in and hasn't been sen there
since.
Always reconize psychic energy sinks for what they ar-spper
uppers of tme, energy, and cc vibes that should go to your
money machine. Avoid them at all costs.
tctic secrt-let oter py you lor your /n
As much as you can, let everything you do have a scond purpos
of generatng exta nickels, or at least sving some of them for you.
There's many sources of supplementl income that can go with a par
tcular money machine and its supporng lifesyle. Pick up as many of
these as you can and use them as a buffer on your income or els to
add to the depth and enjoyment of what you do.
Don't think of thes as second income, but as ninth through fort
third sources of income. A few rndom examples:
* being a pr tme freman
* substtute teaching
* giving income tax advice
* doing a regional column for a paper
35
growing specialty herbs
oferng a junior college cour
enterng contests and compttons
resoring old pianos
doing free lance phophy
auctoneerng
critquing textbooks
being in a rock band
helping with a co-op food store
custom woodworking
The list can go on forever. Check the back issues of The Mother
Earh News for several thousnd more things to do that both generate
nickels and are fun and interestng.
The only limit to thes is that they should be consistent with what
you really want to do and should pay enough (either nickels or psychic
energy) to be worh the time and efor you devote to them.
An even beter tck is to have others pay you for what would nor
mally cost you a bundle. How much would a nice summer cottge in
the woods for a few months st you back? Be in the rght place at the
rght tme and the Forest Serice, the Park Serice, or a Stte Foreser
will gve you one free and pay you to stay in it as well. A sweetener,
they might even throw in a few B-17 slur r bombers and a helicopter
or two for you to play with.
Like to travel? Do stores or photos on where you go and let boks,
magaznes, and papers pay at least par of your way. Want to take a
tropic cruis? Do it as par of a sientfc expediton and maybe even
get paid for it. At the ver least, the total expens of the trp can ofen
be tx deductble if the whole deal is for some valid sientfc
purpos.
You get the general idea. Now, thes sound like pie-in-the-sk
rpoffs. And they are. But, I've done lots of them. And, if you carefully
tune yourself into the "let others pay you for your f" idea, you'd be
surprsd how many of them you can pick up and us.
tactic secrt-believ In biorythm
Everything you do is ted into energy cycles in your life. There's a
physical energ cycle, a sxual cycle, and a creatvit or intelle
36
cycle. There is some contovery over just how long thes mult-week
cycles last and whether they are traceable back in tme to sme long
ago event. But, there is lite doubt that the cycles.presently exist and
exis strongly in most people.
You should atempt to predict your curent cycles and then force
yourself and your money machine to maximie them, rather than con
tinuously fghtng them. If you are too tired to work, forget it. You will
only botch things up anyway. If everthing goes wrong, take the day
off and go hide. Why force yourelf to wrte, say, ten pages a day on a
book, when the wrtng will be dull and uninspired half the tme and
not use enough of your creatve energy the other half
Instead, do extra efort on energy high days. Do exta creatve work
on intellectual high days and s on.
There's lots of biorhythm books out. Pck one and se if it works for
you. You'll have the bes results with methods that force you to plot
your presnt moods over tme, rather than using a method that arbi
trarly goes way back in time.
One simple method of keeping tack of your creatve cycle that
probably will work for you is your dreams. Frt, subtract out the CAP
factor", and then plot those nights you don't dream, thos you dream
and can't remember, and thos night in which you dream and can
clearly remember. A cluster of clearly remembered nights should be
closst to a creatve high, while no-dream nights are closst to a cre
atve low. Once you have one cycle reasnably well ploted, you
should be able to predict the next one and then shedule yourlf
accordingly.
tctics secrt-some mini-tactics
There's bunches and bunches of mini-tactcs that can work for you
and your money machine. Here's a large handful for you:
' Ifen It ain't broke, don't fx It-oncentte your efors on
things that need slved and fnished, rather than improving or
changing things already done.
' Ifen It ain't cooked, don't sere It-ever adverse or accept
payment or order for an undevelopd or undeliverble product,
no mater how good it's ging to be.
' Always look for the obviouhe simplest pssible exlanaton
and the simplest possible way of doing things is almos always the
best place to str.
Coonut Anchov Pz
37
Always expct the exact oppsite-When pople tell you
things, always assume that the exact oppsite is a distnct pssibilit
and hedg yourlf accordingly.
Use out-the-door reglmentation-n undelivered product is a
total waste. It's not creatve unless it slls. Funnel your psychic
energy into getng things done and delivered.
Deal dlrect-ways handle everthing at the highest possible
level in the most sraightforard pssible manner. Avoid ever deal
ing with scretares, slesmen, middlemen, agents or manufac
turer's represntatves.
Tr a football stategy-To get into a new product area, frst tr
battering through the middle. Then tr an end-around pitch out.
Next, a long pass. And if everthing fails, punt.
Change while you ar winningThe bes tme to change to
bigger and beter things is while you are on top, not afer disr
has struck. The surest sign to be into beter things is when things
couldn't pssibly be beter.
Never directly confont big business on their own ters
They will squash you like a bug. Us a trple rever instead, lead
ing with what they can't touch-our prsonal value added.
Ease, do not Jump, Into deep waterys explore sme
new area in the simplest, cheapest, and most minimum way. Watch
out for sharks and U-boats.
Fine tune your bullshlt flter-ight percent of what most
pople tell you, and one-hundred-ff perent of what a slesman
or plitlcan tells you will be what the Houyhnhnms politely termed
"that which is not s." Act and respond accordingly.
Proft fom the mistakes of others-ver feld has its equiva
lents to the electronics industy Vatrn, Megastor, Datasync,
Ragan, and Ovionic. Study the big losers and lear from them.
Beter wrong now than right later-n any new design, the
firs attempt wil have to be done over anyway. So kluge up some
thing now and let it teach you the rght way to go.
* Swim, cave, r, fy, drive, cycle, climb, Jog-r anything
else both athletc and non-compttve. Stay in shape. Get dir.
Exhaust yourslf. Take a chance.
* Separate the "yeahbuts" fom the "gotcha's"- Gotcha is
some fundamental reasn something won't work, or the crx of the
problem to be solved. A Yeahbut is sme excuse somebody els
38
thinks up for why smething won't work or isn't practcal. Atck
the Gotha's. Ignore the Yeahbuts.

Keep a low prfle-ek a quiet middle gund. Avoid bragging
or promiss of any type. Keep your plans to yourslf, but avoid the
exreme of parnoid secrecy.

Think, act, and live synergetic ally-The whole does not equal
the sum of it pars. It's bigger and behaves totally diferenty.
Always fore any task to have as many different uses and'puross
as possible. Always work toward the big picture.

People will always do the exact opposite of what you tell
them-Unless you allow for this ahead of tme, in which case they
wn do as they damn well please.
Shut up afer the sale-nything you say after a purchas deci
sion is made will hur you. The less said, the beter. Don't snath
defeat fom the jaws of victor.
Psychic energ must be fnneled-You have only s much
tme and energy, s put it all into your money machine and the
things you believe in. Don't let others steal your tme and
energy.
Study the works of chairman Mao-Know your enemy. And
out everything you can about possible antagonists, detractors, or
comptors of any form. Antcipate what they are going to do and
then completely change the rules of the game to something they
simply won't understand.

Avid 8Ources of polson and bllg-et into a funky and live
able environment. Walk away fom hassle or bad vibes.

Attack the Oank, not the &nt-This not only works on fores
fres, but is good in any high enery feld. Similarly, you'll fnd
more fsh in quiet backwater than in a main stream. But stay out
of the samp.
Have a place to hide-It can be a house down the street, a cave,
or simply a shell you can crawl into. But, when you need it-use it,
and do so ofen.

Nevr a .. ume Institutions or people will change with
time-They won't. Incompetence and greed are immutable physi
cal constant of the known universe.

Don't go against the grain of cultural acceptbilityKeep
your producs in reasonable tste. Don't gross people out. And
Frk out, yes. Grs out, no.
39
don't exect them to lear a new typing keyboard or to drve with
lever instead of a wheel, and so on. No way will they.
Prctice Ketring's Intelligent Ignorance-Kno what i i
that you don't know about your product and your money
machine. Aways seek to minimize your own stupidity.
Minimize your ripof potential-Don't accumulate fncy things
with high quick cash value. Make what you have lok sungy.
Practce reasonable scurty. Don't st your money machine up to
wher smeone can steal i or u it agains you.
Play In the cracks Instead of on the white keys or the black
ones-Take a different or unexpcted approach to any problem.
Make your own rules. You a, by defniton, the centr of the
univer.
Hav sane business hOUTe only insane business hours a
8-5 Monday through Friday. I you ar a night prson, work at
night If you like watching the chickens get up, have at it Bur
mode or slow and seady. Whatever works, u it
Be hardnosed to heloaderf smeone i using up more of
your tme, energy, or money than you'd like, tell them to shove of,
walk away, rdicule them, or give them a dos of incompetnce.
Screw of a lot-Go for a bicycle rde. Daydram. Go back t
bed. Shoot pool. Thes 'are the tmes when things jell, when prob
lems solve themselves, when new ideas happn.
Migrate with the weather and against the crwds-Go wher
it's war in winter and col i the summer. Hit the hiking t on
Monday night, the good rsturnts on Thurday aferons.
Never stnd in line for nothing or nobody.
Always give something "he" away-Ful s P paters in a
kit sor is one good exmple. Anything that looks like a trde
secret or something your customer thinks he is getng for nothing
wl do.
Avoid any and all zer sum games-A zer sum game i sme
thing that others have to los for you to win. like being one of to
barber in a small town, or doing party product adversing. Stay
away fom this bad tp. Pck games wher your winning helps
other win as well.
Thou shall not haule. unless . B a nice guy or nice gal
and gente to others 90 prent of the tme. The rest of the tme, be
either a hardnosed ba (to prevent your getng rpped of, or
40
an incompetent moron (to stay out of a bad tp), as your pronal
needs dictate.
tctic secrt-be a doing doger
A doing dogger is someone who make things happn. Those who
act rather than are acted upon. When they are in a cave, doing dog
gers have to know where the crawlway goes, what lies beyond the
siphon, and how far to the next cave over. Doing doggers:
always gt in control of any situaton
never wait in line for anything
expos themselves to many alteratves
never waste tme unless they really want to
wonder
pick a different route home
read voraciously
never watch television
stay away fom psychic energy sinks
do not hassle unless all els has filed
star things
stay of the beaten trck
are into their own trp.
Doing doggers have fantasc secret money machines. So can
you.
tactics secrt-you ar your own wort enemy
The most limitng resons on your scret money machine are
thos limits you yourelf put on it. It's not the big "they" out there that
stops you fom accomplishing. It's plain old you. You are your own
wors enemy when
You let others rob you of tme and energy
You fal to st goals
41
You don't follow trug
You st your sgt to low
You don't fnish what you sr
You gt involved in psychic energ snks
.'
You don't gt prduc out te dor
You fai to evaluat chang
You don't pr and prvere
You aren't a doing dogr.
It's not them, it's you. Mos "impsible" goals can be met simply
by breaking them down into bite si chunks, wtng them dow,
believng them, and then going ful sed ahead as if they were
routne.
Tr it, you'll like it
42
,
..
(J
;
t. --_
THRE
Geting Starte
Starting your own incredible secret money machine is easy
enough. The real trick is to make it profitable and keep it going
once you have stred it.
There is only one form of busines you should us for your begin
ning money machine. This is called a simple propretorhip. Which
means simply that you own the busines. The busines is you and you
are it. Beyond using a propretorship, your main stup goals should
go along thes lines:
.. Think simple
.. Spend little
.. Stay legal
.. Avoid future obligatons
.. Build by bootstrapping
.. Maintain a low profle
.. B open to change
.. Have a snse of scale
.. Keep accurate records
.. Know your goals
Let's now check into what's involved in staring up your own
machine:
43
getting stred-pick a name
Your money machine has to have a name, and possibly a loo or
another image to go with this name. The name frt convnces the
IRS you really are a business. More on this later. The name gves
you credibility to your customers and your suppliers. And, most
imporntly, the name convinces you that you've really done it.
It's easy to expect a name to do too much for you. A porly
chosn one can easily hur you, but a good one can only help you
to the point you let it. A name should be speCifc enough that your
customer can guess what you are up to. It should be general
enough to give you leeway to change your products or even the
whole directon of your money machine. A name must be funky. It
should give good vbes to your clients or customers in a way they
can immediately relate to. A name shouldn't be too cute or too
much of an "in" type expression, for i wl surely go out of date
and become a problem later on.
It's hard t meet all thes needs in a name at once since the
needs are prety much opposd to each other. Let's lok at sme
good real-world examples in four diferent money machine
felds:
Weavers have used thes ...
Rumplesltskn Run of the mil
Threadmill Threadbender
Golden Reece The Spider Web
The Shor Sheep
while sme retil computer sores have picked ...
Thinker toys
Hoboken Computer Works
Kentcky Fred Computer
Bit Bucket
Number Racket
Itt Bitty Machine Company
Barefoot Computer
and poter have used thes ...
4
Earhnfre
Bisue Bx
Rare Earh Alaskan Mud Puddle
Mud Rat Mud in Your Eye
Dobe Depot
and here's some electronic project names ...
Bit Bofer Psyctone
The Quiet Mother Quadar
Cheap Video Spiradoodle
Gnu-Matc
Thes are all good examples. At least I like them. It's just as eas
to come up with bunches of bad ones as well. How's "Nora's
Ceramic Shopp" for a real tum-on?
Negative images are real easy to produce. They can, and will,
tum customers off. For instance, there really is an electonic man
ufacturer with the tradename Fluke. There really is a direct mail
outft in Thief River. Using the next post offce over has to be bet
ter, sight unseen. I actually know a John Smith, and he is a ver
creative electronics type with several money machines going. But,
he used to call himself John Smith Entrrses. At least to me, this
is a name that cres "RIPOFF' in capital letters. Enterprises-any
thing is ungood. Almost as bad is . .. "and Associates."
You can also pick a name or an image so close to somebody
else's that they will get the credit and you will go unnotced, espe
cially if they are biggies and you aren't. If you are heavy into elec
tronics, you probably notced a delightful caroon type of ad that
used to appear in several of the trade journals. The strp stared
to characters, a vivacious female, Anna and a klut engineer, Log.
The strip was funny, very easy to read, and had an unusual
"across the botom " typ of ad layout that cred to be read. And it
seemed like some of the best adversing that Analog Device ever
had.
What made the strip even better for Analog Devices is that it
didn't cost them one red cent. The caroon was run by some other
company whos name I can't remember. Do you?
Avoid getng anything wor out and hackneyed into a name or
an image. For instnce, there is a miserable typ font called
AVANT GARDE
45
Now, this is a typeface that only a tpographer could love. Yet, i
gets usd over and over again in the mos unlikely places. Using
the checkbok font to get an
ElECTR[rC UfGE
is done s ofen that it, too, is hack, besides being ver hard
to rad.
The word "affordable" is something that drves me up the wall.
It sared out as a meaningles but "in" expresion, but now comes
off plain rdiculous. To prove this to yourslf, everme you se
the word "affordable," replace it with "lemon sented."
My own company name (Syneretc) doesn't meet thes guidelines
we've looked at ver well. But, it does sparate the doing dogr
(thos into Fuller) fom the turkeys (thos not) and it's a rot lisening
to establishment-type scretares and other stumble over it durng a
phone call. But that parcular name is something I ver much b
in and is ver much a major key to my own money machine.
Your name and your image tend to be slf-fl ng, s be sure t
provide for this in your choice. In many money machines, your
customers may never see you, paricularly if you are into direct
mail. Your name, your loo, and your image can be al they ever
have to g on.
One imprnt rle is to bounce your new name off sme oter t
see how they read. A sure sign of succes is if your frends and rela
tves think the name is the dumbes thing they ever heard. A long as
your customer don't agree, you're all st.
gting strd-rgstr It
Registerng your name makes it legal. It gives you credibilit. It
keeps anyone else from using the same name, at least loly. Once
regisered, the name can tansact busines, receive checks, and s
on. Since the cost of registon is low and there is only the u
amount of hassle involved, every money machine should be
registered.
Usually, you register your name on the state level. The detils
wl change with your state, but things generally go like t:
There will be a "trade name register" or "fcttous names act fle"
kept by the secretar of state or the state commerce deparment. You
go to them and tell them you want to register a name. Then you fl
out forms and pay them fve or ten dollars or s.
46
Befor they registr your name, they might insis that:
No one else is using the sme nme
The name is not obsene
The name doesn't sund like another
The name has no obvious rpof potental
The name has smething to do wth
te business to be conducted
Things will be easiest if you actually go to your state capital
during midday and midweek and chase things around yourself.
But you should be able to do everything by mail and telephone if
you are willing to make a few calls to the wrong places.
Some counties or larger cities might also like you to register
your business name. This may be a good idea if there's likely to be
lots of similar money machines in your parcular area. It can be a
ver bad idea if the name registration person happens to be on
speaking terms with the zoning or licensing people. Since I'm
probably the only electronic consultant in a county that's larger
than most New England states, I personally haven't bothered with
a county registraton.
Should you have any trouble, check into a librar or a university
bookstore. They ought to have a copy of something similar to The
Legal Aspects of Doing Business in Arzna that applies to you.
Make sure the book is written for people and not lawyers. The
book or booklet should give you the details you need on
registraton.
Be ver suspicious if there sem to be stf fees involved or legal
help is asked for. You will most likely be getng rpped off if this
happens. If all else fails, move to a reasonable state.
When your name is registered, they'll send you a fancy cerifi
cate suitable for faming. Usually the registraton is good for three
to fve years before you have to renew it
gtting stred-get some sttioner
Here is one tme when middle ground is far and away the best
Even when you are just startng, you probably should have some sor
of business statoner. Rubber stmps or stck-ons simply won't hack
it, and will lok as bad as using a baD point pen on tblet paper tom
out of a binder.
47
On the other hand, it's eas to blow several hundred dollar on
custom prntng that may not meet your needs, partcularly if you
change money machines or a working address.
So, get the cheapes decent sttoner you can, and just enough of
it to handle a few months' worh of actvity. You can do this wth
semi-custm letterheads. Thes are available from lots of direct mail
outfts like New England Busines Serices and Fdelt, as well as
larger ofce supply stores. Pnter tend to be an expensive surce for
simple, low-cost sttoner.
A smi-custom leterhead gives you a choice of four or fve back
ground styles and half a dozen type fonts. You pick something
close to what you would eventually like to have. The best slecton
will mis by 1.6035 kilometers, but us it anyhow. Always check
three or four places before commitng yourlf. Others may have
something beter, cheaper, or both.
Sometmes a lare supplier may ofer a sok letrhead with an
imprnt. This can be ver cheap if it meets your needs. My first
money machine was called Wes Penn Sound and was into public
addres ssem rntals, rpairs, and audio design. At the tme, RCA
oferd a stndard letrhead for T sice shops that was cusom
imprnted. It was a ways back, but the cost was smething like $3
pr ream, including envelops, s I usd thes. I you can luk it
smething that i suitable, us it.
Your money machine might call for something other than let
terheads. Very personal money machines like painters, potters,
stained glass arsans, and s on might want to us qualit not
papr insead for a betr imag. Other might want or need busi
ness cards. Semi-cusm shipping labels may a be called for.
At any rate, your lo cos stoner should be ju barely enough to
get you crebit and only quantt enough to get you sed. You
cn g on to biger and bt thing when you a biger and
beter.
gttin .td-g t C bnk
Nex, g to a bank. But, do NOT talk to them. Do NOT tl them
you are in business. Instead, quiety change your checking account t
the t of "commerial" srice (fe checksinimum balance)
that is halfay beteen a prnal and a tue busines account
stup.
Pck a sdate and legitmate looking check sle. Hav them prnt
both your company name and your name immediatly belo i w
A So M wu sy, "Go o numb one."
4
your addres. Avoid the checks with a "Susie Homemaker" image or
those with pink saguaro cactuses or green famingos on them.
Now, and this is the tricky par. Tell the bank you sometimes
sign your name differently and, if they haven't given you one
already, ask them for an "alternate signature card" or an "alias
card" to fill out. Sign the card every possble way you would
receive income normally, such as Alvin Snurdley, A. Reginald
Snurdley, A.R. Snurdley, Al Snurdley, and so on. Then add your
business name to one of the empty blanks. If they ask, mumble
something incoherent or sy it's par of a hobby.
What you've done is perfectly legal. Any check now made out to
your company name is now yours to cash. You simply sign the com
pany name, followed by your own, or else vou use a "for deposit only
to the account of ... " stmp and your name. Number your checks strng
with No. 4000. A supplier getng your check No. 002 hurs your credibilit.
Our whole aim here is to keep a low profle and minimum costs.
You've completely avoided the hassles and expns of a formal busi
nes account, but are stll legal.
You should also back up this checking account with some automatc
loan guarantee Crdit Reerve sor of thing. Get the maximum credit
line you possibly can.
But, rule number one is to never us this credit intentionally. It is
there to protect your busines fom the bad vibes of a bounced check
and to cover arthmetc errors. It also bails you out should you receive
some bad paper and not have it clear. Don't even us the credit
resre to cover foat. Always keep a positve enough balance in this
account such that if all checks were to clear immediatly, you wouldn't
need this sfety backup.
gtting stard-fnd a place
It's interestng t look around at the winning money machines and
se just how many of them got there the hard way. The hard way is to
sar with an expensive commercial building or something new and
custom built. Later on, the money machine backs way of and
switches to something simple, liveable, and more suitable. Almos
always, the cheap and funky workplace ends up more productve and
more prftble. The changeover pint usually is the tme when the
tp into the megabucks really begins.
Starng out at home at frt is a good idea. But it is abslutely esn
tal that your workplace is one hundred prcent st aside f your
money machine. The frt reasn for this is once again the IRS. A
we'll se later, cerin busines deductons wl b disallowed if you
don't do this. A scond reasn is that your workplace forces you into
49
dividing your tm beteen money machine and non-money machine
actvites, something that's easiest on a "this is where it's at" basis.
A crucial rule is that your workplace must sar out a a scrosnct
lair. Ver violent and otheris ungood things should immediatly
happen to any child, neighbor, or relatve who tres to violate this
space. Even slow learers must se the light 'on their frst and only trp.
People don't drop in on Ford's producton line for an idle chat with
smeone; its just as imporant they don't do the sme thing to you.
It's ofen hard for people to realize that you are working when you
are obviously home goofng off. This is parcularly a problem if you
are living in a small town, are a him, and have a her out substtute
teaching or something. The only soluton to this is to play the role and
make yourself look as despicable as you can.
Despite this parcular hassle, the best places for money machines
are small, independent towns and rural areas, parcularly in the
mountain west, and away fom big cites.
In larger towns and more ppulated areas, you may fnd your work
place violating some zoning laws. As long as you aren't running a
boiler factor, a suerkraut works, have thousands of strange looking
walk-in customers, or a ff-foot-high neon sign out front, you can
probably get away with some non-blatnt zoning violations for a long
tme. "Ignore but do not confont" is a good policy here, parculary
during starup. If zoning turs into a psychic energ Sink-move, don't
hassle.
Maybe you'd like to work somewhere away fom home. Some nar
row-minded and inconsiderate aparment owners might get uptght if
you put a forge in the kitchen or a kiln on the patio. If you have to
separate where you work fom where you live, make sure the to are
an easy walk or bicycle ride apar. Do NOT ever pick a workplace that
takes an automobile rde to get to. Cars used this way are a psychic
energ sink and a fxed commitment to a bad scene.
Wherever it is, your monthly workplace costs should never exceed
one perent of your expcted gross sales. Thus, if your staring money
machine is only expected to gross $10,000 a year, your maximum
rent or payment needed for the workplace must be less than $100
per month. Under no circumstances should you build or buy anything
new just for your staring money machine. This is to minimize any
fxed future obligatons that may become a white elephant to get rd of
if you abandon or change your money machine. Eventually, bigger
and beter places may be called for. But, not tll your money machine
is off the ground and knows the directon it is taking you in.
No mater where, your workplace must be just that-something with
a sns of place. You have to feel you belong there and that it i a par
of you. You should be able to fngeraint it purle, nail up obsene
poster, play ELO wall-to-wall, grow exotc plants, work barefoot,
50
A clean, neat, and orderly work
place is a sure sign of a sick mind.
munch magc cookies, drink beer-r whatever-nd do any of thes
with nobody objecting.
Let's look at some real money machine workplaces and see how
they are st up, s you can get more ideas on what works.
Don-ias me. Money machine is electronic consultng, technic
wrtng, and kit design. Stared out wrong by building new a cus
tom, architect-designed studio. Later switched to a small house in a
smaller town. Most of work now done in one 12 x 20 fot rom
holding electonics lab, prnted-circuit layout area, machine shop,
library, and so on. A separate small house down the seet is rented
for $50 a month and holds the darkroom, loom col
l
ecton, over
fow librar, and circuit board processing setup.
Max-Money machine is T-Shir sreening and custom litho cam
era work. Stared out wrong by rentng par of large new industal
bUilding. Drven out by dust, high fxed costs, and a tmely food.
Bought a distress city lot with three older houses on it. Rents font
house out as residence to cover fxed expenses. Second house has
accountng area, ar layout, stock sorage, the huge litho camera
(bought for $241), and a darkrom. The third hous holds t
screens, ink storage, and a large dring oven.
Franny-Money machine is silversmithing classes and custom jew
elr. Initally worked at home and taught clases in a loal junior
college. Expanded by buying an old, sprwling building whose pre
vious business failures included a laundromat, a usd furiture
store, and a second-hand tading post. She now offers her evening
courses here, has her own work area, and uses this a a home bas
as she tavels to other shools and exhibit.
51
* Doug-Money machine is a direct mail specialt bokstore com
bined with cutom prntng and preswork. Stared in three smal
adobe houss in a ver low rent distct, putng the litho camer
and the pasteup in what used to be a pant. Later moved to a
distres building that failed as a fench fy crnkling factor.
* Bill-Money machine is electonic prducton aides combined
with spcial motion picture serices. Retred from the constuc
ton business to do all his work in an old garage. Old garage is a
few steps away from one of the fnest beaches in the world.
* Forst-Money machine is popular sience wrtng, model rok
etry and laser consulting. Wrtng is done in one bedroom of a
trailer. Everthing els happens in a 6-fot-square metal shed
reminisent of the corugated iron one in Brdge on the River Kwai.
This tny shed holds a complete darkroom, a bicycle repair shop,
an entre optcs lab, electronic instruments, a librar, product fles,
model rocket stock, robotcs and solar energy research materals,
and heaven knows what else. Ver frugal and tkes a ver metcu
lous prson-ut it works and works well.
*
John-Money machine is electonic music kits, fee lance advers
ing, and retail computer sales. Has an establishment-tp factor
and lots of employees. His own value added is greatest in new
product design. To do this, he bought the house across the street at
a super low prce and tore out all the inside walls, leaving one ver
large and ver prvate electronic lab. This in a senic lakeside st
tng well away from the factor and its hassles.
*
Ear-Money machine is custom millwork, loom designs, and repli
caton of ver old furniture. Retred from the engineerng ratrace as
an accomplished designer and author. Enclosed the area beneath
the deck of a home on a high, windswept desr. Has woodwork
ing tools in this enclosed area, and uses an expanded bedroom as
librar, paintng, and design areas.
Now, none of thes workplaces will take the Chamberetes Out
standing Commercial Improvement Award for the month of Febrar.
But, they all work and hold money machines that are far more proft
able and more rewarding than the traditional establishment
workplaces.
gtting stard-make a few prduct and tst them
You should test your fedgling money machine on a ver small sale
before commitng yourself heavily. The next strup step is to gner-
52
ate a few qu products and se how they place. Do this with a
minimum of future obligatons or very heavy tme and ener
involvement
For insnce, you could make up a dozn pieces of ptr and tke
them t a tde fair. Or you might t out a coure you want to tach
at a nearby junior colleg. Or you might wt a tvel stor or to.
Maybe smething that rght now can b sld a an arcle, but latr wl
become a bok chaptr. Perhaps you could prnt up a few how-to
boklets fr a dirc mail exprment Or build a couple of slar
coker. Or a hobby computer sofware systm.
Keep the qualit of thes product your best effor. Make them fr
rate. The trick is to keep them simple and strightforard enough that
even your bes effor doesn't take to much tme or money. You'll
want to avoid expensive tools at this tme. Us smeone else's kiln,
enlarger, osillosop, computer, ploter, whatever. If something even
tally is going to need fancy asmbly tools, hand fabrcate a few
models the hard way frst.
Next, s aside half of your product, leaving only the best ones.
Then test sll these smehow, staying as cheap and simple as possible.
Us a trade fair or a mall show. Put them in smebody els's store.
Us a small ad in a loal Whi Sheet or Pennysaver, or an even
smaller clasifed in a secial interst magane. Submit a story or two
to a carfully chosn publisher. Exhibit at a fair. Do a direct mall proj
ect for a magane. Offer only the key pars (ciruit boards, panels,
softar tapes, et.) or els keep the prject simple and cheap enough
that the whole thing can be offered without too heavy an advance
commitment.
If your money machine is a winner, you'll know almos immediately
by the enthu results you'll get Now, you probably won't get
ver many nickels at this sag of the game. But, if the potential for
cold cash is there, it should be obvious. Pay parcular attenton to
what slls and how it sells. What you inily think you want to do wl
usually be different fom what your money machine wants you to do
best. Adjust things accordingly. B ready to change and t something
els.
gtting strd-think abut yur Imag
If your new money machine loks promisng, add a limited addi
tonal amount of nickels and efor aimed at making you lok larger,
more prfessional, more credible. Add one or to key tools, but keep
their cost in line and only have them meet the needs of your money
machine for the nex few months.
Some of the things to lok at now might include:
&3
AvsingYou'D wnt t exand your web s tat the Black
Widow efect c wrk for you. The best adveng i always wr
of mouth fom sted customer. On top of this, fe publidty
fm prduct news re, f prmoton, and s on, can be
cmbined wth a limited amount of sc display or cs fed ads.
Always include the prce in any ad.
We'D be loking at ads in a bit more detil later.
Many of the obvious places t adverse simply aren't wr the
bother. WhOe smaD, sucdnct csfed ads put in limitd dulaton,
spedal interest maganes can b useful, the sme is generaDy not
te of mas-distbuton high caton magaznes without a sp
dfc audience. D the many "Ge rch quick wth clasifed
ads" rps the usual respnse to a tpical mas marke ad i ver lo
and oftn mied away fm te pople you need as client.
Mt a made wr by the fact tat few pople bother t rad
aD the classifed ads, and that s many sm ar astd w
t t of ad.
Your formost ad rle should be t t eerhing you do on a
smaD scale, and g only wth the stuf you know wrks.
The biggies in csd and direct maO have thes rle of
thumb to perent respnse to a direct maO campaign is tyi
c 5: 1 diference beteen your costs and the selling prce is
esental, and to-step converion in which you remaO to a
"fee detOs" ad is a a must Somehow these rle of surival
for t t of adveng seems contry to what we are out to do
wth a money machine. Tr them, and you are only rnning doDar
arund and around at your customer's expense and your psychic
enery.
Telehoneexander Grham Kematski's rle sts that any
thing you do with the phone company wiD cost you three tmes
what you exect. Simply using your home phone can be the bes,
providing it doesn't swamp out a party line. You can put an exten
sion phone anywher, not just in the sme bUilding. It can go down
the street or across the countr. The cost, of cours, goes up with
the distance. Th phone company usually won't let you u a busi
ness listng on a home phone, so if a Yelow Pages ad is needed,
be sure to include the cost difference beteen home and business
serice in your evaluaton.
54
One trck to minimize long distance charges that works out here in
the west is to call people at 7:55 AM. You can call across the
countr for 22 cents or so and hit most pople durng business
hours. The other directon, done at 5:05 a works, but costs
more.
You can attach most about anything that won't degrade the phone
system these days and not have to buy it fom the phone com-
pany. Thes include your own extension phones (leave the ringr
out), call directors, dialer, answering machines, computer
modems, and others.
Wat lines ("800" numbers) will almost cerainly cost you far more
than they are worh, besides tying somebody up to handle all the
calls. There's to tpes of srce, outward Watts that lets you
make all sors of cheap calls, and inward Watts that let others cl
you at your expens.
Don't use a phone unless you really need it. I only a few people
are going to call you, list the phone in somebody else's name. This
is the ultimate unlisted number. If you mus us a phone,
remember that you are in charge of it and not vice vers. To keep
your head in the rght place, always ignore ever seventh call or at
least one call per day.
Credit-Letng people pay you by Bank Amercard, Vs, Mas
trchare, o something similar is ofen a good idea. The charges
(around 4%) wll be more than ofset by the number of exta
impulse buyng sles they generate. You are also prtected against
bad paper. Talk to your bank for more details. Most credit card
outfts are agressively seeking new places to accept cards.
Ta Stamps-If you are heav into retail tade, you probably will
need a sate or city tax number. This fees you fom paying sales
taxes on some things you buy loally, but you, in tm, have to
collect fm your customer. The listng also helps your credibilit
when buying wholesale. On the other hand, there's a lot of hassle,
snooping, and paperork involved. As much as possible, gear your
prducts to things that are tax exempt (wrtten and published things
ofen are), or sell out of state, or sell through others and let them
wor about the tax hassles. Be sure to check into the loal tax law
carefully, and keep a ver low profle on any deviatons you may
make fom it. Also check into city business licenses to se if you
can avoid gettng one without any problems.
Post Ofce-Tell them your new name and that you wl accept
mail for it. This covers you if someone forgets to wrte your name
down or gets only a paral address. A pos ofce box is a good
idea. It lets you relocate without changing everything. It is more
secure. The mail gets beat up less. The address sunds more like a
busines.
Be sure you know the pstage regulatons, since sme rates (like
for books) are much cheaper than others. But, there are spcifc
restrctons you have to meet. A be super nice to pos ofce
pople no matter how obnoxious they get. It's extemely imprnt
to stay on good terms with them.
55
A postage machine may be a good idea if you a into malling lots
of oddball things and if an image is important. The meters cos
under $10 per month, but are one more of thos fxed expenses
you should avoid. Usually, you rent the machine from somebody
like Ptney-Bowe and then take it to the post ofce where it gets
"flled" with $99 worth of postg.
For sending or receiving packages, check into using Unitd Parl
Serice instead of the post offce. They are ofen cheapr, quicker,
and more reliable.
Memberhipsf your money machine is heavy into an esablish
ment tp, consider joining the Chamber of Commere, the Rotr,
or things like this. If you're into alterate lifesles us the Briar
patch, crsis center, environmentl groups, co-ops, and s on.
Don't overook loal craft guilds and clubs, as well a professional
organizatons. Al of thes can give you credibllity, informaton,
contact, and, above all, sles. The trck i deciding on any mem
bership is to pick up as much in the way of beneft as you can
without getng bogged down in fees, excess time, or loss of pschic
energy.
gHlng stard-end by boottrpping
By now, your incredible scrt money machine should be up and
working. The only lite remaining problem is that it's sl too small to
suppor you, and you may sl be putng more money and effr into
the money machine than you are getng back. Your nex sep is to
expand the machine by bootsrapping. Generate a lot more products,
add a lot more energy, a whole bunch more personal value added,
and a little more cash. Increas the sale of your machine gdually
and let it contnuously feed on itslf.
A ver imporant thing to atack now is efciency. Some things you
ar now doing are taking too long or are blown on things the customer
doesn't notce or couldn't care less about. On the other hand, there's
some things you arn't doing that are super imporant to your custom
ers. Ask yourslf (1) How can you reduce the time and energ that are
going into your prdUCts? and (2) What are you leaving off that is
imporant?
This lesson was drven home to me way back even before my fr
real money machine. I was into slling electronic scrap and other
things at nearby hamfests, and had picked up fee a decent tube testr
whos only faults were a broken glass face on the meter and a wor
out soket. I replaced the sket to get the beast working perfey.
But, It wouldn't sell. At any prce. People looked at the "open" metr
face and assumed that the insument was a pile of junk. Fnally, I
glued in a 17 -cent piece of plasc to make it look like the meter had a
56
glass face. The tester immediately sold for a then prncely $35, the
instant it was ofered.
Something that wasn't imporant to me tured out to be the key to
a customer's buying. Always watch for this in your own money
machine.
At this stage of the game, your money machine wl be much
smarer than you are. It will almost cerainly want to take you in a
different directon than you had frst planned on going. Usten to your
money machine, and listen carefully. So long as the directon the
machine is headed is consisent with your overall lifestyle goals, follow
it. Do not doggedly insist on contnuing exactly what you set out to do.
Usten and lear fom your money machine, and someday you might
be as smar as it is now.
Avoid dumping in lots of cash durng your bootstrapping. Cash is
hard for a money machine to digest and it clogs up the gears. This is
especially the case if it is other people's money or something that you
have fxed future payments on. Your bootstrapping must concentrate
on generating more persnal value added, improving effciency, and
getng more things out the door.
Always be aler to change. Be able to adjust and adapt the best
match beteen what you initially set out to do and what your cold
cash customers want.
No matter where you go on a bicy
cle, it will always be uphill and into
the wind.
57
J a u ]
q
I J I : 8 u
p
o
l
- u o u 1 U ] a p ]
q
J I : a J 0 1 S J a a a N
FR
Keepin Infrmed
I subscribe to 137 diferent magazines. I do this because thes are
my main source of informaton fow, and information fow is the key to
my money machine.
As we've seen, raw information is the highest energy stuff there is
and the easiest to add lots of personal value to. Your best customers
will be those who come to you as their main and most reliable source.
Even if you don't directly sell information, geting in total control of it
will make your products beter, customer communications more efec
tve, and your money machine more rewarding.
Our next three chapters are going to be on information flow and
how you can control it. This is the "gozinta" chapter on gettng, flter
ing, saving, and controlling information. The next to chapters are the
"comesouta" ones that deal with how to use words and pictures to
deliver controlled high-value-added information to yourself and your
customers.
keeping Infored-tune yourelf in
Actually, everthing you do involves information fow in some way.
The trick is to gather in, filter, and save only the good stuff that will be
useful to you. So, step number one is to think of everthing you do
in terms of information fow. Tune yourself in to gathering stuff
only from those sources you've found to be useful or feel might be
useful to you. Above all, make yourself aware of how and why others
are trying to inform you.
Step number two is to save everthing reasonably useful. So
many money machines are complicated by needless stupidities such
as
59
* Forgetng somebody's name
* Losing a telephone number
* Paying too much for somethig
* Not having the rght tax records
* Having to fnd something over again
* Missing a key detl
Now, how you save things will depend on your parcular trp and
what works for you. I keep a running series of notebooks that are a
cross between a diar, an engineerng notebook, and an address log.
On top of this, I have some fles where I stash useful product informa
ton, a reprint fle of key arcles and technical paper, another fle of
my own past work, a large librar, a small stash for curent work, and
a business fle where ever receipt and expns is metculously kept.
Note the "reasnably" in reasnably useful. It's so easy to let an
engineerng notebook become a work of ar that takes sveral hour
pr day, becoming an end in itslf. Product fles can overhelm you
easily if you save too much too long. Ad old magaznes can gobble
up hous and home if lef to accumulate.
With one excepton, you want to make your informaton sving as
efcient as you can. Keep only the things you are reasnably sure w
be handy to you. Spnd only the bare minimum of tme and effor in
actually fling, wrtng things, or puttng things where they belong.
Always do these things immediatly as you think of them. At leas
once a year, flter what you've sved and either chuck out anything
out of date, or else donate i to a shool, a librar, or smeplace els.
If there is a loal soure of something that's only slighty impornt to
you, don't sve your own copy. A with everything els in your money
machine, keep a sns of sale.
The one excepton is your business receipts and tx records. The
rle here is to save everhing forevr, organized as completel and
nea as you can. More on this later.
Tune yourself in. Always make it a habit to look at things and read
things, no mater where you are or what you are up to. Keep a way to
wrte things down with you a all tmes. Watch, lok, and listen. Above
all, read.
keeping In/ored-avld In/oration sinks
Just as there a sources of informaton, there are also inforation
sink. An inforaton sink sps up inforaton, desoys it, muddies
60
the water around it, or otherise renders it useless. Information sinks
work many ways. They can create an environment where you don't
have a chance to think. They can use up your time. They can put you
in a pasive "acted upon" state instead of an active "doing dogger"
state. They can tell you "that which is not so," either intentionally, as
p of an ego trip, or through plain stupiditv.
Carefully identfy and recognize these bad-guy inforaton sinks,
and avoid them at all costs. Once you star looking around for them,
you'll be surrsd at how many there are and how much they com
pete with each other to rip you off. If you let them, no way will they
ever let you pick up anything useful in the way of informaton.
The worst information sink, of course, is television. It puts you in a
passive, comatose state. It spoon feeds you drvel. It is in total control
of what it gives you. It makes you expect the instant and certain solu
tion to everything in precisely half an hour. It lacks subtlet, degree,
option. It averages you in with the Epsilon minuses. Worst of all, it
rents your bod out to the highest bidder, something that the civil war
purporedly decided was a no-no.
A newspaper may or may not be an information sink. If you occa
sionally buy one when you are after something specific like some ads,
weather informaton, fnancial facts, travel, classifieds, and so on, then
your newspaper is a ver useful information source. If, on the other
hand, you automatically have one delivered each day, meticulously
read the advice to the shopworn, the horoscopes, all of the comics
instead of just Doonesbur, and otherise blow an hour or more on it,
then your newspaper is an information sink of the worst sor. Even
believing the news presented or supposing that this is the only thing
important that is happening is enough to rob you of useful
perspective.
Book clubs are another information sink. They tell you what you are
supposed to read. Technical book clubs are super bad in that they
ofen use only one publisher, and push only the out-of-date, poorly
wrten dogs that aren't slling.
Remember that everbody who is presenting you with information
is doing so to make a proft. It may be a dollar proft or an ego proft,
but it's a proft none the less. Always ask, "Why are you telling me
this?" So long as the information source's proft does not come fom
rpping you of, you're onto a good source.
Look around you today and see if you can't come up with a dozen
examples of your own information sinks that are robbing you of useful
time and useful knowledge. Some more sinks:
* Anyone who does not read
* Anyone who knows not whereof he sk
61
6
Locat. the line cor on the set. Thi i the
wire that gos down and plu into
the wll outl.t.
Qrlly locat. a point on the lin. cor
emetly foureen centimeter fom the
point wh the wir meet the plu. Us
a pIir o shear or other cul to cut
the lie cor in to at thi point. Mak
.. you ,..til holn the cor by
th prn wh you d thi.
Remove the line cord fm the wall outlt
and hol it by th. prn in your
k hand.
.
Dr on or both ""nin pi.c.
Al plitcans
Ayne who do not value tme
Ivor tower t who los reaut
Al slesmen
Ever ad that don't show prce
Al exr and spalist
Ay surce tats over
On your own list of information sinks, be sure to name names and
places. Be specifc. Identf the enemy. Then ignore, avoid, or ridicule
the sink to get it out of your life.
keeping In/ored-the librr Is wher It's at
I almost managd to get through my senior year in college without
ever once having gone near a librar. The only reason I went then was
a sneaky professor forced i on us by suddenly marching us over there
under graduate student guard. Afer sitng through a borng lecture
fom a snoty libraran on the card catalo, we fnally got out. It was
the longest class hour I can remember. It was only well into gaduate
shool that I fnally got into librares and realized how abslutely esn
tial they are to a money machine.
It's a hard lessn to lear, but librares are where it's at. Fnd a god
one and lear to use it regularly and heavily. It should be your frt,
best, and cheapst informaton source.
Now, you do have to pick a good one. For instance, there's a nice
new librar just down the street. It's a quiet place since nobody ever
goes there. And it has lots of books.
For Instance, the book they have on their technolo shelf. This is a
ver interesng 1938 text on air conditoning. It's even an Audel
book-a Sams affliate. They have ver helpfl and plite assisnts.
For instance, I asked one where Bowker's Book in Pnt was and she
nicely told me to look it up in the card catalog. It tured out that she
was sitng on it since the stool was to shor.
You might want to aim your sight a little higher than this. Your best
bet will be a main librar at a major stte univerity. Thes librares are
usually open to anyone, although they ofen disourage children. Most
state residents can qualif one way or another for a librar card if you
want to borow books o your own. Much of what wl b uf to
you in a librar won't be available for loan anyway, s a card isn't al
that imporant.
6
The least useful things in a good librar are its books. Most of them
will be out of date. The better ones will be on resere or out on loan.
There will often be a bias against technical paprbacks. In an explosive
feld like electonics or hobby computers, the books they have won't
usually be of much help. The only real exceptons to this are when
you want to get into some other feld and pck up the basics from the
bes sources. Or, when you need some standard infrmaton that
doesn't change ver fast, such as mathematcal tables, standards, shop
information, and so on.
So, why on earh would you g to a librar if the books aren't going
to be helpful to you? Here's some of the things that are imporant to
me:
* Curent Perodicals-The most useful and curent informaton in
an explosive feld will be in the magazines. The magazines will be in
the librar as well, since they usually aren't loaned out for more
than an hour or to at a tme. A decent librr will subsrbe to
20,000 or more different prodicals, so there's bound to be sme
thing in there for you.
6
If you are totlly new to this tp, star out at the reference desk with
something called Uhrlicht's Perodicals Dictionar, and us the sub
ject guide to narow things to a few dozen suitble maganes.
Then go to the Public Serals List to find what the librr has in
stok. The list will usually be just outsde the counter where you
order the magazines and will be a geat heaping bunch of com
puter prntout, or else a microfiche reader and a handful of cards.
Then smple what's available. Usually you can only get three or so
curent ones at a tme, unles you luck into a librr that stl has
open stack perodicals.
You'll usually fnd older periodicals bound into yeary volumes.
Thes are a ver good idea mine. If s also interestng to follow
these volumes clear back to year zero. This can give you a total
prspectve of where the feld is now, how it got that way, and
where it is headed.
You'll be amazed at the creativity and innovation that early dors
in any feld have. You might also fnd some ver old ideas that can
be easily and proftably updated. A review of things long ago and
far away can put presnt controversy in a totally new light. While
you probably won't get emotonally involved in the eary 30s Radio
News controvery of glass-versus-metal vacuum tubes, this issue is
an instant replay of the "We're going to shoot you out of the sd
dle" versus the "No Way" sides of just about any of toay's techni
cal innovations.
. Science Citations Index-There are reference indexes for just
about any feld. Typical are the Reader Guide to Perodical Liter
ture, Chemical Abstract, the Music Index, and so on. You'll fnd
lots of indexes at the reference desk. While indexes in general are
useful and a good starng point, most of them share a common
fault-you can only go backwards through tme to pick up older
and older material.
Would you believe there is an index that lets you move forar
through tme, picking up newer and newer matral instead? It's
called the Science Citations Index. Ever tme anything is
referenced in the biblography of something newer, it get lised.
Now, ever feld has its early "horss mouth" source douments. If
you are into actve flter, its Sallen and Key. If you are working
with unfoused solar collector, Winston is it. Any competent new
materal in either of thes felds, by defniton, ha to reference
thes paprs.
There's lot of ways to us this backards index. Since it takes a
pretty dumb author to not reference himself ever chance he get ,
you can frst fnd out what the orginal honchos were up to in their
later work. The people who frst reference the soure douments in
tum become referenced by yet newer resarcher, and so on, gn
eratng a list of author who are actve in the feld. At the sme
tme, magazines that ar heaviest in a feld will be referenced mos
ofen. This gves you a clue where to go for brnd new materal.
* Inter-Librar Loan-l librares have an Inter-Librr loan sr
vice, meaning you can borow anything fom anywhere. There are
limits to the serce to keep it fm getng swamped with request
for paprback myster novels, the response can be slow, and there
is some cost involved. You have to look srous and b peristent.
You also have to know exacty what you want. But it does work.
The only tme I happened to need it, the ILL reprnt tured out to
be in Japanese. But, I did manage to get it tanslated, and it tured
out to be some extemely helpfl informaton.
There's a much more fs but expnsive rute to getng mos
any reprnt fm any proic. It's called
Universt Microflms Interatonal
30 Norh Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan, 4106
Se, fr Insnce, the Acu Flr Cokbok (SAS 2116), or T L Wa
Mappng Techniue, Cau Crwlers Gat e, Volume X, No. 2, pl19.
6
and they have jus about everhng sshed on micrfche. T
serice is prompt and teir stok i mind-bgng.
* Cheap Xerox-ound here copy cos are sl a quarer a page,
tke it or leave it Mos librres wl give you a to-pag reduced
copy for a nickel, either through their own srce or on a do-it
yourlf machine. Just this 10:1 svings alone more than pays me
to make the long tp to the libr. Us their machines o serce to
get informaton out of non-circulatng bok and maganes for
your own u, as well as a cheap and prvate way to do lots of your
own copy work.
Non-BooksMy favor here is a complete map fle of mos
areas of the count. Most large librres will a have a flm and
cassete lon serice, a patnt fle, other feder douments, leaf
lets, newspaper, special interes materals, phone boks, yellow
pages, cit indexes across the count, and so on. Look around
and you'll also fnd microfche and microflm reader, tpewrter
rentls, and maybe even a quiet place to go hide.

Special Collectons-Most any librr will have some rooms set
aside to one parcular specialt. The Hayden librr at Arzona
Stte Universit has a solar ener special collecton and an Ar
zona hisorcl room, both of which stock fantsc and oteris
unavailable source materals. The tck is to fnd the librr that has
the collecton you need. Usually there is a master ste lis of totl
librar resures hidden in te offce. This is the fr place to
check.

Serendipit-Aways make it a point to nos into everthing in
the librr. Check the books that are going back on the shelves.
See what's lef on copy machines, look over shoulders, smple
books totlly at random, wander thrugh unloked doors, eaves
drop, and so on. So many tmes, I've found a whole new approch
to a problem or a whole new world of informaton litrlly by tp
ping over it Chance favors te prepared mind.
keeping In/oned-trde magaines
It never ceases to amaze me how many pope never heard of tde
maganes. Just about any feld has contrlled cirulation magazines
intended for a slect group of insider. While they are ofen fee or at lea
reasnably prced to "quafed" subsber, you'll never fnd tem on a
newsnd, they are rrely adversd, and tey ch ludicrus prces t
"non-qued" reader.
6
Typical electonic examples include Electrnic, Electrnic Design,
EN, Electrnic Nes, Digital Design, Ciruits ManufactUrng, EE
Times, Electrnic Buyer News, Telecommunications, Electronic Com
pnent News, Electrnic Prduct, and a great heaping bunch more.
Of this lis, Electrnic and Electrnic News charge a subSrpton
prce; the rest are fee.
Inside a tade magazne, you'll fnd lots of ads for the feld. You can
gt more informaton on thes ads by using the reader serice bingo
card. You'll also fnd lots of technical arcles, but these may be lacking
in quality or keyed to cerin adversers. You'll fnd tade journals
useful to get product informaton and to fnd out what is curent and
what is mainsteam in a parcular feld.
You qualif for thes by requestng a form using your business let
terhead to get a qualifcaton card, and then telling them what they
want to hear. No one to date has been tared and feathered for will
fully and maliciously flling out "that which is not s
"
on a qualifcaton
card. The contolled circulaton requirements are to meet postl regu
latons for special rates. If you are interested in the ads, that's all that
counts to the adversrs.
Many of these ofer yearly directores and special issues that are
exremely helpful in pinning down products and ideas. Any parcular
director prett much favor the adversers in that magazne, so sev
eral are needed for a total picture.
Once you get on a list, or once you borow someone else's copy of
some useful tade magazne, use the reader serce card. Keep the
requests under tenty or s items per card. Use a "chief engineer"
looking rubber stmp with your name and box number on it. Avoid
steet addreses snce you are after information, not salesmen. Oh,
yes, they will also want your te. Put down something like
[S. POD. DE. ENG.]
with a rubber stamp. Make sure your tte is open to literl interret
ton for a wide number of different money machines. Yes, I am defn
itely the head prod of my own money machine. So are you.
Make sure you expos yourslf to every trade magazne that's useful
to your money machine. Do this by personal subsrpton, by borow
ing copies, or by using a librr. Donate your older copies in tm to a
librr, shool, or technical club. On anything you paid for, you can
usually tke a t wrteoff when you make the donaton.
Besides tde jourals, any magazine should have things of use to
you in it. In additon to newsstnd magazines, there are special interest
magazines. Hobby computng alone now has ffteen major magaznes.
You'll fnd thes via direct mail, in librres, or by going to stores
67
where the interst is featured, such as a retil computer store for com
puter magainzes, a food co-op for altrate lifestle maganes, and so
on.
No mater wher you ar, if there is a magazne nearby, pick it up
and read i to see if it can help you. Such obvious places as medical
offces, barbershops, waitng rooms, and so on should be an inters
ing source of supply. Make it a point each month to disover at leas
to new magaines which you never heard of before.
You'll also fnd scholarly heavyweight sientc jourals. Examples
include the Pceeding of the IE , Solar Ener, and thousnds
more. Thes usually cost a bunch and are ofen so erudite they don't
contain anything directly usefl to your money machine. Unless you
want the presge of belonging to these groups, always us a librr or
other "fee" copy to avoid the $35 per year upwar cos of thes
informaton soures.
My own favorte magazines? My top three of the one hundrd and
thirty-seven are M, Co-Evolution Quarry, and The Mother Earh
News. Glad you asked.
keeping Infored-te fed
The federal goverment can be a good soure of informaton. You
probably know by now that you can snd ffen cents to them to fnd
out why rutabagas are good for you. It ts out that 99 prent of
what they have available i ordinar drvel, abject drvel, or can't even
qualif as drvel. But there i s much prntd that the remaining one
perent wl be a ver lare and most useful soure.
Your staring place for just about everything is called the Monthly
Index of Goverment Publications and costs around $6 pr year i you
don't us your librr copy. It, and most everhing else, is available
fom
Superntendent of Douments
U.S. Goverment Pntng Ofce
Washington, DC 20402
Here's a few other federl inforaton sures rve prnaly found
uf for my money machine:
6
Maps and aeral photogrphs:
Denver Distibuton Secton USGS
Denver Federl Centr Bldg 25
Denver, CO 80225
Goverment surplus sales:
DOD Surplus Sales
PO Box 1870
Batte Creek, MI40916
Backpacking and hiking information:
Natonal Park Service
Interor Building
Washington, DC 20240
US Forest Serice
1318 Norh Chambliss Street
Alexandria, VA 22312
US Burau of Land Management
C Street
Washington, DC 20240
Radio and TV regulations:
Patents:
Federal Communicatons Commission
1919 M Street
Washingon, DC 20554
US Patent Offce
Crstal Palace
Arlington, VA 20231
Tax information:
Interal Revenue Serice
1111 Consttuton Avenue
Washington, DC 20224
Standards:
National Bureau of Standards
Gaithersburg, MD 20760
Space technology:
Natonal Aeronautics and Space Administration
400 Marland Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20546
69
Geological informaton:
US Geological Surey
12201 Sunrs Valy Dr
Reson, VA 2202
Since tere's a zillion diferent agencies, your own list of what's
imporant will probably be diferent. Many of the Washington-area
addresss will only refer you to something more loal, so you can
shor circuit this run-around by checking the US Goverment lisngs
of nearby big cites.
The cost of most bulletns and informaton is ver low. Typical prces
are in the dollar rnge. For instance, a copy of any patent coss you
ffy cents. Just order by number.
Be sure to check your state as well to see what they have to offer.
I've found the Agriculturl Extension Serice, the Bureau of Mines, the
State Parks Board, and the state Naturl Resources Council to be use
ful for my own money machine. You'll also want to check loally for
things like zoning and building codes, cit business licens regulatons,
and so on.
keeping Infored-be a book Junky
Your money machine will work best if you are a book junky. You
should have at least a fve-dollar-a-day habit. Ten wl be much more
like it. Some of your main dealers wl be booksores. Recognize that
you'll need several of them. Thes should include
* A technical one
* A name brnd one
* A special interest one
* An escape reading source
* A used and exchange one
You'll also fnd imporant books in non-book stores that specialize in
what your money machine is up to. Hobby computer stores stock all
sorts of hardware and software books. Electonic distbutor have lots
of technical paperbacks available. Wool shops will have a slecton of
loom and weaving books. Tool outets will have books on using lathes
and specifc consucton projects. Lumber yards will have how-to
pamphlets and plans. Remember that a bookstore is a place where
you can buy books, not a building that has a sign that sys "book
store" out front.
70
You can fnd out about new ttles by checking into Forhcoming
Book at a librry or bookstore. Or, you can carefully read reviews in
magazines likely to cater to your needs. Or, you can and should collect
your own set of publishers catalogs. You should also watch the
"what's new" area of the stores you visit.
Should you want a book that's not immediately available, order it
direct from the publisher or fom a large, specialty mail order book
service. Your direct order to the publisher gets processd just as fast as
a local store's order does and fewer people are involved in the transac
ton. Another reason to deal direct is that most technical books are
guaranteed. If you don't like what you get or it isn't what you want
send it back. It's easier dealing with a faceless publisher than a local
store owner.
You can minimize your book costs by staying with paperbacks and
used texts when you can, and exchanging with friends or others with
the same interests. Books used in your money machine can ofen be
tax deducted as a business expens. Out-of-date books can be
exchangd for others at a used store or donated to a shool or
library.
Avoid the use of book clubs and books sold in entire sets. You are
your own best judge of what you should be reading. No way should
you let somebody else pre-package or pre-chew something for you.
ke ing Infored-getting prduct Inforation
If your money machine is in any way involved with hardwar,
somehow you have to locate the bits and pieces you are going to use
in your product. For instance, here are some of the things I've
recently needed for my own money machine:
A sack of fenugreek seeds
A 3/32" end mill
A fetting knife
Sheets of .062 MD flled nylon
* A three stop neutral density flter
A 200 psi, 200 in3min pneumatc source
A 74L60 otl bus tansceiver
A 7-1/2' topo of Dunton, Colorado
A 15 dent beater bar reed
71
You can rn a quick check on how good your product sarch abil
tes are by fnding everything on this lis Nailing down te things you
need is one of the black ar, if you are to be able to fnd things
prompty, with litte effor, and at reasnable prces. Things get even
hairer if you only susect that what you are afer may exst
A good strng place is the trde magaznes. Heavly fll out the
bingo cards and organize and sve what comes back. Pay special
atenton to outts who give you prces in their ads. Sources that you
have to retur to to fnd out how much something cost, or ones that
send you a slesman instead, are by defnition prced out of your
market.
The tade magazines will often issue a yearly director or buyer
guide. Electonic examples are the EEM Master, the Gold Book, and
the Electronic Buyer Guide. Thes have who-makes-what sectons
and where-who-is sectons, along with the usual ads. For heavy read
ing* there's always the old standby Thomas Registr of Manufactur
er in most librres.
Tr to fnd the major disibutor or direct mail warehousing outfts
and collect their catalogs as well. Some examples include McMastr
Car for tools and industal supplies; WW Grainger for motors and
controls; Small Par for mechanical stock; Newark, Allied, Burin
Applebee, or Cramer for old-line distrbutor-type eleconic pars;
Advance for silk sreen stuff; Alvin for drafng and drawing materals;
Forestr Supplies for Woodsy Owl costumes; Cadilliac for indusal
plascs; Ficher Scientifc for expensive chemicals; and Jensn Tool for
electronic tools. You'll probably have your own favorites, so build up
as complete a catalog file as you can.
Be sure to check the popular "access" catalogs. The frst and best
are the Whole Earh Catalog, the Whole Earh Epilog, and the contnu
ing updates in Co-Evolution Quarrly. There are a host of rp-off imi
tators of varing qualit. Two more recent and useful acces guides are
The Catalog of Kit and Plans and The Mail Order Crf Catlog.
Look carefully for surplus and cut rte outfts. In computer elec
tronics, there are usually to tes. The frst sells qualit name brnd
components with full guarantees at prces well under those of fran
chised "old line" distrbutors. The second type offers "as is" seconds
and distress stock at far lower prces. With the second tpe, you buys
your tcket and you tkes your chance. Pars fom thes super-cheap
sources are useful to lear on and to build things for yourlf, but they
should never be designed into something that goes out the dor, since
the source may dr up or go sour. Both tpes of sores usualy have
full page ads in the backs of the hobby electonics magaines. For
mechanical surplus check out the ads tat appear in Popular Science,
Mechanix lI ustrted, and Popular Mechanic.
Svera hundrd punds worh
72
Check your loal sources and get familiar with what they have. Use
the Yellow Page, and the alterate People's Yellow Pages. Watch
your local feebie Wite Sheet, Pennysaver, Green Sheet, o what
ever. Don't forget Sears. Above all fnd yourself a decent hardware
store and a large hobby shop. Visit all the local junkyards and dumps,
and pin down exacty what they have to offer.
But, if what you need isn't immediately available at the prce you
want, order direct to the manufactrer, and do it yourself. It always
turs out cheaper to do things yourself, working direct, than it is to
have somebody loally order something for you. It's always much
qUicker. On real heavy items, make sure your svings by orderng
across the count aren't offset by stf shipping charges. It may stll be
faster, but you might not sve as much as you thought you were going
to.
If you ar given the choice beteen getng a dos of Bubonic
Plague or tlking to a slesman or manufacturer's rep, tke the plague.
You'll be way ahead. It pains me no end to have to t to lok credible
to some insecure slesman or rep while you t to get a few dollar
pars to t out a new design. They wll either ignore you if there isn't
enough in it for them, or hound you if there is.
You should also avoid ever receiving any obviously exensive fee
smples. Either much will be expected of you in retur, stngs will be
atached, or the smples are being given to you in hopes that you will
use them instead of their compettor's beter and much cheaper
approach to the sme problem. Sample requests are in order when
what you need is some low cost item normally shipped only in large
quanttes and costng far less than the usual minimum factor
billing.
Get in the habit of contnuously requestng catlos and product
informaton. Send fve leters or more a week. Use your business let
terhead, and always make specifc requests. Ask for prcing in reason
ably high quanttes to get their interest. Always wte to the main
plant, not to a loal rep.
Some of the replies you get will be outrageous and should be
famed for their humor value. Recently, I got a slenoid quote in
which they wanted $250 for a usually fee smple, and $10 for the
beas in 25,000 lots. You can get beter solenoids than their for a
dollar in singles on the surplus market. Other replies will be reasonable
and useful. Save thes and us them for your product soures.
If you are having an unreasnably difcult tme nailing some prod
uct down, maybe you should scrap this route and pick another. Some
things sem to always be expensive, and for no apparent reasons.
Anything optical, microwave, hydraulic or involving fow meters,
lasrs, pressure transducers or humidit sensors is almost guaranteed
to be prced insnely high. If you can't fnd what you need in bargain
73
catalogs like Edmund Scientifc or Airre Sale, chances ar you wl
fnd the ent fee int thes areas too stf.
Always ask yourelf if there isn't a beter, cheapr, or easier way
when digging out your own prduct soures.
keeping Infored-st In schoo' forver
School should not be something that is tured on for the fr few
years of your life and then swthed off and forotten. Your whole life
should be an educatonal and schooling process. The mor you le
and the beter you lear it, the beter wll be your smng of money
machines. A wth anything else, the tck is to feret out what is usfl
fom the rpoff.
You can easily argue for or agains a formal college educaton. The
benefts include a sheet of paper that gives you crdibility, the fact that
you lea to think for yourself, gain the ability to independently com
plete things on your own, and fnd a route to recogning how and
why you are being rpped off. The value of thes last three itms can
not be overemphasied. They ar super-imporant for any money
machine, and exmely har t pick up elswhere. Unforunately,
thes ofen won't develop untl well into a Master's level prm.
The liabUites include a ver high cost, the bad vibes of sme inane
courses taught by bumbling incompetents, and the loss of six or more
years while others are plunging fl speed ahead with their money
machines.
Correspondence courses can also be a ver bad rpf. Tre, for
some people in very unusual situatons, they wl prove of value. But
thes pople would be much furher ahead if they changed the s
situaton instead. The thinly disguisd main purps of electnic cor
respondence shools is to get the goverment to buy fee color T
sets for veterans, nothing more. Due to limited cash fow, the quality of
instucton is low, and a student failing is almost unhear of. Many of
the shols ar of, by, and for losrs.
If you have been exposed to "formal" educaton, fne. Make the
most of it. If not, Immediatly st up your own self-study progm,
arranging your curculum to agree with what your money machine
wl need. And contnue i forever.
Ver usful typs of coures are the special interst ones tught on
the junior colleg level by doing dogger par time instuctors. Of some
250 plus credit hours so far, including master's level work in to felds,
my four most valuable cours have been
74
* Typing
* Technical Illustraton
* Magazine Arcle Wrtng
* Basic Photography
It turs out one of these was a high school course, one junior college,
one universit level, and one a prvate and informal school. But similar
things are regularly offered at most junior college and contnuing edu
caton schools.
The frst of these courses was free, while the others averaged $30
each. They have paid for themselves thousands and thousands of
tmes over. On the other hand, I've yet to use Rademacher transforms
in solving ffth order paral differental equatons, or found a really
good use for an ecoloical interretaton of Adena settement paters,
despite their very high dollar and energy cost to me.
Something that's sure to surrs you is that the first few minutes of
any new coure will be as valuable to you as the whole rest of it put
together. It's durng this "first encounter" tme that you lear new
insights and tade secrets, professional inside ways of doing things, and
a whole new ball game in general. So, watch for thes crcial
moments and extact everything you can from them.
Another key to educaton is that hands-on work is far more impor
tant to you than theor. Use, practce, and apply what you lear con
tnually. No matter how many computer programming books you've
read, you have accomplished nothing tll you hang up the machine in
a peranant loop, or output contnuous "form feed" commands tll
the room is overowing with confett, or dump the entr main mem
or, or stnd on the tape while the Teletype is loading it. You are no
freman tll you have your frst structural rebur because of a poor
overhaul job, or have lost a quarer mile of hand-built line by not
going down to mineral soil.
One sure way to lear is to jump into some money machine, only to
fnd out later that you completely missed the basics. There's some
physical law, a legal restricton, or a politcal hangup that makes what
you are out to do essntally impossible. This is called doing things the
hard way.
A far saner, cheaper, and better vibed rute is to use shooling to
infor yourlf of these factors ahead of tme. Find out what it is that
wil lmit you doing what you want to with your money machine, and
then either avoid the limits or recognize that you have a problem that
can't be solved. At least not without a bunch of bad vibes and a los of
pschic ener. Let's look at some gotchas:
75
S many alterate ener pople either never heard of the laws of
theroynamic or else they exct Congres to repal them.
A computer or gme product that gomp onto a T st's antenna
may be simple and cheap, but ther are sme totlly inane, ex
temely exensive, and exmely tme consuming FCC regulatons
that c prevent you fom ever doing so:
The Don't-Rock-The-Bat (DRTB) and the Not-Invented-Here
(NIH) sndrmes prctcally guarantee that you wl never sll big
business on any product imprvement or new way of doing
things.
Change is ofen the last thing that many pople or instutons ever
want to see. This is tue even if the change is "obviously" ver
much for the beter.
Paprork and prcedures c eat you alive i cerin actves.
This is parcular tue of selling to the feds or working with the
"educatonal" market i any way.
Exeralties may nai you to the wall. Just becaus your new laser
stopwatch works beautfully on the bench, don't expct it to pick
speedboats of a rver or see through the dust on a rodeo
ground.
Exng sales and disbuton channels may not opn to you and
may completely dominate the market.
Your shooling should include simple models and experments of
anything you want to get heavily into. The purs of researh is to
use the minimum tme, energy, dollar, and effor to get the effect you
are afer to show up at least reasnably well. Omit this model step and
you wl be sr.
Teaching another is a ver good learing process. Your students wl
force you to organize your materal and then t masr it. They wl
identf what is imporant, interesng, and undertandable.
Don't overlook informal educaton. You get this in rap ssions, par
ticularly those including as many doing dogger as psible. Suround
yourself with winners and let some of their aura sluf of onto you. Join
clubs where you can help others and others can help you. Become a
member of organitons whos newsleter can help and whose trin
ing materals will be usefl. Sop up all usefl vbes, all sraps of infr
mation. Go to high energy senes like tade f, exhibits,
conferences.
Whatever els you do, stay in shool forever. Only, b sure to ver
careful y defne what shol is and how it is going to rrd you.
Make it pay on a cash-and-carr basis. This is your biggest scret to
keeping informed.
76
1
.
. " N l L 6 1 @ / / l d o O
a u A O V / 0 U O ' S W a f p I p p d a H
l n o l a S O l S U ] f J l U a l q o J d
1 1
l
U
5
1 5 U a l q O J d S ] q f J a a a a p ] 5 U [
FIVE
Communications I-Words
Words-on-papr delivered out the dor can be your crucial key to a
winning money machine. Words-on-paper are almost always a ver high
peronal value added prduct They can be a near-prfect defered in
come pruct, contnuing on and on to generte royaltes and future sles.
The sme words-on-papr, or at least similar ones, can be resold many
tmes to many different pople.
Words-on-paper are the key to the control of informaton flow
between you and your customers. They form your image and will be
all your customer has to go on if he never sees you. Even if your
money machine doesn't directly offer words for sle as arcles, plans,
or books, you'll stll need them to communicate with your suppliers
and customer in the form of orders, receipts, catlos, ad sheets,
assembly manuals, pars liSts, thank you notes, or whatever.
Now, I'm not about to sit here and tell you how to wrte. I do frmly
believe that anyone can learn to wrte. This is even true o people with
such severe handicaps as a background in jouralism or English litera
ture working against them. What I do want to do is show you what I
think is impornt and what I think works in using words-on-paper to
communicate. My imporant words-on-paper are mosty non-fcton
arcles, books, and how-to constcton and assembly detils, so that's
what we will center this chapter on. But the same generl ideas will
easily carr over to just about anything you wrte.
Before we do look at what is imporant in words-on-paper, let's
shatter a few myths. Another qui:
It ver had to brek into prnt
Tre D Fa D
79
Te magne arcle market is smal
o Tre 0 Fals
Its just about impossible to get a book published
o True 0 Fals
Reject slips are a psychic energy sink
o Tre 0
False
Al f, of cour. Remember the public srals lis at your librr
fom the las chapter? 20,000 perodicals. Asume they only appear
once a month and al need only eleven arcles per isue. That's
2,60,000 arcles a year. Now, ver consratvely asme the
average pay is $125 per arcle and tat each arcle gos 2000 words.
That's over fve billion words worh almost a third of a bilion dolla.
Year in and year out. And, that's only the magazines your librr hap
pens to stok. It dosn't include the zillions of other they don't stock,
books, booklets, plans or paperacks, much of fcton, or things pub
lished interaly, for direct mail, or in other countes.
Mos editor are deserte for anything of value to prnt Each and
eer isue, forever and ever, they have this gng maw to shovel
arcles into. Admitedly, a lot of tes editor are samped with lots of
misnfored drvel and poorly conceived garbag tat ignores totlly
what the editor want or who his reader are. He may be up to his
ear in this sf. But that dosn't st him fom prtly being
shor of go materal.
For each and ever overblown "gnerl-interes newssnd mag
azne that fails, a dozn high ener spcial-us, spcia-inters maga
znes replace them. We've already sen how hobby computng alone
has over ffeen major new maganes that didn't exis three year a.
Other exmples of spcial-interes maganes a Liv Stam; Shutle,
Spindle, and Dyepot; Fr Engineerng; Altmat Sour of Ener;
Califomia Geolog; and WT-The Magane of Gouret Bathing.
There are, of cours, thousnds and thousnds more.
Bo k publisher are in an even deepr bind. Seems the have this
prntng press. It can either eat manusrpts or gobble up interes dol
lar usd to pay for the loans that bought the pres. The pres i for
ever strng for one or the other. Presmen are high paid help and a
god one is prceles. Unlike magaznes, a curent bok l is contn
uously going out of date. Actve new ttes are esntal for surva
So, it trs out that bok publisher are a desrate for decent
materal. Most legitmate book publisher would like sme asurance
fom you that you can wte ahead of tme, like a few arcles in prnt,
whte tht I
8
some sor of tack record of previous work and so on. It's unthinkable
to even want to write a book till you have done this background build
up anyway. The impossible-to-publish myth comes fom people who
either never looked at what a reader wants or think they can write a
book before gettng lesser things accepted and in print.
Ah yes, reject slips. Any time a publisher does not meet your current
market needs, or has too poor a payment record, takes too long in
responding, or whenever you are too busy on things more suited to
your money machine, you may have to send a reject slip to a pub
lisher. You shouldn't ever feel bad about having to send one to a
publisher-it's just part of the everday mechanics of writng.
My own reject slip I send out looks like this:
The market is there and it is desperate for your materal. Let's go on
and see what is imporant for your words-on-paper:
wr-cannot stnd alone; tey mut b Integtd
Int a wor plu pictur plu ar plu laut packag
Most people don't really like to read. A lot either can't or won't.
Because of this, your message must be combined with atactve and
clarfng fgres, arwork, and photographs. Besides thiS, the layout of
what you're presntng has to be atactvely broken up. This is to frst
capture the reader's interest and later to hold him.
Words by temselves simply won't hack it. For your messge to get
acros, you have to integate words, pictures, captons, arwork, and
layout into a complete package. We'll be expanding on this a bunch
81
and looking at the non-word part of your communicatons-on-paper
package in the next chapter.
wor -everthing wrttn mut be your own efor
The object of the game is to maximize your personal value added to
your words-on-paper. Your whole words + pictures + arork pack
age must be your own work if you are to add the maximu possible
peronal value to it This means your own ideas, approach, outline,
rough drft, forat, fnal copy, corctons, rework, and fnal polish,
along with your own correctons of page proofs and fnals.
Stuf rpped off from another source always has aims and puroses
different fom yours. No way can it add to your parcular messge. It
can only dilute what you are tng to deliver. Besdes, anything easy
to get is ofen pushing a second rt way of doing things as well.
What harm is there in lettng somebody who is a "beter" typis do
your fnal copy? Ju this. It i durng the fnal copy that glarng eror
become obviOUS; that omissions and wrong-way-around sequences hit
you over the head; that bits of pieces of fnal plish can be added or
removed. Doing your own fnal makes the difference between
mediocre drvel and writng that has snap, reader interest, and reader
retenton. NEVER omit this crucial step of doing your own fnal copy.
Ther is no one beter than you to deliver your parcular message.
Never collaborte with someone else while wrting. You'll end up
with a many headed monster and a total lack of contnuity ever tme.
It i a good idea to have others read and comment on your work. But,
you should only pick up what you agre with and the people who do
the reading shouldn't feel bad if you ignore them or do the exct
opposite of what they suggest.
wor-must /ll a rder's hidden need
Why do people rad anyway? I think there are four main
reasons:
esap
wish fl ment
ego reinforement
informaton
8
Some pople may read for esap simply because they are bored or
have nothing beter to do. Others will actvely seek out the-buter-did-it
mysteres; Naz-scret-U-Boat-atacks-Bute-Montana adventure; the
eggplant-that-ate-Chicago sience fcton, bored-of-the-rngs fantas,
or crawling-on-the-grass gothics* They may creatvely use this esap
reading as a break fom their usual routne.
Much of humor and entertinment wrtng is also a form of escape
wrtng.
People read for wsh flfllment by picking those magazines about
what they would like to be rather than what they are. Thos in scungy
houses usually read the fancy house magazines. Aviaton magazines
are read by thos not yet pilots. Maybe they can't even afford fying
lessons. Rnancial magazines are read by people with lite to invest
Trvel and adventure magazines are ofen read by people who live on
the 35th foor of an aparment building and have never been of the
block, and so on.
A book or a magazne that is oferng specifc how-to informaton
couldn't pssibly surive on only thos reader who actually build and
u what is ofered. Thes readers are a tny minort. A ver few
other wl modif the project for their own needs. Many wl ignor the
arcle and go on to the next one. But the vast majorty of the reader
wl say, "Gee, that's great; someday I'd like to build one of those," or
"Boy, I'd sure like to have the smars andor tme andor money to do
that!" In other words, the stor wl provide a wish-fulflling need.
Thus, while your stor may puroredly be a detiled nut-and-bolts
how-to constcton project, unless you provide for this wish-fulfllment
need of the maort of your audence, you will los tem.
Reading for ego reinforcement tkes place when the reader feels he
is par of the team. A bugs-and-bunny feak like I am reading Environ
mentl Acton, a corporate polluter reading Forune, a member read
ing his lodge magazine. Al these go to the sources that they "believe"
in and us the surces to reinforce this belief. There is a sady need
to reinforce what people feel is impornt to them. So, your wrtng
must make te reader feel like he is on the team, that he belongs, that
he has done the rght thing by stopping to read what you have to
of .
It sure would be simple 'if people only read for inforaton. But,
unforunately, ver few people do. So few, that they won't be able to
suppor you, te book, or the magazine. Thus, you should always
sve to fll thes hidden needs of esape, wish flfllment, and ego
reinforcement as par of what you presnt Fail to do this, and you wl
los a lot of your audience.
*Gothics always have a dumpy female on the coer crawUng on the gs outde a
Charles Adams Vcoran hous; another charctersc is that the pope's ne are
ten of ine highway ext sgns, e.g. Ludlow Amboy.
8
Two words I stongy believe in are "usr orented" So many bok
and arcles are wrongly wrten
to show the author is an exer
to sll a scond rate produc or approach
to shove a pint of vew down smeone's thrat
to be eas to "teach" out of
Al of thes reasns completely ignor te reader and his need. The
key to acceptble wtng is to be usr orented. Provde te reader
with things he either needs or thinks he need.
wor-should b al the lowst psible levl
Us the sho words you can. Us the simplest sntences you
can. Keep it underandable. Wrte at a low enough level that ten pr
cent of your audience feels they are being "wrten down" to. Eshew
neologisms. Do everthing you can to keep your wrtng undertnd
able and eas for the reader to grasp.
You should also recogni that there are sveral diferent ts of
reader, and t to provde something for each of them. Your avrg
reader wl go through around 80 prent of your materal and g
prety much what you intended out of it, maybe a lite les. The
brwsing reader will only look at the pictures, headings, and captons.
You should design thes to (1) tell a simpler and quicker s, and (2)
t suck the browsr into actually stopping and seing what you have
to say.
The srou student is rre, but you can be his fend forever. He
wants much more than you can give him. You can help him along
with hint and impons o where your sf i leading, along with
source liss, biblioraphies, and other references of where to go for
more.
Keep it smple.
wor-should be trnprnt
Trnsparency is an elusive qualit in wtng. There is no really good
way to defne tnsarent wrtng. Wrtng is tnsarent when the
reader dos n notce he is reading. When he feels the autor is
directy tking to him personally, o that sme magcal surce o infor-
wrte pl whle yu ar at I
8
maton, enterinment, or esape is being laid at his feet at precisely
the level he wants and needs. You've hit transparency when the
reader wants to contnue reading s bad he will resnt any interpton
for any reasn.
If you let your reader stumble over words that are too big or too
snge, you l tnsparency. If you sound cute, coy, or condesend
ing, you'll also blow it.
You los tnsarency if you aim at te wrong reader. One way to
do this is to place a stor in the wrong magazne. Any magane has an
image of who their reader are and what their reader want. This
image wll color and distor the channel through which you are ting
to communicate. Jouralists call this a slant. For tansarency, make
sure your image of what the reader is and want mathes that of the
magazine. The sme goes for any other communicatons channel or
media.
Another way to los tnsparency is to charge too much for your
wtng or require too much dedicaton of tme or enery fom the
reader for what you are oferng. Keep your channel costs down.
The layout and form of the words on the page will also change the
tnsparency. Atctve breaks here and there make for much easier
reading and much less fatgue. Only don't get the brlliant idea to put
math equatons, long quotes, foreign words, or some poet in as a
break.
Such a break wll be enjoyed by the reader. But, of cour, he wl
completely ignore what is in the break and go on to the text beyond.
Nobody, but nobody, reads math equatons as par of a text. Few
people dig poet enough to sop as well. If things like this are impor
tant to you, st them aside in, of all things, a sidebar. Or a "the math
behind" scton; or an appendix; or smething like this. So, always
give the reader vsual breaks when and where they work in with head
ings, use layout tcks, and so on, but never put anything in the break
that you actually want read. The sme goes for bunches and bunches
of irevelant footnotes*.
Transparency is something you wll have to pin down for yourelf.
Watch your next week's worth of reading and decide what is tnspar
ent and what is not. Then see how the wrters are getng tan
sarency, and how you can use the sme' ideas and techniques for
your own words-on-paper.
word-mut be prona'
To involve a reader, you have to let him know he is par of what
you are sying. The most powerful way to do this is with the word
Who, me?
85
9
o
When you don't us it, imply it. Or use your. For varet, you can
use I and We, but avoid the frst peron I when it looks like your own
ego tp or gets tedious.
Sty away fom the imperonal, third person approach to anything
you wrte. So much technical wrtng turs out bland, dull, and unin
spired becaus it does not involve the reader. If you aren't going to
involve the reader, why should he bother to get involved at all?
Goo wrng should be dynamic. The most common word in the
English language is Uh. Number to is Er. Yet, they don't appear in
prnt ver ofen. Things in prnt always seem to be in neat, concis
sentences. But, people don't always tlk in sentences. So use fg
ments. Wrte like you talk. Combine mosty sntences with other bits
and pieces that can get your point across better. Or more efcienty.
A with many things, fragments are a spice, not a mainsteam way of
doing things. But us them where they clarif or add snap.
Shor paragraphs, too.
If something is "wrong" by English teacher or diconar terms, but
you like it, use it anyway. Someone pointed out to me that the indexes
in the las chapter are supposed to be indices. Phooey. Gag. Some
idiot way back when issued an edict that "data" is always plural. Dou
ble gag. Data Is entered into a regster. Not data are or datum is. Us
it like it sounds good. If a dictonar word won't hack it, make up your
own. like others did with humongous. Or, as a ferinstance, us
fernstance.
May the force be wit you.
Several books back I snuck one over on the proofeader. Would
yu believe Qwert? It's the key arrngement on most tter. We
now have a word with no "u" afr the
"
q.
"
Help stmp out dicon
ares. Keep the language dynamic.
wor-have /on
A good editor can usually bail you out and salvage poor wrtng. He
has t have a reasn to do so, has to have the wrtng solidly sup
pored with good arwork, and has to believe the efor is worh it to
his reader. But, the beter your words-on-paper, the betr of will be
the starng materal the editor has, and the much better the fnal
produc.
You can call the actal arngement of your words-on-paper its
for. Your overll form has to be basd on an approch, a slant, an
angle, a directon, or a point o view. We have already seen how the
meaning "not smal." Named for Hugh Mongus, a 420 pound rvng Unebacker for the
Houston OUer.
87
form has to be at the lowest possible level and how ther have to be
severl paths through the stor for reader of differnt interst.
Obviously, the form must flow in some reasonable dircton. T is
usually fom problem to soluton, from earlier to later, from simple to
complex, from beginning to end. A confsed reader is a gone reader,
so watch the sequence of your words-on-pper ver closly.
Most of the wrter reference books cost money and do mor harm
than good. English books are only usfl to shore up a wobbly desk,
and even then they are dangerous because of the rdiatons they snd
forh. A decent dictonar may be handy, but you should only us it
once a month or so at most. Things like Barlett
'
s Familar Quottions
and Roget
'
s Thesaurs actually are dangerous and do more damage
than they cure. A wrter has a bad cas of Roget's syndrome when he
uses the wrong word in the wrong domicile.
There is one bok that i ver useful. It used to be called 20,00
Wor. By now, the number is probably higher. You'll fnd this bok
at most ofce supply stores. It's pcket sized and costs ver lite. It l
only the words and their hyphenaton. Occasionally they wl throw in
an ultra-simple defniton when to words sound the sme and might
be confusd. Pan on wearing out at least one of thes pr year. It wl
be your most usefl soure and the only wtng book you wl
need.
An impornt rule in wrtng is any word that Is not helping you
Is huring you. If it isn't adding, tke it of. Leave it out. Mos poor
wrtng contins three tmes the number of words needed to get the
messge across. A second rule is to use the specifc rather than
the generl. Use sharp, precise words of exact meaning whenever
you can.
You probably will want to explain all your key points in to totlly
different ways to make sure they are not missed. At the sme tme,
you shouldn't load down your cental ideas with ext detil, nuance,
implicatons, and so on. Keep the main concepts simple. Keep them
direct. Keep them unclutered. Keep anything distctng and irelevant
away from the mainstream.
It's a good idea to alterate heavy and light mesgs. H one pr
gaph has sme stky and hard-ta-gsp technicl de in it eas
way off on the next one. Repat what you sid much simpler or thrw
in something related and ver eas to undend. Pl the rader back
into the mainsam ever now and then. Make him belong or feel
god. Chang the lengths of your sntnces. Some shor, sme long.
Us fgments ocasionally.
One thing that's supr-eas to do is to us the sme wor over and
over again, sntence afer sntence. Or, to keep the sme se,
sy strng each of sven conscute sntnces wth an adverb end
ing in Iy. Wath for thes mind-in-a-rt tp. They bme mo o-
8
ous If you set the work aside for a while and then retur to It. Avoid
staring several paragraphs with the same word, parcularly "I." Don't
jar the reader. At least not :intentlonallv.
The three old standbys of anecdote (tell a story); analo
g
(show
something like it); and example (show what it's good for) are cerain
ways to add reader interest and to clarif your points. Make heavy use
of them.
The best way to study form is to see how others do it. Read every
thing that's already in prnt in the feld you are wrtng about. See how
form helps and hurs the transparency. Rip of the winners. Avoid
everthing else.
word-have a plan
From the frst idea for your words-on-paper to beyond their fnal
deliver to the reader, you should have and follow a master plan.
Your maser plan should be effcient. It should be proftable. It should
work the way you want it to. It should deliver the sharpest, most user
orented messge in the qUickest and best way you know how. Your
parcular master plan will depend on what your secret money
machine Is up to, and where your words-on-paper are to appear.
The staring place is almost always a defned need or at least an idea
for one. People often ask me, "Where do you get your Ideas?" The
stok reply Is "I buy them for ff cents per hundred pound bale in ten
bale lots." Once you tune yourself into gathering informaton, ideas
and identfed needs will beat you over the head. They will overhelm
you. They are everwhere. The problem isn't fnding ideas at all. The
problem is fltering the far-too-many ideas on hand to fnd useful and
proftable ones.
One importnt rule for staring money machines is to keep the ideas
and needs you develop simple. Don't bother with your opus ma
Imus Eighty percent of everthing written Is doggerel or drvel. Aim
for the eighty-frst perentle, and you'll be home free.
Zer In on ideas that slve a reader's prblems, open a dor for
him, enterin him, or give him good vbes.
Once you have your need or Idea, gather in as many hard facts and
useful things about the idea you can. Test or peronally verf ever
thing pssible. This Is one rason so many electronic books are so
bad. The authors simply pas on the ciruits of others without bother
ing to see If they work, or ting to sor out what is useful, up to date,
and Innovative fom what is ground out to promote sme loser com
ponents. Know whereof you spak. B accurate. Check and double
check. Get the facts down. Precisly.
*o your blgle, eier
89
Afer your idea is pinned down, fnd a diferent way to presnt it to
your reader. This is your gimmick, slant, approach, tip, pint of view,
whatever ..
Then, jump in with both feet and sr wrtng. Talk to the reader.
Stay usr orented. Don't worr to much about your lead or the
beginning or the intoducton yet. Since you' do not yet know what it It
is you are ging to say, save the fnal form of the intoducton for later.
For now, just throw together some sr of a beginning. Careflly te i
al the arwork and picture ideas to your wrtng.
When your rough copy is done, sit back and look at it. Take a break
and look at it much later. Is this what you want? I everthing in order?
Do you cover the ground you meant to? Will the reader care?
A good sign here is a hollow feeling, a heaving feeling of inade
quacy. I you a proud of what you have at this point, you are in
deep touble. Rush It and str over.
Now, do your fnal arork, flg some of what the nex chapter
will tll us. Over hal your efor should go into arwork. Complete all
ar, all captons. Make sure the ar tlls a sor by itslf, quicker and
simpler than the text does. Stck the arork up on a wall or a stor
board so you can see everthing at once and in the rght order.
From here, you can go to your fnal copy. Use an electc typewriter,
preferably a corectng Selectc II, with a carbon or flm rbon. Use
bond paper. Do the typing yourlf. B on the lookout for polish as
you go along. Simplif, sharpen, eliminate, complete. Get rd of al
loose ends. Have the stor be complete in itslf.
The nex day, proof your work. Throw away any word that isn't
essental. Take things off with LiqUid Paper and put them back in with
ink. Most editor ar highly suspicious if they receive "perfect" copy;
this tells him that the proofng is missng or poorly done. One excep
ton is when camera-ready copy is needed; this is rare and you'll know
about it ahead of tme. Al your arork and captons wl normally be
redrawn to make them look beter and to "infuse" the parcular
image the magane or other channel is afer.
I some key pint is lef off, throw in an ext pag and change the
numberng to math. If you don't fnd something missing, you've done
something wrng. Have others look and comment. Use only what
they offer of value.
When you get to the point that you feel you are whipping a dead
horse, bundle everything up and'snd it out the door. One place only.
Packag it in a way that it wl challeng the pst ofce to fnd newer and
beter ways to destoy it. Keep a copy and rcord of ever thing you snd
out.
Later on, sometmes much later on, you wl get back page profs or
"galley copies" of what you wrote. If you don't get pag proofs, stmp
your feet and scream and holler tl you do. Demand prof. And
90
proof of everthing, including captions. Make sure everhing is the
way you want it, but only change the things that are cleary wrong,
and make even these changs in the simplest posible way. Changs
at this point in tme are vr expnsive, ver hard, and t lots of
tme. But, if something is wrong, f it before you make a half mil ion
copies of it.
The fnal par of your master plan is a follow-up. Tr to fnd the
respons to your words. Read leter and other feedback. Obsre
results. Us what you have wrten as a bas to expand on fr bigr
and beter things. Find the weak points of your master plan and
improve them. Contnuously.
word-mut sel
Your words-on-paper have to brng nickels back to you if they are
to be of use to your money machine. To get the most nickels back,
you want to spend as few of them as possible in the f place, want to
aim for a high paying channel to put your words-on-papr, and want
to fnd a way of puttng it all together that has reasnable odds of your
making it.
Non-fcton spcial-interest magaznes are often a good startng pint
for words-on-paper nickels. Payment rates for a medium-size stor
with artwork will run fom $75 to $1000, with values just under $200
being average for some markets.
Now, this is no way to hit the megabucks, unless you become both
ver efcient and ver prolifc. You can make things much more inter
esng by combining your words-on-paper into
* a special-interest stor
* a book chapter
* a reprnt srice
* a source of how-to informaton
* a fot-in-the-dor contct
* as a tie-in for royaltes
* as fee adverSing
* to ofer a companion kit
* to promote a direct mail srice
Done this way, the few hundred dollars per arcle gets much more
atactve. Hobby electonics and personal computng maganes are a
91
big and dynamic place to str into prnt, if you are into this sor of
thing. Unforunately, their payment rtes are unconsionably low
tday, actually being less than a quarer what they were a decade ago,
allowing for infaton. But it's a place to star.
At any rate, if you are new to getng in prnt, step one i to fnd out
where your reader are. Study the magazines you subsrbe to or
know about f. Check into a book called Wrtr Mar. It lists many
thousands of places to send words-on-paper, tells you how much they
pay, what you need in the way of arork, who to contact, and so on.
You can also use the public serals l and the perodicals dictonar at
your librr for ideas on suitable magazines to u.
Regardless of where you get the idea for a parcular magazine, you
mu check out a few curent issues in detail. Read the fne prnt under
the mashead to fnd out who is doing what at the magazine. Read the
even fner prnt down below to get clues on whether they buy sf
fom others. Circulaton informaton can be picked up in the pst
ofce-requird notce that always has to appar in a winter issue,
usually December or Januar. The prodicals dictonar may a
have this informaton.
The rasn for all this is to identf the reader you are aiming at
Another ploy is to request both an authors guide and an adversing
rate card fm the magazine. You can only reach the reader through
the magazine, so what you want to do and say has to ft in with what
the magazne thinks its readers want. Reading the ads wl ofen give
you an accurate picture of who the'magazine thinks it readers ar.
There are sveral ways to snd in a stor. Simplest and best is to
just snd i in, ODe place at a time. along with retur posge. You
have to assume the publisher is honest. To not do so is such a psychic
energy sink that it is cerain to lead to bad vibes. Don't sweat copy
right. You are protected already. Mor on this later.
Keep your frt atempts small and simple enough that they don't te
up weeks and weeks of work, fancy arork, secial resarh, or
expnsive photos.
It's pssible to send a quer to an editor to fnd out if he i interested
in something. This is usually a waste of both your and the editor's
tme. The editor would rather see the stor than talk to you about it. A
good quer lettr should be as hard to wrt or harder than the stor
will be anyway. H you must send a quer, keep its length under half a
page and zer in on why the editor's readers have a prblem and how
you are solving it for them.
Never work through an agent. The only known purs of litr
agents is to line up mediocre wrters with nondesrpt publishers.
Agents wl sverely damage your credibilit In any spcial-intrst
market. Stay completely away fom them.
92
One good break-intq-prnt idea is to us fller and ver shor items
of reader interest. Magaznes have a contnuing need for things to put
in loose ends around the issue. If your itms are ver shor, such as
tps and techniques, send in eight or so at a tme. Most of them wl get
accepted, a few retured. If you do put together a dozen things, don't
even send in your worst four. Be your own most crtcal editor.
Decent magazines will tll you almost rght away that they have got
ten your material, and usually pay on acceptance. Acceptance usually
means a month t six weeks. Some cheaper outfts pay on publicaton
and should be avoided. Watch out for any magazine tring to us a
"binder fee" on you and run away fom them. A binder fee keeps
something the magazne can't afford out of its compettor's hands.
They call it "insurance." I call it smething els.
The larger cold cash dollars eventually tum up in the book feld.
Last year, I got over tent tmes the nickels fom book people than
fom magazine editrs. A we have seen, you shouldn't even think
about anything book length tl you ar slidly in prnt with shorer
stuf, well exposd, and well paid.
There are three main routes to getng a book published. The frt is
through a legitimat publisher. These are contcted with a quer, a
complete outline, a smple key chapter, and some clues as to who you
are. They will retur a contract to you if they like what they see. The
contract guarantees they will publish the book if you deliver it to them
by a cerain date. Usually, they will provide f a ryalt that's basd
on how well the books sell. Something like nine or ten prcent of the
retail prce is typical, less for the frst few copies. Wrtng at a fxed fee
for a book publisher is usually a rpof and should be avoided.
There are no charges involved with a legitmate publisher. They
cover all the costs of layout, prntng, distbuton, sales, adversng,
the whole bit. They might even offer you an advance against res.
You should avoid thes advances. If you fail to deliver, or if the bok
bombs, the advance has to go back. The advance is another one of
those fxed obligatons that your money machine should sty away
fom.
A vanity publisher is a diferent deal entrely. You send him the sor
and several thousnd dollar. He snds you back a pile of books you
can sell anyway you like. Thes are the people behind thos too
good-to-be-tue little "publisher desprately needs books" ads in the
back of many magazines.
Vanit press ttes tend to be ignored by distbutor, bokores,
a reviewer. This is becaus s many vanit ttes can't even qua
a drvel, having a totl market of tree copiete autor, his agnt
and his mother. Us of a vanit ofrnt wl hur you when it cmes
tme to promote or sl your fnished bok
93
A thir rout I to sl-publish. You put the whole tp ter your
slf, fnding a way to g the editng, layout, tstg, prntng, bind
ing, sales, and dbuton done on your own. In exhang for al t
hassle, you gt the authors ryalt, the publishers poft, the dbu
tors prft, and the rtiler's prft Not bad.
Thats asuming you ever brak even, whih I highly unlikely. Oh
er, you g the authors los, the publisher's los, the disbutrs
los, and the rers loss. Ver ungo. I you do slf-publish, g
one of the go boks on i, t smething simple f and only
asmble and bind a pron of what you prnt Go luck.
Go old common snse Is the key t slling your wors-on-papr.
A, know who the rader wl be. Wrt directy to and for him. Then,
fnd a channel that gets the mesge fm you to you reader as t
prenty, reliably, and prftbly as psble.
94
The world's largest communica
tions computer had just been fnih
ed. To test it, they programmed
it to translate Russian to Englih.
They input-
liThe spirit i willing, but the fesh i
weak."
Back came--
liThe wine was pretty good, but the
meat las rotten."
SX
Communicions 11- Iages
Images are the non-verbal pars of your on-paper communications.
These can include photographs, graphics, arwork, illustration, layout,
chars, typography, tables, and anything else that looks good and gets
a message across. Your images can be as simple as some white space
breakng up your mesage into bite-sied chunks or as complex as a
commissioned porait or other limited editon of ar.
Since people more often like to look at pictures than read, your
images are a ver imporant par of your on-paper communications.
Let's see what's Involved in geting images working for you and your
money machine:
Imags-cannot stand alone; they must be Integted
Into a wor-plus-picturs total packag
Sound familiar? That's what we sid last chapter only insided out.
Words won't hack it by themselves. Neither will staight pictures or any
other single image form. You have to combine everything together
into an overall package that works.
Half and half is often a good rule. This means half the fnal space
goes for images and half for words. If you are heavy into a word tp,
this means that much more than half your effor should go into the
pictures. If you are a nature photographer or have some other high
image-content money machine, then most of your effort should go
into words, captons, and contnuity.
For most of my books, I personally aim for this 50-50 mixture. My
usual drawings, printed-circuit layouts, schematcs, and graphs won't
lend themselves too well to this parcular book. Instead, we've used
the end-of-chapter cameos, the taphy, the layout, the caroons,
95
and the visual breaks to give the sme efect. Apparenty its working,
becaus you've goten this fr.
On a tpical special-interest magazne arcle, ' combinaton of 2500
words or so ad six visuals can be a good idea. This sys a picture is
worh 416.667 words rather than the usual thousnd. Half the spread
ends up on visuals, half on words this way. ,-
Your visuals should be a mix of diferent images. Maybe an overal
subject photo, a main drawing or shematc; a pars l a detil shown
as a tech illusaton, a how-this-fts-into-the-big-picture blOk diagrm,
and some fancy taphy and arork used for your lead. You
should us as much varety as possible, but make sur that everthing
"belongs" to the overall image trp you ar putng together.
Your visuals rarely have to be ready for reprducton. If they have
to be camera ready, you'll know about this ahead of tme. Al you
usually need is smething clear enough and underndable enough
that one of the staff arist can go ahead and do fnal ar for you
without having to ask his boss dumb questons. In fct, i you do to
good a job on your images, it may even hur you. Here, the editor cn
ripof your stuff and us it diry, rather than havng an a redo i
Unless you are fntastcally good at imags, this can lower the overl
qualit and appearnce of what you ar ting to do, parcuary i
your message has to ft in with sever other in the sme channel.
Obviously, if your main money machine tp is photogaphy, c
tooning, or other gphic illustatons, your images ar your main
product, and your approach wl be diferent than this baanced mix
that works for everbody else. Your main prblem wl prbably be
the words and the contnuit rther than the images .
mags-dw a lne arund some won
The simplest and cheaps visual you can do is to put a box arund
some words. Pintr cl t a box rle. When you do this, you
words chang into visua
pars liss
directores of supplier
chars of vlues
ways to remphase your man pit
graphs
*Evn t dub fo a p o t v
96
end-of-chapter cameos
how-to instructons
catalogs of devices
squences of optons
One of the sneakier uss for your words-in-a-box is to give your
reader something he wl want to sve. Anything of apparept ftr
value to him wl do the trck. All it takes is a "Hey, I can us this!", or
a "This loks like smething I ought to hold on to," and you are home
fee.
The foremost rule of your box-around-some-words is to keep it
clean. Us as few words as pssible, chosn as succincty as you can.
Break long list into easily viewed groups of four or fve entes. Us
lot of "daylight" arund t words and number. S things into
well defned columns, rows, or pargrph-like grouping. Us lines to
sparate if you have to, but t to do the job with plain old whit space
as much as you c.
t .,d
A sdebr I a ver uf words-In-a-bx tk you cn u to prsnt smethng
ou o t msa of your ms.
Sidebr are hndy to gve your rader a shor tuoral bund. You cn
u them to sho alterates to what you a ting to sy. They can Incte
ho yu mesg fts Into the big pure. I you have smething els t sy tht
dosn't sem to "ft" In the main mesg, a sidebar can ofn ban you out
The wrds I a sidebar may b st In fner pint than the main mesg. Fgus
and aror can and should b Included but u only one or t and keep them
vr smple a ver de.
If your words-in-a-box involve computr sofare or lngs, sme
e cauton is called for. Since computers are dumber than pople,
they are ver fsy over ever last litle deil of punn,
squence, sacing, and so on. If at all pssible, have the orgna work
ing computer do your fnal ar. This eliminates the eror t creep i
beten computer, programmer, author, editor, tster, and pse
up. Admitedly most computer prntout look a You can improve
them quite a bit by using a beter qualit prnter to s with. While
your words-in-a-box should always be atractve and radable, you
f goal should be accuracy in the cas of computer prntout
G
rp
h
s combine sveral words-in-a-box with lot more lines. Your
graphs should be ver clean, using only as much resluton as you
*bu sa thn prommer
97
barely need to get by. The thing that's not changing goes across the
botom, while the result gos up and down. Both should be cleary
labeled. Not only "what" but "how much pr unit" as well. Use a
sensible number of divisions, ofen 1, 2, or 5 units. Us a linear gph
where the abslut amount of things are imporant to you; u smilog.
grphs where the prentage changes are o main interest. A one dol
lar chang in a stock wl always be the same size on a linear graph,
rgardless of stok prce. A ten prent change in sok prce wl
aways be the sme s on a smilog gph, no mater how much the
sk c.
If you are going to use sveral graphs, make up a background once,
and then copy it and add details as ofn as you need to. It's reasn
able to chop off the botom of a graph to emphasize only the varaton,
but this gets to be diry pool if you chop so much off that smething
which is only changing a litle looks like it is skyroketng or nosediv
ing. Always prvide an example of sme sor so the reader knows how
to read your graph and then be able to use it himself .
mag-scrt 0/ line ar
Line Ar is anything you want to appear on the prnted page that is
solidly black or white. Examples include technical illustratons, car
toons, arst's line renderngs, ad images, shematc diagrams, prnted
circuit layouts, taphy, headlines, maps, calligraphy, graphs, and
so on. Despite the obvious differences of all thes line a techniques,
there's really only a few key scret rules to use:
Always use a much larger original than your fnal siz. Keep
things big enough that you can se what you are doing and can
conveniently work on small details. Then reduce the fnal s to ft
the available space. A things are reduced, small iregulartes go
away and the quality always seems to go up. But, wath your line
weights since they change apparent size a they get reduced. To
beat this, always work to the same s and key your line weights to
the bes fnal result on your reduced copy. A and layout po
ple oftn work one-third to one-half larger than the fnal. Pnted
ciruit arork is usually done twice normal s for usual layout
and four times normal s where exeme accuracy or close toler
ance is involved.
Always rtrace your fnal arork. This is the only way you can
completely eliminate all guidelines, mistakes, corecons, back
ground problems, ghosts, and so on. Things go much easier and
98
much faster if you asume fom the sr that a fnal clean copy wl
be made.
* Use crtches. A crutch is anything that makes your life simpler,
easier, or less of a hasle. Anything that helps goes. Never mind if it
is diry pol. Only the result counts. Here's a few typical
crutches:
* blue grdded paper that drops out
* a single master form reusd
* instant transfer leterng
* line ar "clip books" and "cheat books"
* using tape instead of ink
* templates
* stok symbols such as PC paters or shading
* an opaque projector
* rpping of someone else's work, then changing it
* a light box for tracing
* cut, paste, and snip sissors draftng
* automatc leterng machines
* phototypesetng
* usng the sme arork over many tmes
* Be Efcient. Show only the essentals, using the mlmmum
number of lines you have to in order to get the job done. If it isn't
essental, leave it off, remove it, cut it out. Avoid any confusion
between things in font of each other by breaking up anything in
back and emphasizing what goes in the font.
A tchnical illurion is one for of line ar. Let's look at an exam
ple to see how these secret work.
99
Here's the way I sn a technica iluston int S:
S"'T
"O"
,,'"e"
1_1
. &w Cli .
WC WI_ eel'
50 ""R"" 'h M
I
Fe '-s, R . 1.cl ..c " I" OlSPL-' ,OTt
This prcular tech illustraton shows you how to reduce the width
of a T display s you can put char from your computer on it. If
you actually look into the back of a set, you'll fnd a royal mes. The
illustaton extcts only what is impornt. On the picture tube, only
the essntal number of lines are usd. Uninvolved connectons are
only suggsted.
10
And here is what they did to it:
POSITION
SPST WIDTH SWITCH
SHORTS OUT NEW COIL
\
\
\
j
NEW WIDTH COIL
50 TURNS 112" NYON FORM
NO. 22 ENAELED WIRE
HOR IZONTAL YOKE LED
Fg 3. Redug t dlspl. wd
Details like the tube mount, the high voltage connector, other wres,
interal gun stucture, and s on are eliminated. Thes exts only confus
and should be lef off. The positon magnets may appear as exts, but they
are usd to clarif another point in the tex that goes with this illustaton.
Note parcularly how the lines behind other lines are broken to avoid visual
confusion.
101
Here is a deail that shos us how the sf ars cleaned up the orgina:
Once again, notce how the brken lines help the clart.
'
Orgnal Skt
h
.
Fnihed Ar.
The drawing stred of wih a T set in f of it, and another tech
illustrton fom a kit manufacturer was used as a crth. Unforun
ately, the other illustraton was at the wrong angle and showed the
wrong things, but it was usful to point out what the essntals were.
The illusn was frt dran on an iometrc grid, strng out with
cirles dawn with an ismetrc ellipse st. Isometc is OK for things
like this, but will look distored for boxy subects. These should be
done in tue perspectve, or els you can forhorn just by cutng
comers to gt the sme efect.
My fnal ar was then taced onto a gdded 8 x 11 sheet. The
grid makes the leterng straight and the borders suare. I work directy
in ink, using only a fneline and a regular felt tp pen. Incidentally, the
only diference beteen thes and a $50 technical fountain pen set is
$49 and the fact that the technical pen set is forever cloging and
making a mess. I you do work directly in ink, space your templates off
the sheet slighty. The old dodge of tping dimes on the templates
works, but is much thicker than you really need for felt tp pens. I u
some nylon washer samples instead. Corectons are done with liqUid
paper or simply sraping the ink away with an X-Acto knife.
A Xerox copy is then mdde of the fnal that drops out the blue
gridding, blobs of liqUid paper, and so on. This is then snt to the
publisher.
Pay atenton to the other forms of line ar you see around you and
see how they apply these sme rules to get good results that commu
nicate efecvely .
mages-fnd a litho camer and u It
There are to entrely diferent types of photography. You may not
even have heard of the scond type, but it is far more impornt to
10
your images and words-on-paper than the usual cameras of the Insta
matic and Polarid ilk. This other type of photography is called litho
photography. A litho camera is usually immense. Many are so big that
a darkroom is built into one end.
Litho cameras are used to ver accurately change the sizes of
arwork. Most often, they are used to reduce a larger original into a
fnal size. Litho negatves or positives are all completely clear or com
pletely black. There is no grey, no halfay. This type of negative or
pos is esental for anything printed anywhere.
So, where do you fnd a litho camera? Well, you can start in the
yellow pages under "lithographers." Or, just ask any printer, silk
screener, anyone into electronic prnted circuits, any newspaper, any
magazine, any ad agency, any art deparment. Since these beasts
usually go for two kilobucks or more, not countng the supplies and
space, it's best to use smebody else's camera. Normal charges for a
routine litho negatve are a few dollars.
My main uses for litho photography are to reduce printed-circuit
masters and overlays fom the 2: 1 size of the arork. These become
the negatives that directly give me the actual prnted-circuit boards,
and positives for silk screens that give me the component callout over
lays. I also use the litho camera for dialplates, decals, instant transfer
letters, meter faces, and labels, using the Scotchcal, Metalphot,
Kepr, and !T systems. Anytme you want t accurately change the
size of something, or make it into something all black or all white, litho
photography is the only way to go.
Unless you know the litho people ver well, make sure they under
stand exactly what you want. Once I was charged $2.4 for the letter
ing front of a single sided PC board and $35 for the circuit foil patters
on the rear. Thinking this rather strange, I asked them about it. They
explained that the front was an overlay that they ran to normal "st
and shoot" accuracy, but that they "always" did their prnted-circuit
reductons t extreme accuracy since another customer into aerospace
electronics demanded it.
Too little accuracy can be just as bad. It might not mater much on a
T-shir, but it can get downrght messy for things that demand more
precision. I had to run some PC boards that had to exactly match a
36-pin connector. If the reduction error was anywhere near half a par
in 36, the pads would shor out. It turs out that the litho guy simply
turned his camera wheels to a big mark that said "50 percent" instead
of measuring the actual reducton. This led to big trouble. I got around
this by giving him a connector and telling him to hold it up to the
ground glass and "make it ft." No more problems.
Always make sure you show the exact size you want your fnal shot
reduced to before you order any litho work. Give them two well
marked point to measure from. If things have to match up, give them
103
a dimension on one piece of arwork and mark the others "shot at
identcal sttngs.'" Beter yet, try to get them all onto the camera at
once and shoot them all at the sme time; then cut the flm up into
individual pieces.
Another imporant use of litho camers is for the halfones essntal
anytme you want a picture or something else with grey scale to
appear on a prnted page. There is only one way to prnt something
and have it tum out truly grey on the page. And that is to us grey ink.
And each different shade of grey wl take a diferent color ink and a
diferent pass thrugh the prss.
Since this is obviOusly ungood, we have to fake grey anytme we
want it Now, this may look grey:
but it really isn't. Magnif it, and you'll see smething like this:






Any photograph or any contnuous tone arork has to be convered
to thes little dot before they can appear on a prnted page. By pull
ing some trcks with a litho camer, you can make a halone image
that automatically convers a photograph into tny dots as needed.
You can do this with a sreen that h a bunch of little holes in it, or
there are sveral other ways. Which way you go, the cos, and the
results depend on the quality you need, what typ of press is in u,
the ink and paper combination, and the number of copies you have to
print.
Usually, a prnter or publisher will do halftones for you, but this is a
process you should know about, especially if you are going to self
publish or work with a small or inexperenced prntng outft. Poorly
done halfones are cerain to give you muddy results.
Imags-gt your own photogphy under contrl
Go old slopping in the slush. I detest photography. Hate. Hat.
Hate. No mattr how hard I t, it always turs out unpleasant. In fact,
10
the only time photography turns out worse than my doing it myself is
when I have somebody else do it for me.
Then it turns out even more badder, costs a bundle, isn't at all what
I wanted, and takes forever.
Being able to do your own photos for your on-paper communica
tons is a tremendous, if painful, way to add personal value to your
products. As with typing your fnal copies of all your words, doing your
final prints on all your photos is a key to maximizing your value
added.
Almost certainly, you should only use black and white photography.
This is what is used in the overhelming majority of everything
printed, for the simple reason that it is cheaper and takes only a single
pass through the press. A lot of what look like color in magazines is
simply second-pass blocks of solid color or tints. So, color is out
unless you are a nature photographer tring to hit Arona Highways,
are into porraiture, or some other high quality money machine that
demands color as part of its main trip.
You should use a big camera. Instamatics won't hack it. I don't like
35 millimeter. It isn't fexible enough, swings and tlts are nonexistent,
and if you crop in the darkroom, you have to enlarge a bunch. Admit
tedly, if you are running Niagara Falls in a kayak, hang-gliding Whit
ney, or dropping EI Sotano, a smaller camera might be an
advantage.
We use a ver old 2Y Rolleifex tin-lens refex camera for scientific
field work and outdoor travel shots. Our main studio camera is a 4 X
5 Calumet vew, modifed for small object photography by a long bel
lows and a proess lens. The most common photo needed here is a
detail of an electronic project or component. These are usually done
on a translucent light box. The light box gives you shadowless photog
raphy since the subject is illuminated fom the front with fash or floods
and from behind with fuoresents. The swings and tilts on the view
camera give you good contol of distorion, composition, and depth of
feld. Hotspots are normally contolled with dulling spray applied ver
sparngly. Sometmes ver white or black things are prepainted yellow
or dark blue to reduce the subject contrast.
There are to recent developments in black and white photography
that have made life far easier and simpler.
One of these is Polaroid tp 665 flm. Now, their ads notithstand
ing, no way is a Polaroid print useful for reproduction. It is far too
crude in resoluton and has a miserable grey scale, besides disallowing
all the tcks you can pull with an enlarger to make a beter prnt. But
the 665 gives you a negatve as well. The negative is ver easy to
scratch and has only a modest resluton and grey scale, but it is super
easy to us and adequate for most routne images-on-paper needs.
The nice thing about the 665 negatve is that it gves you something
105
usable with a minimum of slush-slopping and no darkrom. You a
get a prnt immediately that tells you whether you have made any
major boo-boos. The negatve is proessed by putng it into a bucket
of glop (sium sulfte) for a minute and then washing it In daylight A
hardening step will help the srtch resistance, but you sl have to be
extra careful. The best negatve exosur is 'With a slighty washed-out
print.
So that's half the mess minimized. No more old-style darkrom
tnks, or develop-shor-stop-fx-wash hassles. Al are magically gone.
Some stuff called rin coated papr minimizes the second half of
the mess. Kodabrme is typical. You prnt this papr for 10 seconds
and then tray-develop it for one minute, fx it for to, and wash it for
fve. You then hang it up to drip dr. No longer do you need a prnt
drer or the hasse of washing things forever. Pnt curing is gone
completely. There are fve grades of paper, all with the sme speed
except for to which are one stop slower than the other. Grdes
include sof, normal, hard, extra hard, and ultra. Ultra is litho paper. I
use a lot of it to reproduce printed ciruit 1:1 paters and arork
overlays.
About the only expensive beast required is an enlarger. Besdes this,
a few trys, a tmer, a prntng easl, and a darkroom, and some way
to wash is al you really need. My prnt washer is a Kodak automatc
siphon (around $10) that sits in the botom of a sl shower. My dar
room isn't quite light-tght so I only prnt at night rve added a papr
sfe and a contact printer for convenience, some srens for special
effects, and that's about all.
Ther are a few key secrets to slush-slopping. One is to keep the dr
and wet sides of the darkroom forever sparate. A second is to pay
extreme atention to detail. Keep things clean. Spend extra tme fous
ing. Watch your tmes and temperturs closely. Use dislled water if
the city water is fl of salt or rocks. Don't tr to steth chemicals; u
fesh often.
Once you're into this mes, you'll undoubtedly b unhappy wth
your results. One thing that can help a bunch is to selectvely enhance
prnts as you prnt them. Holding back light where you want things
lighter is called dodging; you do this with your hands or a homemade
dodging paddle. Adding ext light where you want things darker is
called burning: a piece of cardboard with a hole in it is one way to do
this. When dodging or burning, you have to keep moving to prevent
any obvious ghosts or edges. Cut masks can also help. A red flter on
your enlarer lets you see the image without exosing the prnt
paper.
One way to get good pictures is to use the shotgun method. Take
several hundred photos. One or two of them is bound to tum out
rght. When photographing people, don't even bother putng flm in
106
the camera tll you have taken sveral dozn shots and they a ignor
ing you. Watch your compositon. Keep something i the foreground;
never split anything down the middle; don't let telephone poles grow
out of people's ears; and s on. Hold steady. Get the lightng and the
exposure right. Crop close to your subject durng exposure. Crop even
closer when you make your fnal prnt. Any par of the pi not
adding is removing. Contst tends to increas with prntng proesss,
so submit prnt that are slighty thin, unless you want lot and lots of
contras. Use a yellow flter for normal outdoor shots with sy; for
extremely dramatc sky efects, us a red flter or a polarng flter
"tuned" to get the clouds to jump out at you.
Keep concis records of all your photo work. That way, you'll
always be making new mistkes instead of repeatng the sme o
ones over and over again.
'mag-make tpgphy wr lor yu
It's not just what you say that countit's how you say it as well.
The shape and sie of the leter you use, how they are combined
together, and the image they convey says as much if not more than
your mesge itself.
Tune yourslf into typography. Read the Ar Dircr Work Book
0/ Typ Face. Collect all the instant tansfer leterng catalogs. But
note that the later ofen will slighty modif a sandard font and put
their own name on it s you think you have to get it fom a sngle
source. Collect some fonts that tum you on. Pay atenton to other
people's use of leter and see what is working and what isn't.
The partcular font you use st the overall stle. For instance, se
how the style and image go together in thes examples:
Sholry Informal
WlltltD Nineteen lwenties
.lighlU C[PUTER
DIGNIFIED

Ne!vous Stury
107
Things get downrght absurd if you pick excty the wrong font
MJF-! MJ'S i
f I88B
,
S
,
P S8RE
Bad, isn't it? You can also pick fonts for different amounts of
legibility:
Ver Lgible Type Font
N s UII 1 la
You us less-than-perfect legibility when you want the reader to slow
down and absorb the vibes of the font. Available fonts group them
selves into Serf fonts having thos funny litle feet on the top and
botom, San-Serf fonts with usually square tops and botoms, and
decorative fonts that cover just about anything left. The classic srf
font is called Roman; the classic sans-srf one is called Gothic. The
reasn for the srfs goes back to when the words were cared in
stone. It was too hard to get the tops and botoms of ever letr to
come out the same height unles a srf was added.
You can change the sie of the font to math the space you have
available. Font sies are measured in point.
i
s pn
ten pint
eighteen point
tent-four point
thirty-six point
For a given type size and font, we have varous degrees of boldnes,
the rato of how wide the lines are compared to the spces beteen
the lines:
108
Light
Medium
Bold
Ea Bld
We also have a squashedness factor:
Condensd Medium Expanded
And, if we like, we can lean on our font a bit:
or mix cass:
Normal Font Italc Font
UPPER CASE ONLY
Combined Upper and Lower Case
lower case only
You can greatly improve your message by watching your spacing:
Visuallv atractive spacing
Eq u a l o r Me c h a n i c a l s p a c i ng
Po orl y d one s pa c i ng
Your best source for typgraphy is the instant transfer leters you
can get at ars supply stores. There are many different brands. You
can also get expensive automatc letterng machines if you get into
large quanttes of typgraphy. But thes machines cost a bunch, and
you are out as much as $50 each time you change font or size. I us
an old beast called a Vartypr Headliner, mostly for my prnted-circuit
board callouts and overlays. A dis the size of a phono record goes on
the machine t st the s and font; a strp of 35 millimeter phot
gaphic papr is output automatcally follOwing some wet-proess
slush-slopping. There are newer and more expensive ways to do the
same thing. If you are near a large city, you should be able to fnd a
frm that specializes in phototstng srces. Pnter wl ofen be
able to do the sme thing, but at higher cost and with a more limited
choice of font and sies.
10
'mag-watch your advriin
Somehow, you have to let other know you exis. The best advers
ing you can pssbly gt is fom stsfed customer by word of mouth.
The scond best adversng is anything that i fee. You can get fee
adversing by
Sending new product releass to tde magaznes
Wrtng a tech arcle that explains your product
Makng your prduc obviOUsy your wt
a dise sle or log
Getng other to advers your product for
you as p of teir money machine
Havng te promotr o an exston or conference
plug you as par of their promoton
Demonstng at fair and clubs
Ltng your products advers each other
So many starng money machines go completely overboard on
expensive and misonceived adversing. Trditonal ads are sme
thing to only approach ver gingery and then only when they
obviously pay for themslves. Star out small. Us classifed or ver
tny display ads, tl you are sure that you can beneft at all fom
ads.
If you have a really good money machine, y shouldn't need any
ads at all. In my own money machine, I have to UN-adver. I have
an unlisted phone and an unlisted address loated on a snd dune you
can't get to. I rarely answer mail and am ofen away fom any phone
for months on end. In fact, there's lot of tmes when a steep telve
mile backpack or two carbide changes worh of caving is the only way
to reach me. This lets me do what I feel is imporant for the client I
want to work with.
But, that's my tp. Your trp may call for some display adversng.
But, use ver lite of it and test i frt before you commit yourslf
heavly. Small ads that repat ofen usually pull beter than a one-shot
heavy promoton. Watch your cost per thousnd-nd make sure the
thousnd are really pople who need your product and can pay for
it.
Your ads should have a clear and simple messge. They need a
hook that grabs the reader and atacts his atenton. Your ads should
have an eas way for the rader to respond, such as a mail-it-in cou-
110
pn, a reader srce number, a telephone that accept char car,
or smething similiar.
Ad pople have a stok "AIDA" forula for succes. Art g their
AIENTION. Then tell them more to get their INTEREST up. Then
create a DESIRE to act by telling them what is in it for them. Anally
use a respnse coupon or whatever to get thei ACTION.
Have your ads deal with specifcs of what you have available, what
it features are, and, above all, how much your products cost. Tr to
give something "free" or nearly fee away. Things like an instruction
booklet, a director, a handy use gUide, a sample, or something else
you just barely break even on that the reader will think is a super
enough bargain to stop and respond to immediately.
Under NO circumstances should you use your ads to grab a larger
par of a parity market fom your competitors. You should not use ads
to build an "image," whatever that is. Concentrate on spcifcs. I have
this and will sell it to you for so much.
Last, but by no means least, never adveris smething that you
hope will be ready by the time the ad appears in prnt. Art, it won't
be ready. This is for sure. Secondly, you will hack off your customers,
the exact opposite of what your ad is suppos to do. If you aren't
ready, don't tell anyone you are.
Frm Whk Yo Porupine Co
B. KUbn 1977. Worman Publhing,
New Yor, N. Reprnt bvanngment
wUh the publihr.
111
SEVEN
Some Unmte
Now that we've sen some of the key screts to getng your money
machine's inforaton fow under contol, let's go back to the main
sream to se what is and is not impornt in the way of legal matr,
txes, and "investments."
There are to typs of unmat r we should lok at next. Unmater
of the f kind are thos things that other people think should be
imporant for your money machine but really are not. Unmaters of
the scond kind are things so obvious and basd on everday com
mon sns that we shouldn't really even have to menton them. But,
we're gonna anyway.
unmattr-gt It In wrtlng
Anytme you do anything that is going to involve a bunch of your
nickels, tme, or energy, get it in wtng. Verbal promises or under
stood agreements simply won't do. Put it down and get it signed.
Have the wrten words sy what is to be done by and to who, when
and how it is to be done, how much it's going to cost who, and who
gets how much of the spils.
Even a perfectly wrten contact can be goten around by smeone
who wants to rp you of or weasl out of something. But getng things
in wrtng minimizes rsk, and spells out exacty what is expcted.
A contrct i a ver defnite legal sr of beas. It is an agreement
between to pares to do or not do something in the future. What is
to be done has to be legal and possible. Each side has to par with
something of value, called a cnsidertion.
Mos imporntly, there has to be a meetng of the minds. Contcts
cannot legally be unconsionable, letng one side rp the other of.
113
Trouble is that it may take a bunch of efor and hasle to show what i
unconscionable and what isn't.
Always think in ters of a wrten contct whenever you st sme
thing up that is going to cost you in the way of money, ener, or
tme. It's fne to be easy going and verbally agree to minor things most
of the tme. But, sometmes, who you are dealing with-that nice guy
or gal over there-is blatantly out to do you in. Other tmes, the nice
guy over there may not be in charge of others, parculary thos hold
ing onto the bag of nickels. Set yourlf some limit, such as $200 in
value or a day's not-for-fun tme. Above this limit, get it wrten down.
Always and wthout excepton.
It's also real handy to be able to prove that things happened in the
pas. This is parcularly imporant for taxes and real estate transc
tons. This means you should sve all receipts of ever expense you
pick up, both in your money machine and outside of it. When and
wherever pssible, get wrten receipts or other records of what you
have spent in the past. This will also prove real handy in case of a
rpoff or an accident as well, and is essntal if you are going to retur
something that turs out defectve or otheris ungood.
Get it on paper. And keep it.
un mattr-sig nothing major without cooling 0/
Another good idea is to age anything major overight or longer
before you sign it. While most stes do have a law that lets you get
out of many things three days or so afer you sign, this in't quite the
same thing and should not be something you rely on.
There are sveral obvious reasons to wait. One is that you can back
off and cool it and look at just what you are up to. A second is that
you can check into optons and tlk to others for their opinions. The
third is that you might have just been sold down the rver and can stl
back out without any face sving.
An even better reason to age things overight is that it gves you a
good check on the reasonableness or honesy of the other side. If they
try to talk you out of waitng, or give you all sors of irresistble reasns
why your signature is needed instantly, rn away! Immediately. You
have already been had. Cut your losss and run.
The thing to watch for is mild apprehension over your waitng. This
is normal and ofen shows that you aren't being hit too bad. But,
watch out for the yahoo who tells you six tmes over "absolutely-take
it home, look it over, think it out, ask others," for this is almost a sure
sign that you are being fed a snow job. Excessive reassurnces are
almost as good a ploy as an immediate closure-nd can rp you off
just as badly.
114
un mattr-NEVR confnt any gvrment o/clal on
any levl at any time for any rason
There is nothing more dangerous to your money machine than a
hacked of bureaucrat. This applies to anyone in any level of gover
ment. The dogcatcher, the clerk at the post ofce, the building inspec
tor, the zoning pople-ll thes can do you in just as badly and eaSily
as the more obvous bad guys can. Chances are the petter the job, the
pter the prson behind it. Which, in tum, means the more tme and
energ they can devote to givng you a rough tme.
Once again, our magic words low prfle crop up. If you aren't
going to get a do licens, don't let your dog rn. Don't tell the build
ing inspector you are going to violate the code. Or, get him on your
side somehow, maybe by sponsorng his racing team or supporng
another pet project of his. Mordida or Bakeeh needn't be In cash. B
nice to te pople at the pst ofce. Afer all, It's a real challeng
damaging and slowng up all that mail. Don't tell zoning you have
a busines in your home. But at the sme tme, don't be obvious
with a large sign, heavy taffc, or objectonable fumes, noiss, or
appearance.
Keep cool. B cool. Stay cool.
unmatter-don't mess with the eagle
The eagle is the feds. They have a ver long memor, infnite mega
bucks, and all the time in the world to hassle you with. Forever and
ever. Now, it makes just plain common sense to not go buring
crosses on the CIA's front lawn. And groups like the FBI, the narcs,
and the IRS are obviously pople you want to stay on the right side of.
Better yet, you want to avoid them entirely.
But there's lots of other groups out there that are just as happy to
give you a rough time. Let the FCC fnd out you've clipped a home
built electronic game or computer onto the antenna terminals of a T
set without paying the required $3100 type-approval fee for instance.
Or, ask someone with a bunch of employees about a friendly little
group called OSHA. And there's lots more where thes came from.
I've sen sveral people into really good money machines blow
everything they have done by deciding a law is bad and then confront
ing the law and making an example of themselves. No way can you
win this game. The other side has all the cards, all the people, all the
tme, a permanent memor, and all the nickels.
Never mess with the eagle. If you decide a law is ungood or doesn't
apply to you, be cool about it. Never adverise or faunt an overlook
ing or an outrght breaking of the law. Never pick a law to break that
115
enough others already have broken to the pint where the eagle has
his attenton gote.
Leave thos tailfeathers intact. They make lousy suvenir.
un mattr-no lawyer, unles ...
Lawyers are obvously expnsive. Many of them have a habit of
making the simple complex and muddying the water around an isue.
They also have a way of introducing psychic energy sinks and mis
into places where none existed before. Legal proedures are almost
always extemely long and drawn out afairs. So, before you go to any
lawyer, ask yourslf if thes disdvantages wl outeigh any god a
lawyer can do for you.
A good rule i to use a lawyer only when it is immediately obvious
to a diintrestd outider that you will (1) immediately and cerainly
lose a bunch of money or tme if you do not do so, and (2) there are
extremely god odds that this loss can be dramatcally reduced or min
imized with good legal help.
Just because you are mad or have been rpped off, don't assume
automatcally that legal help will let you "get even". If you have been
done in, it's ofen too late. Strng things wl only make maters
worse. Wrte it off and sar anew is ofen the bes route. Remember
that the other side may have a lawer, too, doing everthing he can to
protect his client's best interests. If he can do nothing else, he should
be able to drag things out forever and minimize any recover you may
eventually make.
Let's take an example. It is to years ago. I have just been rpped
of to the tune of fve kilobucks by a coin company that tok the
money and ran. I even had in wrtng the coin company admitng they
took the money and ran. Even I was convinced that this was simple
enough and direct enough that a lawyer could bail me out. So I got
one. And a competent and reasonably prced one. Afer only a few
months, the lawyer got a countersigned and guarnted one year
note.
One year later, of cours, the note is defaulted. More legal acton is
taken. A judgment is sered. It is now to years later and sl no
retur, although inexorable legal prores is defnitely being made.
Legal fees have only been a few hundred dollars s far, but ...
Fr, had I actually received this parcular coin, it would have neary
doubled in value durng this tme. Had I just wrten the debt of imme
diately, around half of it would be "refunded" through busines taxes
not paid. But, by taking an obvious legal route in a cut and dred
situaton where it looks like legal help was the obvous way to go, I
have neither coins, cash, nor wrteoff, and am down sveral hundred
116
bucks and to years tme. No way can the time or the bad vibes be
recovered.
A lawyer can be a good idea for a few limited imes when bad vibes
aren't normally involved. Having one help you with a will can be a
good idea, pariculary if you do not live in a community propert
state. Having one explain a complex contract to you might be a good
Idea. But, if the contract is that complicated, you shouldn't be there in
the frst place. Your money machine should keep things simple,
straightforard, and easy to understand.
unmatter-thlrd par all unpleasantres, ...
Times are almost cerain to crop up when somebody is going to be
unhappy with something you have to do. Maybe a bill owed you is
long overdue. Maybe you simply don't want to deal with someone,
despite or even because of the pressure they are puttng on you.
Maybe you are getting badly rpped off and have to do something
about it. Or, maybe you are simply being led somewhere you don't
want to g. How do you handle these times?
One good route is called the third pary technique. You simply exit
stage left and let some third par clean up the mess.
Two examples:
* You sell a house you own outright and are willing to carr paper on
it, but want to avoid the bad trp of having to collect the rent each
month and the badder one of geting done in. Let a ttle company
carry the credit and collection for you at a few dollars a year. Beter
yet, take the cash and buy something called a Ginny Mae, an
investment into a goverment backed and guaranteed pool of
other peoples' morgages.
* Someone calls you and ties to get you to send a free preprint of
your thousand page new book. You live in a town where xerox still
costs a quarer a page, and no way do you feel that the preprnt
will ever retur anything to you. Simply tell the someone that the
publisher forbids it.
The trck to avoid any unpleasantries is to get yourself out of the
spotlight and put something incredibly harder to argue with in your
place. The absolutely ideal situaton is to use two equally nebulous
bureaucracies or granfallons who can then blame each other and stll
be ver hardnosed. You have just used a third party, or a pair of third
pares, to bail you out.
This to-crossed-granfaloons route hit me wrong way around a
while back, and makes an excellent, if painful, example of how well
117
this works. A savings and lon stoppd paying my hous taxes for
several years. Later I paid for the house and they closd out the
account, not mentoning this fact. Later sll, I sll the hous, and the
county suddenly demands $2000 in back taxes. Queston: who do
you go and beat up?
In simpler problems, just invent some unarguable, nebulous, and
preferably nonexistent third part to gt you off the hok. Some
fernstances:
That's against company policy
I'll have to check with accountng on that.
I think it may be down at the other offce
Legal wll tpe up sme contngncy fee liabilit releas acceptnce
repudiaton deterent fors for you. Who are your atomeys?
Deliver is rnning around 4 week rght now. I might b able to
pull sme stng and shoren it to 39 week for you.
What year were you orginally expectng completon?
and, if all els fails . . .
I'll have to refer it to the seerng
commitee next tme they meet
But, pleas, pleas don't blame it on the poor computer. Any third
party stunt at all but that.
. . . or u te DOT tcnique
Suppos you have a more minor hassle. You want to be totlly
hones, but smply want to sty away from something or stop some
thing fom happening or at leas from happening rght away. The DOT
technique wl bail you out of thes dilemmas. DOT stnds for
Dwel On Trvia
and gives you a handle on things like this. Simply pick nonessental
but apparenty imprant things to tlk about. Worry about detil,
nuance. More blunty, sl and muddy the water.
In fact, the DOT idea is good enough that you should put a small
dot near your telephone as a reminder of this valuable tol to keep
you out of things you want to avoid.
One imporant point Both third-partying and the DOT technique
are defensive measures. You only u them when you want to specif-
118
ically avoid something or keep something fom happening. Under no
circumstances should 'you use thes as an aggressive or offensive way
of handling your money machine matters.
unmatter-no patent
I ver strongly feel that patents have no place whatsever in a suc
cesful money machine. Why? Here are sme reasns for opners:
* A patent does not automatically mean that people will pay you for
your inventon. All it means is that you have the rght to sue sme
body. The ability to collect is something else entrely.
*
Patents cos money and take a long tme to get. In fast turover
fields like electronics or computers, it may take six years to get a
patent on something that is going to be improved or outdated in six
months. This borders on lunacy.
*
There is a whole aura of paranoia and psychic energy sinks asso
ciated with the "stealing my secret" aspects of patentng.
*
There is not one patent in a hundred that is proftable. There is not
one patent in a thousand that cannot be thrown out or severely
minimied following a diligent enough sarch for pror ar in
obscure enough places.
Many grnfaUon-typ corrtons would much rther give their leg
departent $100,000 to bust your patent before they would soop to
giving you $10,000 in royalites.
If you ever do get a patent, anybody in the world can fnd out your
key screts by paying 50 for a copy of the patent.
and, last but not least . . .
If you happen to rally be the t of genius that is tly capable of
inventng a new wheel and beatng the one-in-a-thousnd odds,
the only way you could have goten that way in the frst place was
by having a blind spot that ignores pople and leal details. The
histor of many well-known patent bear this out.
A rather grim picture at bes. Wors yet, a chas afer non-exisent
megabucks combined with the paranoia of a pschic energy sink.
Wors of an, tme and effor blown that is beter spnt inventng new
things or improving what you already have.
So, how do you treat your "patentable" ideas, and ho do you
react to somebody else who thinks you are violatng hi patnt?
119
The best possible patent protection you can get is to pub.
IIsh your key secrets in a national magazine or other widely
circulated joual. Be sure to show all key details, all trade screts,
and spell out all the disdvantages and limitatons.
What does this do for you? Well,
It generates an immediate hundred to a thousand dollars of cash
through the arcle payment, putng you way ahead at the starng
gate. Your idea is already proftable.
It tucks the idea safely away in the public domain, preventing any
one else from patentng it.
It gives you fee adversing that will give you needed contacts and
ways to sell and improve your products.
It sr up the Not Inventd Here syndrome that wll st larer
grnfaIloons to bad-mouthing what you did, rther than rpping the
idea of.
The tme delay in publishing lets you automatcally stay six months
to a year ahead of everbody else working with the ideas.
If your idea is so good that you think it's "patentable," there will be
lots more of them where it came fom. Funnel your energy into devel
oping and using the ideas, rather than the hassle and paranoia of t
ing to "protect" something you already have in a quest for nonexistent
megabucks.
As a general rule, the more you feel your idea is worh "patenting,"
the more useless the idea really is. I've personally seen this time and
time again in my consulting work. The more scretive the potential
client is and the more cerain he is of patentability, the more useless
and worhless the thing he is working on.
Patently absurd, sort of.
Now, how about the other side of the coin? What do you do when
someone hassles you about using his patent illegally? First, you ignore
him. Never confont. Don't forget good old third partying and the
DOT technique.
Secondly, recognize that you or anybody else has the rght to build
anything for themselves for their own intellectual curiosity, and a pat
ent holder can't do anything to stop you. If your money machine is
selling something that clearly violates a patent that you feel would cost
you a bunch to bust, change over to offerng kits of pars, detailed
how-to instructions, raw materials, and so on. Let your clients in tum
be the ones to violate the patent. Only those that build more than one
will be in violaton, and the patent holder now has all sors of third
paries to chase.
120
I al else fail, g fnd sme pror a Rly wl a lar gnflon
hasle you over a patnt It doesn't look go d for teir "Davd-v-Gol
ath" Image, and atcts the atention of the anttst pople. Amos
always, the yahoo who hassles you will have a ver weak patent. I
once was able to show pror ar back to the sventeenth centur to gt
a "new" color organ patent and patentee off my back. The crcial
patent that outrageously priced ultrasnic Doppler burglar alarms
for years and years was busted when ar was found in, of
all places, Liechtenstein.
<
Two of the curent patent paranoia tps involve using phas lok
loop tackers in electonic music and ground compenston in metl
detectors. Both of these have so much pror ar involved that it Is
unbelievable thes two dead hors are stll being whipped.
Solar energ is another feld mired In ptent hasles.
Avoid the patent tp entrely.
unmattr-don
'
t swat coprght
What about copyrght? This Is another area where a lot of ppular
misinformation can cost you lots and lots of nickels. Any legitmate
publisher will automatcally copyrght things for you in your name as
they are published. There should be no charges or legal fees
involved.
To prevent outrght thef of unpUblished stuf, there always has been
common law copyrght that sys thou shalt not rp of someone else's
materal; recently this has become par of federal copyright law, givng
you automatic protection. So, copyrght is esentally fee, frst by fed
eral law before publication, and then handled for you by whover
does the publishing. Even if you self-publish and register your own
copyrght, the total costs involved can be as low as $10.
Being free is about what a copyrght is worh too. People ofen
expect far too much from copyrght. A copyrght protects the exact
form something appears in. It does not in any way protect the Ideas or
concepts behind that for, nor does it stop someone else from doing
something parallel, sor of "alike but different smehow." While a
copyrght can prevent smeone else fom going out and prntng
10,000 copies of your lates book, no way can it stop 10,000 people
from each going out and Xeroxing one copy each of the same book or
the key information in it.
The way around the copyrght protecton dilemma is to make your
product so low in cost that no one can afford to duplicate i on their
own in small quanttes. A $4 to $9 technical paperback is unlikely to
get widely copied. The sme sf in a $40 hardback book is almos
cerin to, parcularly if it's required for a university cour. A $5 cas-
121
stte sofare program won't get rpped of becaus it tkes more than
$5 worh of hasse to duplicate a single copy. Charge $125, and you
are bound to have some piratng. Besdes, you probably wll have les
than 1/25th the number of customers at the higher prce, even furher
cuttng into your profts. Price your prnted-circuit boards or other smi
la things below their cost of duplicaton in small quanttes. This is the
surest protecton you can get
Should you ever really want to copyright anything on your own,
pick up details on how to do this fom a nearby prnter or publisher.
Copyright protecton is a simple and easy thing to gt. It's also ofen a
thing of little value to you.
unmatter-separt Insurnce prtection fm
sucker bt
Have you ever loked at those fancy regional insurance center with
all those expnsive buildings, sulpture, fancy fountains, and so on,
and wondered just exactly where the money came from to pay for al
of it? Or maybe you have been wonderng why many insurance stoks
and bonds are considered a good defensive buy and tend to do well
regardless of what the economy is up to? Ver simply, insurance is a
business whos aim is to make money. They make their money by
taking in more money than they give out, invesng the diference in
the best ways they can.
More money is tken in than is given out by taking as many sucker
bets as pssible. This is done by charing more than the reasonable
odds of something, taking a proft out of i, and eventually paying of
with highly infated future dollars.
One key to your successful money machine is to not get taken in
any sucker bets. Some insurance is prbably needed. But, always ask
yourself what you are getng and how much it is costng you. When
ever and wherever posible, take a much of the rsk you possibly can
by yourl. The whole idea of a money machine is to take rsks to get
a reward. Don't blow a lot of the retur by paying other lots of
money to minimize unlikely risks for you.
For instance, if you must own a car, a liability insurance policy is
probably a god idea. If for no other reason, the hassle you have to g
through without insurance isn't worh it in many states. But, do you
really need collision insurance? Pobably not, parcularly with an older
car. Recognie also that the type of vehicle you buy and how you
claim you are going to use it also will drmatcally change your insur
ance rates.
If you do use collision insurance, always take the maximum possible
deductble wth the fewes possible add-on optons. Don't think of
122
Insurance as completely protectng you. Think of it as an emergency
means of flling in only the wort par of anything bad that is reason
ably likely to happen; absorb the rest yourself.
What about life Insurance? The HR-IO tax dodge of the next
chapter gives you ABSOLULY FREE life Insuance. with no
premiums, no exams, no contngencies, 100 prcent cash value, and
coverag increasing with the value of the trust as you get older.
A scond and even beter route to free life insurance was one of our
key stegy secrets way back in chapter one-lming for defered
income when and wherever possible. This gives you a contnuing long
term source of nickels not needing your immediate and contnuous
atention.
Should you have a heavy morgage or other major fnancial burden,
ofst It wth straight term life insurance. Straight term in limited
amounts for shor tmes may also be a good idea untl the HR-IO
value and the returs fom your defered Income get big enough to
take over.
As a general rule, the harder an agent tres to talk you out of a
parcular polley, the beter a value it will be for you. This is especially
tue if the agnt denies the existence of an obviously needed t of
protecton.
With your home and business insurance coverage, always take the
maximum deductble and leave off the bells and whistles. Set the level
of your coverage to absorb only the pars of a reasonably likely loss
that you really couldn't absorb yourself if you had to.
One Interesting trck is to hedge your insurance costs with some
Similarly yielding insurance soks and bonds. This is another route to
fee insurance, although it dos te up some cash. This way, you recy
cle your insurance dollars and at the sme tme pick up some of the
sucker bet winnings. Clos the loop.
unmatter-stay out 0/ local politics
Somewhere west of the Pecos, in a little desr town that shall
remain nameless, is a collection of some 500 pickup tucks, four
wheel drive vehicles, off-road bikes, snd rails, and even a few more
or less ordinar cars. Of thes 500 vehicles, 499 of them have at leas
one bumper sticker on them that says "SIERR CLUBHIKE
STRAIGHT TO HELL."
The 500th vehicle, which happns to be a V microbus, is owned
by a Sierra Club member. He is a Sierra Club member because he is
We won't even menton Its 834 zpode.
123
one of those bug-and-bunny environmental feaks that gnuinely
believes in the need for protecton and restoraton of the envronment
and improvement of the quality of life.
He happens to be me. O I, or whateer. Now, in a sal t,
eering is connected to eering els.
Is it ever.
And in ways that you seldom might suspect. If i weren't for the fact
that the bumper stcker is a clasic example of negatve adversing that
benefts the Sier Club temendously, fd be hacked off at these po
ple and wouldn't want to do business with them.
Now, fom the loal's pint of view, they wouldn't mind if yu were
a horethief, or even a lying, buro-shotng plecat. They might een
be able to tolerate someone who put beans in his chili. But, a Sier
Club member is something that they just can't cope with. It simply
cannot be. It just does not ft in. It won't compute.
What all this has to do with you is simply this: Whatever politcal
position or stand you take on a high profle basis WILL alienate some
of your customers and some of your supplier. High profle politcs,
parcularly local ones with pople you have to contnually work and
live with, is an absolute no-no for your money machine. DO NOT
involve yourslf or your business. Politcs is less than a zero sum game
that cannot surive if enough accurate informaton fow exiss. Spend
the tme on the informaton fow, and the need for any politcs wl go
away.
If you really believe in something, quietly suppor it as songy as
you want to, but do it in a non-obvous way. Use your lifestle as an
example to others that you are practcing what you believe in.
This no-involvement stance also solves the dilemma of getng hit up
for politcal suppr, especially fom both sides of an issue at once. If
you suppr nobody, it is an easy matter to tell anyone who hits you
up this fact, and they may even believe you. At any rate, they will go
away when they see you are srous.
If you think something is imporant, fne, go out and support it. But,
don't do it in any way that will tm off your customers or supplier, or
in any way that can hurt the long-term prospects for your money
machine.
un matter-watch publlcft
Know the difference beteen adverising and publicity. We'll call
adverising the stuff you are in contol of that will expose you and your
money machine to more clients, sales, and useful contacts. PubliCit is
stuf done by others that seres other needs and that can backfre on
you. Publicit can do you far more har than good.
124
Keep your picture out of the loal paper. Avoid sttements to the
press. Don't let your plans be known. Disourage others from wrtng
about you, your lifestle, or your business. Publicity of this type
exposes you to many non-clients and other tme and energy wasters. It
can grossly magnif and misinterret you. It can lead to a monumental
psychic energ sink. It also sets you up for .. all sors of potental
rpoffs.
A minor point that goes along with all thisnever confont a media
freak head on. You can NEVER win confronting an author o an edi
tor in his own paper or magazine. They always will have the last word
in any media they control. Stay out of the letters columns. Do not
rebut. Ignore them or they will make a fool out of you.
unmatter-u bot Jeweler's scrwdrver and
sledghammer
Tis unmater is the one about cring wolf to often. Or ever. If you
just once send a special deliver letter to ever member of a gran
fallon's board of directors; you will most likely get immediate acton
beyond your wildest dreams. The second tme you t it, they will
begin to get suspicious, and the third tme, you'll be branded a kok
forever.
When you are tring to get something to happen, use just barely the
amount of force that will be needed to defnitely gt result, and apply
that fore at the lowet prctical level and in the most inconspicuous
way you can. The tck is to do just enough to get result and do it
only as ofen as is needed and no more. Then get off everone's c.
If you have to repeat things later on, var your approach and t a
different atack angle.
No matter what your money machine, if you get identfed as a
surce of hassles, bad vbes, or contnual bitching, it is bound to do
you in one way or another. The less often you do something, the
more wll be it impact.
un mattr-a waring on working and living togther
If you happen to like whoever you are living with and want them to
be around for a while, do NOT -repeat-do NOT involve both of you
in the same money machine on a full time, total lifesle basis. Being
around each other 18 hours a day may be nice and fine, but standing
in each other's back pokets 24 hours a day forever and ever won't
hack it. Don't tr it. Don't even think about it.
Teamwork is fne. Complementar skills are a ver good thing for a
money machine and can be almost esental. But, if you want you,
your relationship, and your money machine to go for the long haul, do
it this way instead:
125
* Have one of you be the 100% full tme honcho of a parcular
money machine. Let the other be a par tme honchee, or
helpr.
* Make sure the honchee has a totally separate source of nickels that
needs no accountng for and is in no way involved with the money
machine. The amount needn't be a great heaping bunch, but it
absolutely has to be more than an "allowance."
* Make sure the honchee has their own money machine or other
means of creatve expression.
'
* B cerain that both of you have sparate places to hide and sepa
rate means of esape. Neither of you should need any excuse or
justfcaton to do either.
* Thou shalt never compete directly against each other, hassle each
other, or do the sme typ of thing for the money machine.
* Take sparate vacatons or otheris get away fom each other a
signifcant prcentage of the tme.
* Agree exacly on the opnnes of your lifestyle.
I've just sen two really good money machines fall apar becaus
thes surival guidelines were ignored. In one cas, an outstnding
computer ar money machine was scuttled by being together too much
and a large difference in opinion as to how open the lifestyle should
be. In a scond, a specialty restaurnt, and inCidentlly the best one
for miles and miles around, got into deep touble because the honchee
wanted some money to spend on her own and some tme for her o
use.
In my own money machine, I am the honcho, and Bee is the hon
chee. She dos all the accounting, taxes, papr shuffing, profng,
and people hassling when it is needed. But, she has her own sparate
money machines that include teaching, weaving and crafs, photogra
phy and travel stores, and museum work. Cash fom thes is totally
separate from the main tp and is used anyway she wants. Her
esaps include crwling-on-the-grass books and hiding in the litle
hous we rented down the sreet. Mine include the fre deparment
and splunking. We ofen spend summers with the Forest Serce,
sometimes on sparate rnger distcts, but always apar for long
stretches at a tme.
In your own money machine, always remember tqat to much of
anything is bad, no mater hw good it sems at the time. If anyone
ever feels trappd or stompd on, you are in deep trouble. Pan for
surival. Surival for you, your money machine, and your
relatonship.
126
L I I
' ' ' f n d a ' l ' i m
l U a w i U D O q P u l d a H ' A ' l o A m a N
' B U f y " u O W o M L L 6 l
u
o U ) ' 8
( } 1 ' B ! M o : " " f d n > 0 d m O A " M W O d
:
: t
Z q
I
z a l a z
d U o
:
5 I I a J o
J a
q
l s n ! l s a
:
J t P s l t O
Z
t 5 l J
EIGH
Tax Dodges
One of the really neat things you get to do when you have a win
ning money machine is pay great heaping gobs of taxes. Since you are
doing things on your own, you'll even get to pay your taxes quarery
instead of only once a year. Good old form l040-ES. And, just wait till
you see what your "fair share" of that big old chain letter in the sky
social scurity-is. Why, you're s lucky you get to pay much more
than you used to pay working for someone else. And with zero hope
of ever gettng more than a tny prcentage of i back.
Now, some people might argue that taxes sere a useful puros.
After all, things like supersonic pork barrels, the nuclear travesty, and
chess games with KGB cost money. The ideal thing would be to have
the people that think these things are important pay for them out of
their own pokets, but tll then, you're stuck with a bunch of the
load.
Somewhere there has to be a way to minimize all this. Or at least
your shar of it. We'll ignore the obvious of simply not reporng
income, moving outside the count, or otheris fudging. Firt,
because this violates our imprant don't-mess-with-the-eagle un mat
ter. But, more imprantly, with sme creatve tme and effor, you can
often minimize your taxes much more cerainly, lots more in amount,
and much more legally than you can by simply cheatng and then
woring about it. In fact, i turs out that your money machine offer
lots of unique opportunites to minimize your t bite. The tck, of
cours, is tuning yourself into them.
We'll call a tax dodge anything that minimizes the tme, hassle, or
money spnt on taxes. Ver forunately, the tax law exec you to
aggresively minimize your tax bill. The only gotcha is that it has to
be done within legal or at least reasonably aruable guidelines. Let's
look at some possible tx dodgs for your money machine. Then,
129
we'll tum to the ultmate tax dodge secret that lets you get as much of
your tax money back fom the feds as you like.
t dodge-having a money machine In the /rt place
A busines-type money machine puts you in the nice psiton to be
able to itemize deductons and take a stndard deducton at the sme
tme. With ver few exceptons, anything that is an expens to your
money machine is tax deductble and removable fom your income.
All your materals costs, utlites, rent, opratng expenss, posage,
busines contbutons, and so on are subtracted from your gross
before any taxes are computed. Now with a little creatve and totally
legal efor on your own, you can derve pleasure and enjoyment fom
thes expenses even while they are sering a legitmate busines
purpos.
What isn't immediately deductble?
.. Things that will be around for a while. like machiner. You
can deduct machiner, but you have to deprciat your deducton
over the useful life of the machine.
.. Anything that Increases the value of something physical.
Anything that goes into a building or another capital increasing pur
pose isn't deductble. For instance, a $2000 overhaul of an air con
ditoner is deductble as a maintenance expense, but adding a $200
cooler to a previously uncooled building is not. When the building
or whatever is sold later, the capital improvements are recovered as
expenss.
.. Illegal losses In excess of Illegal gains. You are only allowed
to deduct gambling losses or a dope bum to the extent that you
also declare income fom thes actvites.
.. Stunts that others have abused. There has been so much fa
grant violaton of the travel and entrinment expenses, as well a
home offce deductons that ver restctve rules must be exactly
followed if you are to tap thes as deductons. For instance, tvel
must be overight, prmarly for an obvous business puros, and
a log must be kept. For a home offce deducton, the entir rom
or rooms have to be usd exlusively as your main place of busi
ness, and so on.
What can you wrte of Ask yourelf this anytme you spnd money
on anything. How about a bag of Purna Dog Chow? I you a
130
rnning a kennel, cerainly. If you have a guard do, cerainly. If you
have a dog who Is genuinely uf as a wath dog for your money
machine but is also the family hound, probably half the bag can be
deducted. If you only have a loveable mut or an ole yeller dawg,
forget it.
How about a cavng trp? If the trp Is for a sientfc and non-prft
purpos and has an obvious spnsr, you can usually wrt off your
expnses but not your tme. The sme goes if it is a major consra
ton effor or cleanup in coopraton with a goverment agency. If
you're just going to go out and crawl around underround and get
muddy, forget mos of the wrteoff. But, you can stll deduct your hard
hat since it Is sfet equipment.
Whenever you spnd money on anything, ALWAYS sek a legit
mate business purs that lets you remove this money frm your
income before taxes. If you can wrte it of, wrte if of. If you can
deprciat it, depredate it. If you can capit it, capitliz it. If you
can't think of anything that works, avoid spnding the money.
One obvous queston. What is a business and what I a hobby? To
the IRS, a business has a genuine intent to make money. Normally,
they want to see your money machine showing a proft to years out
of fve. Ther are a few lifestle exceptons to this rule, such as if your
Daddy was a farmer, you are a farmer, you look like a farmer, you act
like a farer, and you smell like a farmer. The feds tend to get ver
suspidous if you exeed this to-of-fve rule and just won't go along
with your forever losing money on your model railroad.
tI dodg-accurt tcon
Ter a a sr of nuances and subtetes in the t law. So
my, in fct, tat grnfon corratons and te ver rch cn u
a sors of creatve sunts to avoid paying taxes. It turs out that s
long as you have an accountng method (no mater how lenient or
absurd), and it loks like you srctly and meticulously followed it, at
worst, the feds can eventually make you pay some back taxes, if and
when they get arund to hassling you over it.
On the other hand, if you can't show how you've done smething
or It looks like you simply ignored taxes, this is faud and a no-no.
Fraud, of cour, comes complete with crminal pnaltes and other
asred nastness.
So, SAVE AL EXPSE RECORDS FOREVER. Some exm
ples of things to sve:
A receips of everthing you buy. Get receipts and be able to
prve purhase even if a hasle I involved.
131
rnning a kennel, cerainly. If you have a guard do, cerainly. If you
have a dog who Is genuinely uf as a wath dog for your money
machine but is also the family hound, probably half the bag can be
deducted. If you only have a loveable mut or an ole yeller dawg,
forget it.
How about a cavng trp? If the trp Is for a sientfc and non-prft
purpos and has an obvious spnsr, you can usually wrt off your
expnses but not your tme. The sme goes if it is a major consra
ton effor or cleanup in coopraton with a goverment agency. If
you're just going to go out and crawl around underround and get
muddy, forget mos of the wrteoff. But, you can stll deduct your hard
hat since it Is sfet equipment.
Whenever you spnd money on anything, ALWAYS sek a legit
mate business purs that lets you remove this money frm your
income before taxes. If you can wrte it of, wrte if of. If you can
deprciat it, depredate it. If you can capit it, capitliz it. If you
can't think of anything that works, avoid spnding the money.
One obvous queston. What is a business and what I a hobby? To
the IRS, a business has a genuine intent to make money. Normally,
they want to see your money machine showing a proft to years out
of fve. Ther are a few lifestle exceptons to this rule, such as if your
Daddy was a farmer, you are a farmer, you look like a farmer, you act
like a farer, and you smell like a farmer. The feds tend to get ver
suspidous if you exeed this to-of-fve rule and just won't go along
with your forever losing money on your model railroad.
tI dodg-accurt tcon
Ter a a sr of nuances and subtetes in the t law. So
my, in fct, tat grnfon corratons and te ver rch cn u
a sors of creatve sunts to avoid paying taxes. It turs out that s
long as you have an accountng method (no mater how lenient or
absurd), and it loks like you srctly and meticulously followed it, at
worst, the feds can eventually make you pay some back taxes, if and
when they get arund to hassling you over it.
On the other hand, if you can't show how you've done smething
or It looks like you simply ignored taxes, this is faud and a no-no.
Fraud, of cour, comes complete with crminal pnaltes and other
asred nastness.
So, SAVE AL EXPSE RECORDS FOREVER. Some exm
ples of things to sve:
A receips of everthing you buy. Get receipts and be able to
prve purhase even if a hasle I involved.
131
On trps and trvel, sve all receipt, plus keep an up-to-dat lo
that shows where you went, when you went, why you went, what
was gained, the business puross of the tp, and how much it
cost.
On any real estte transcton, keep track of all expenss. This
applies to your house as well as any business proprt. Anything
you can show as an expense get capitalized and comes of any
proft (or adds to the loss) when you sll.
B able to show where the money went. Show that materals were
in fact used up, worn out, delivered, shippd, or donated. BUying
things, wrtng them of and then reslling them at a yard sale for
undislosd cash is a no-no. You can get away with a lite of this,
but not ver much. The more accurte your records of everthing
else, the more of this you can get away with.
Be able to show exactly how you keep your records. The type of
bookkeeping in use, the way you calculate depreciaton, the
methods of accountng, your tax basis, and so on.
The more accurate and the more completely you keep your records,
the less basis there is for any arguments with the feds, and the les
likely they are to hassle you. Its extemely imporant to keep your
records up to date. Tax accountng should be a contnuous actvit,
not some panic-mode thing that happns once a quarer or once a
year.
Keep everything forever.
to dodgs-of-the-top bookkeeping ...
This is a tck that gets you to pay your taxes, retrement, and other
fxed expnses frt before you do anything dumb with the money. It
main uss are to give you a more realistc picture of where you are
fnancially at any parcular insnt and to eliminate crsis-mode oper
ton at tax tme.
To us of-the-top bookkeeping, ever tme you get a major check
or other money machine payment, take 30 perent of it and immedi
ately s it aside for txes. Take 10 prcent and immediatly st it
asde for retrement. Take 5 percent and immediately set it aside for
other fxed expnss. Adjust the perentges to suit your own shade of
rality.
Only the money lef is to be entred into your working balance for
your money machine. You cn actually st up sparte account or
132
simply list things under separate columns. If you get heavy into lots of
nickels, then the tax and retrement funds can go into T -bills, a svings
account, or some other shor-term "investment," up till quarerly tax
time rolls around.
For this to work for you, you must keep your cotton picking paws
off the tax and retirement funds at all tmes, even if this puts your
apparent working balance deep into the red.
Just changing some numbers around won't, of course, alter how
much comes in the door or goes out as taxes. But it will gie you a
much clearer picture of what you have to work with at all times. It also
eliminates the bad vibes of a sudden bill becoming immediately due
with no way to pay it.
At the end of ever tax year, adjust how much is lef over or needed
for taxes and retirement to match your expected income. Obviously, if
tax funds are lef over afer all txes are paid, use them elsewhere and
reduce your "witholding."
. . . and the steam caliop fnd
This is another "slice it differently" trick that may help you keep
things in order. It is a supr simple mode of zero-interest forced sav
ings that might be a good idea for a strng money machine. The
steam calliope fund is aimed at building up a small fund that cover
you for unexpected arthmetic erors, sudden small expenses, mini
mum checking balances, tax surrss, and s on.
To star your fund, just round of all your bank deposits t the
nearest fve or ten dollars. The excess goes into the calliop fnd and
contnues to build up, an average of a few dollars per deposit.
Once your bookkeeping is up and you are no longer making stupid
mistakes, the fund will star to accumulate. You can drop it once you
actually have enough money in it to go out and buy a steam
calliope.
t dodg-deprciation
The tx law sys that if something is going to be around for a while,
you can only wrte off a poron of it each year of its usful life. Thus,
for machiner, equipment, ofce furnitre, computer, and s on, you
aren't allowed to smply wrte off the cos of the beas when you buy
it. Instead, you have to calculate t usful life of the machine, sub
tact its slvag value, and then wrte off only s much each year. This
is caled deprciaton.
The bad thing about depreciaton is that you have to do it in the fr
13
place, instead of ju wrtng things of. There are svera god things
about it:
Eventually you do indeed wrte off smething just as if it were a
curent business expns.
You can wrte things off smewhat faser than they are really "usd
u
"
and prett much stay ahead of the game.
Afer you have been depreciatng things for a fe years, a big pack
of old things sll getng wrten of automatcally comes off the top
of your gross before any txes are computed.
Wrtng things of faster than they are usd up in effec gves you a
fee long-term loan fom the feds you can us any way you like.
Since the exact rules keep changing, check into curent IR boke
for the exact details on depreciaton. You a allowed to wrte things
off faster than the obvous stright line method, up to and including a
method called double declining balance. One simple accelerated
depreciaton method is to wrte of 20% immediately and then us
staight line for what is lef over.
For instance, on a $100 prntng press with an 8-year life and zr
slvage value, you wrte of $20 + $100 = $30 the frt year, and
$100 each additonal year.
The advantge of fast depreciaton is that you are wtng of things
before you are using them up, in efect getng a fee loan fom the
feds. The fee loan looks even beter durng high infaton tmes. A
minor disdvantage of the fas wrteoff methods is that there i a bunch
of bokkeeping id. Thanks to today's home computers, this is
no longer a big deal.
But, there is one thing that can get ver stck with fast wrteoff. I
you us fast depreciaton, you have to "recapture" back to stight
line if you sll out. Otheris the feds end u txing you at a capitl
gains rate for fee money they gave you in the fr place. This bends
them out of shap in the wor way. Recapture paprork and cal
culatons are horendous, but are probably worh the effor if you sll
out of smething expnsive before it is flly dt d.
What about automobiles? You can depreciate any pron of a car,
tck, or other vehicle usd for business puross. But, it's ofen much
simpler and more proftble to tke a mileage allowance of so many
cents a mile insead. You should compare both methos and pick the
best one for you. I you ar into older vehicles, lower cos ones, and
ones with god f economy, you are usually beter of tking sight
mileage. Stight mileage wl usually beneft you if the cr i ud b
fr busnes and pleasure.
13
Depreciation can be a parcularly good deal in aparments and
other ral estate rentls.
ta dodge-Investment t crdit
Here is a supr tax deal. In order to keep the gross in the gross
national product, the feds decided that business needs an incentve to
keep buying the production stuf needed to expand the economy. So,
an investment t credit is available on pretty much everthing you
depreciate. At this wrting, this credit is ten percent.
For instance, if you buy a $1000 prntng press, besides the depre
ciation, an additional $100 can be immediately deducted fom your
present tax biO.
In one parcular money machine I know of that involved a prnt
shop, the honcho was able to buy s much prntng equipment that he
totally eliminated al taxes he ever previously paid, thanks to his invest
ment tax credits.
For full credit, the beast you buy has to have a useful life over seven
years. Up to three years, you get nothing. You get one-third as much
for three to fve years, and to-thirds as much for a fve to seven year
useful life.
You can get the credit on an automobile, but only on the percent
age you use for buSines, and only the facton based on how long you
keep the car. For instance, on a $3600 pickup truck usd three years,
half for business, you get a tax credit of one-sixth the usual 10%, or
only $60. Stll, it's a thing to nail down. You can take this credit, even
if you us mileage instead of depreciaton.
Investment tax credit is one of the few all-around good tax deals for
your money machine. Of course, it's an outrght rpoff for people with
out money machines, but that's their problem. There is a possibility
that investment tax credit may be extended to include stuctures and
buildings in the future. This may be an even beter deal, s watch for it
if it happns.
ta dodg-know the difernce betwen absolut and
Incrmentl t rtes
The value of a money machine dollar changes rlly, depnding
on whether it is the fr one or the la one you ear in a parcular
year. Knowing the diference can dramatcally change how you spend
your money, how much things cost you, and your whole outlok on
taxes.
Your absolute tax rte is basd on tking the amount of t you
135
paid, and dividing it by your total amount of txble income. This w
be around 25 to 30 prcent for a succesful money machine.
Your InCr8m8nk tax rte is the tx you pay on ever exces dolar
you ear. This rate is the sum of the fnal "plus __ above $XOO"
rates of your stte and federal returs, with a few exa prcent thrown
in for soial scurt, infaton, and other hidden taxs. It can easily g
well over 50% for your money machine, even if k is only mildly a
winner.
There are lot of ways to u your awarenes to this crcial dif
ference beteen average and incrementl tx dollars:
* An exa dollar unsnt is the equivalent of two you don't have to
ear.
* An ex dollar spnt on some busines purs get combined
with a m dollar fom the feds letng you buy tice a much.
* An exa dollar donated to a worhy and t deductble caus get
matched with a fee dollar fom the feds.
* Time snt provng ext dollar are really deductble pays you one
dollar for ever to you can wrte of. The pr-hour pay can 0
much greater than any other money machine actvt.
This awareness is sr of like welfre for the rch. Here G one exm
ple of how to us your awareness of the diference beteen the M
and las eared dollar:
Supps you knda halfay need a drll pres that is on sle at
$100. How much is it going to cos you?
Now, if you do NOT have a money machine, prce of the drl
pres w be around $105, including the sles t. If you are in an
50% incrementl t brcket, with no money machine, you'l have to e
$210 to py for the pres. hd bad.
But, if you do have a money machine, the d press W coss
around $100. You can eliminate the ext fve bucks with a t smp.
But, since your drll pres is a legtmate bUnes exns, you only
need ear $10 to pay for it
But watt, there's more to come. L0 old invesment tx crdit
You gt another $10 knoked of your t bill for helping the drl
pres company keep the natonal prduc gross. Ten bucks of tes is
th equivalent of tent you didn't have to ear, s knok this tent
of the drill press prce. You have just bought a drll pres for $80. The
eplon minus down the seet jus spnt $210 for the sme thing.
Pay ver careful atenton to your incrementl dolla on top of the
heap. Any workable way you can think of that keeps the feds' tl-tp
ping fnger of thes exes dollar w py you ver handsmely for
your efort
136
t dodg-an HR-I0 rtirment fnd
An HR-10 is als known as a Keough Plan. It's a retrement fund
you can buy into. Money that goes into the fund comes off the top of
your income before taxes are computed. However, later when you
draw fom the fund, you are taxed both on the amount you put in and
the earings. So, this is not a tax-free investment, but simply a good
way to defer taxes for a ver long tme.
You can st aside 15% of your money machine income up to a
$ 7500 yearly limit, provided you are in no other retrement plan. The
plan must be approved by the IRS. You can gt one at a full srce
bank or through sme other fnancial insttutons. It pays to shop
around since the consratveness of the investment and the suf
invested in changes fom plan to plan.
The advantges of an HR-lO are:
It immediately tkes bunches off the top of your income before
taxes are computed.
It is a forced method of rtment svings
You gt fee life insurance through a designated benefciar.
You may end up paying the defered taxes in a much lower
brcket.
And, on the bad news side:
The money I prmananty loked in tll you are of retrement
age.
The money is "profesionally" managed, which means it will have
touble fghtng infaton or increasing signifcantly in value.
I you have long-ter emploees, you must shar your fnd wth them,
giving tem equal ben and opprunites to invest with you.
A fxed, minimum management fee in the early years can be steep,
maybe $40 pr year or more.
Al in al, the HR-10 is a reasnably go deal, espcially if you
contrbute the limit each year and have n6 employees. It's extremely
imprnt to contbute as much as you can durng the eary years to
get the minimum fees in line with something you can tolerate. You can
contbute as much or as lite as you like, up to tx tme of the next
year. Ofen you may have a choice of fnds, prhaps being able to call
out how much Is to go into an equit (stok) fnd or a fed income
(bond) fnd. With sme careful shufing, you might be able to beat
the long-tr infaton odds.
137
sor 0/ a t dodg-the IR
An IR or Individual Retirment Account sounds almos as good as
an HR-10. In reality, it's simply a stunt t keep people fom tking
their money out of a bank or svings and loan and putng it some
where it can decently fght infaton and taxes.
IRA's are available to people working for others if they have no
other pension plan. The IRA is limited to $1500 or so yearly max
imum, which is not nearly enough to ever build up a useful retirement
fnd, parculary with accounts that are indexed to always yield below
the infaton rate.
Stll, an IR does give you a way to tke sme cash off the top of
your earings before they are taxed, provided you can't tp the much
beter HR-1O. But, don't think of it as anything indivdual, for retre
ment, or as an account. It's not.
t dodg-'ncome avrging
Income averaging lets you combine high and low income years and
pay a tax basd on the averag of those years. Since the average is
usually in a lower tax brcket than the peak, you can ofen beneft.
Unforunately, you really have to make a killing in one year to ben
eft from averaging. Students in shool are specifcally excluded fom
averaging. Sorr about that.
You are allowed to average if your presnt income is $3001 more
than 20% above the average for the las four year. How's that again?
For instance, you can averg if:
Average of last fou
year's Income
$5,000
$10,000
$25,000
$100,000
This year's
Income
$9,001
$15,001
$33,001
$123,001
Just being able to average doesn't buy you anything. Your actual
breakeven may be well above thes values. It's only when you ear a
lot more than the allowable amount each year that you can beneft a
bunch by averaging.
Averaging is handy for authors and pople in real estte where they
may suddenly make a bunch of money in one year and litte or noth
ing in other years.
You can average over and over again, ever tme you qualif. Gen-
138
ery, if your prnt income is sharly up, check into avergng. T
paperork tks ffeen minutes and is done afer most other t work.
Chances are averaging won't do you a whole bunch of go, but it
can defniely b worh checking into.
ame m'n.ddg
Her's a quick rndown of lots of t dodges that can b ver pft
. able for you:
Accute infrmation. Any regional tx center has lot and lot
of boklet and forms available. Collect them a. The IRS pople
wl a answer your quesons, but don't bug them in Januat or
Aprl. Get the beter tax guides as well. Lassr's Your Incme Ta
has an index in it that alone is worh the prce just as a checklis to
se what you have foroten.
Contibuions. Donate your lefover and other out-of-dat
stok to shols and your old books and magaznes to Ubrares and
hospal aures. Anyhing else goes to a churh rummage sle.
Get rceipt for the fair value of the suf and deduct a a busnes
expns.
Pfssional memberhlpa. Anyhing that is reasnably rlatd
to your bUSiness is a deductble expns. If you wrt hobby elec
tonics suff, aU the hobby electnics magnes you buy a
deductble, and so on.
The value of tax time. Tme spnt doing your taxes can er you
hundreds or even thousnds of dollar pr hour. Sprad this tme
out into a contnuous and even-tempred press. Don't simply
rn panic mode for a few hour at the end of the year. It wl cost
you deary.
Do yu own taxes. Do not sek out prfessional help. They wl
miss out on the things you can mos effectvely tp evet tme.
They a ar woring for a few dollar, while you a working fr
many dollar on the sme tsk.
Zer deductions. If you tke any tmprt employment, claim
zero deductons to prepay as much si scurt and ts as you
can. It wl sve hassle latr on.
FamUy t&. Shifng income t a husband, a wife, or childrn
can be a good deal since they might be in lower income br
13
But there are al sors of ver stcky rules. Investgate carefully and
then se what you can u.

Gi. You cn tnsfer a gif to your children or other up t
$3000 p year, or $60,000 totl wthout paying any g txes. If
tes gift ar stok or other income producing invesment, the
money stys in the family and generates more nickels for you.
Pick the rght state and the right town. State and loal wage
taxes var wildly as do their interpretaton of who pas what One
author I know lef Albuquerue because they wer interrtng
their inventor tax to include an author's uncompleted wrtngs.
Bad debts. Thes can be wrten off if they are legal looking
enough and you take rasonable steps to get your money back.
Only $2000 mor in debts can be wrten off than you make in
capital gains in a parcular year. The rest can be cared
fOJard.

Child car. Nurser and baby siting expnss while you are
working ar allowable, up to a psible $200 yeary tax crdit.
Scientifc expeditions. Mos ofen, you can deduct your
exnss but not your tme on a non-proft, consraton orentd,
or sholarly venture.

Ener cdit. You can gt a tx credit up to sever tousnd
dollar a y on imprvement that use renewable ener (like a
sla panel) or tat sve ener (such as insulaton). Thes credit
a in addition t the norma cpititon or depreciaton as a
busines exns.
Capital gains. Long-term cpit gains ar (at this wg) t
at a 30% rt. They are thus a ver god del to sek. As no
have to be held at le one yer.
t dodg Uch out lor catch 22
There is one lite thing about tax dodges that you have to wath for
ver crfully. A tx dodge can have any u or purs you like,
exep for one:
A t dodg Is not allowed t be a t dodge.
For insnce, you cn str up a churh bu you bleve i
smething. It cn b the absolutely kokiest churh in the word wit
the mo rdcuous pus. The only pur that i not alowd is
that the churh b s up scifcl y as a t dog.
14
The sme gos for everthing else you can think of-musums, cat
te, oil wells, off-shor games, movies, aparments, whatever. It Is all
rght to use thes things as tax dodges, but they must have some
immediately obvious, defensible, and presumably more noble puros
than saving tax money.
Make sure all your tax doges have completely obvious and legit
mate purpss supporng them.
the ULTIMAT t dodg-close the loop
One of the best kept screts around is that you can get all of your
income tx payments back anytme you like. You can even get much
more in payment back than you ever made. This is how people gt
rch.
The dumb thing people do is apply to the IRS for their tax refund.
The IRS is ver uptght over refunding your money. But, any other
goverment agency will gladly refund your tax money. Al you have
to do is politely ask them in a nice way at the rght tme.
Simply arange to receive money from other goverment agencies.
Ideally, you st the amount you receive to just barely exceed your tax
bill. This is called closing the loop, or simply recycling your t
dollars.
For insance, you spend your summer vacaton with the park serce
as a gUide, with the forest srice as a tree thinner, or even caving for
the burau of land management. Now, you wrte a check and give it to
the IRS in Aprl; they hand the check to the other agency in May; who
in tm gives it back to you in June. That simple.
Or, you might qualif for resarch grants or tap other slush funds.
Or simply teach at a public shool or state university. Ask yourlf
what the feds blow their money on and get in line with the other.
But. Whoa. Isn't the pay for, sy an asisant tee thinner rather
dismal, and Isn't it a lot of hard work, and aren't you really just tding
tme for t dollar, sr of like going to jail for a while?
Well, not really.
Fr of, If you even think of your tme sent as t labor Insad of
a vacaton and a break In your lifestyle, you are at leas seing exactly
what purse your equivalent tx dollar are going into. 'You are keep
Ing thos equivalent dollar out of the hands of pople who wl blow
them on things you don't like or care for.
Even nicer, if your close-the-lop game can qualif as temporr
employent, and I it is a fom your money machine, and if your
money machine contnues on at the same address, and if what you are
up to dosn't look like recurent sasnal employment-t thls-
of your food, tvel, and lodging expnss durng the entre job are t
deductble!
Which Isn't bad at al . Now, If you know the job has to end and you
141
have to b laid of without It bing your ow f-a at te end
of tours sn or the end of f sn, you might even b able to
qualif for unemploment and fo smps.
This could gt tck if you ae te honcho of a $l0,OO-p-yr
money machine, but your honchee may b toty fee to cle
unemployment fom the tme he/she is laid of tlte tme to s bck
into teaching or whatever. No way wl tey gt any jo ofe for te
ting they were ju laid of from snce the sn is oer. Pacy a
tee tinner lvng in the middle of te desr.
Keep a thi a game. Sty scty and abslutel wtin the leter of
the law. Needles to sy, you never tell anyone you are doing tis t
recycle your t dolar. You shouldn't feel bad about th, snce you
are smply unrpping some nickel the feds have rpd of fm you.
The feds don't feel bad about it, s why should you?
Now, the ec way you do t wldepnd on you o liesle. If
you can't think of any other aprach, ju l everthing t fes
spnd money for, and gt on the l Its obvousy of great imprnc
for this method to work that each and ever one of you fnd you o
indivdual and different way of tppng the tl.
Clos tht lop, And keep it clod. Tak yu t at t
tough.
14
NINE
"Ivmens
Eventually, when your money machine makes you flthy rch, you'll
have piles and piles of money steaming in. You may have wondered
just how to handle this problem. Simply lettng the stuff pile up in the
font yard usually isn't the best overll soluton. Beside it being an
obvious fre hazard, this violates our low-profle prnciple and may
even invite rpoffs.
In theor, an "investment" lets you put this excess money some
where to gain more money. A working "investment" is an ideal
defered income product, if it is capable of reliably returing ext dol
lars with litte or no effor by you. Unforunately, we have to put the
word "investment" in quotes becaus
with one eception, ther Is no such thing a a good
"Investment. "
Should a good, reliable and legal way to make lots of money ever
be found, it will immediately be taxed, commissioned, infated, odd
loted, pointed, bid-asked diferentialed, ttle insured, closing costed,
restcted, termite sprayed and otherise stomped upon to make it as
bad as all the rest.
We might call a good investment something that reliably doubles its
value in ten years. The quotes are there because you can't get there
fom here. At least not without a lot of luck, rsk, and efor on your
own.
Two exmples drve this home:
A. To let the magic of compound interest work for you, you put
$1000 in a 5% passbook svings account and let it sit for tenty
years. What is your proft?
14
B. To make a quick buck on the stok market, you g to a name
brnd broker and buy 100 shares of an OTC stok at 7Y Bid. Two
weeks later, the sok gs up to 8% and you sel. What is your
proft?
The answer, of coure, to both exmples, is that your proft is zero.
Your loss in cas A is around $628. Your loss in cas B is ony $26,
but you've blown the money 520 tmes as fas.
For the compound interest example, let's assume your de-facto
incrementl tx rte is only 50%, and that, by some mircle, infaton
can be held to only a 7Y percent averge over the nex tent years.
Well, let's se. Each year, you ear 2Y percent on your account snce
half of the interes is txed as ordinar income. This chops your per
snal infaton rte to a mere 5 percent a year, which drops te pur
chasing power of your $1000 to $372 in twent year, leaving you
with a net loss of $628.
On the sok tnscton, snce you bought OTC, te bid-ask dif
ferental was probably around half a point, meaning you buy a sok
slling at 7Y bid at an ask prce of 8. The one-way commisson with a
name brnd broker will be around $38. So, your buy prce is $88
and you sll at 850 minus another $38 commisson, or at $812. Your
net loss is $26.
Interestngly enough, the stok loss is your own dumb fault Now, if
you had bought an ASE or a N stok at 7Y or an OTC sok wit a
prce of 7Y Ak; and if you had gone to a disount broker rter tan
a rpoff broker; and if you had bought 40 shares at once insead of
just 100, your proft would be around $81.50 per hundred shars.
Now, if you pull a deal like this over and over agan for the sme
tent year you did with the svings account, your fnal gos proft
would b $35,305,200,00,00 ,00,00,00.00 pr dollar invesed.
Taxes and infaton wl reduce this to around $103,74,00 ,00 .0,
assuming you sy in a 50% brcket, and pay your t as it is
eared.
The gtha i tat you aren't liely to rept ti go a de in
toay's sok market 520 tme oer wtout tkng sme rk None
teles, our exmple dos drve hme te pwer of compund inter
e, when it is in fc workng for you and when te compundng tme
is ver shor
On any "invesent", the key queson is to ask youlf "Ae ther
any odds at al of breaking even?". The usual anser is "No Way." At
leas not wthout a bunch of luck.
With this disma concluson in mind, let's at leas se what is
involved in miniming the rpf that go with "invesent" s that
maybe you wl have a fghtng chance of at les deferng sme
nickels to enjoy latr.
14
tat eception Is your own money machine.
Remember way back when that our goal in a scret money mac.
is to get a 200 percent retur on cash fow? We do this by combining
lots of persnal value added to a minimum amount of cash fow, and
by keeping the sale of our money machine small enough that the
ineffciencies and communicatons problems of larger businesss don't
apply to us.
So, it's a relatvely eas mater to do tenty tmes beter on invest
ment retur than it is wth most taditonal "investments." Our obvous
rle should be Invest In yourelf frt.
Wherever and whenever possible, plow excess funds back into your
own money machine and your own educaton. This dos lots of good
things for you:
No t is paid on most money plowed back into the busines.
If the money plowed back gs into increasng prductvit, the
investent i also pretty much infaton prof.
You have the ultmate in insider informaton to work wth.
You pay yourlf all the commissions, odd lot diferentals, point,
and so on that others would t to tp from you.
There is a limit to all this. For each and ever money machine, there
15 an optmum s that maximizes your percentge retr on cash fow
for a given amount of personal value added. What I've ted to show
you throughout this book is that the optmum business sze is vastly
smaller (and incredibly more proftble) than the tditonal rles
suggest.
So, always inves in yourelf frt, unles you get to the point where
dumping more cash into your money machine will clo the gear and
lower your percentge retur.
Beyond this, blow some of your investent cash into havng fn. It
keeps your head in te rght place. But always us the powerl lever
age of having-others-pay-you-for-your-fun to compound what you get
back on bucks spent.
"Inutment" -1/ It sek yu out, It Is NOT an
I
nutment
Anyhing that i heavly adversd or comes along wt a supr
slesman that makes money basd on how much he slls you is NOT
an invesent. It is an outght rpf. Real este land swndles, lar
newspapr ads, thos big "fee toaster" ads in bank wndows, fa9-
145
waving buy-svngs-bonds prpaganda, things like this are not invest
ments for you. They ar simply ways for others to rp you off.
A workable "investment" for you always tkes aggressve seking
out on yur o. B ver suspidous of any ad or any sles approach
that wants your money. Decent "invesents," and more imporanty,
the c tming for profts on any "investent," is something that is
amost aways kpt quiet
A corollar to al this is that anytme an "investment" hit the head
lines, it is far to late to tke any advantag of i. "Gld hits new
high," or "Ornge County ral estte-the sky is the limit," or "Dow
his 15OO!" may be what the news sys. What the news means is that
the hors is gone and the bar has bured down. Once the news is
out, the game is over.
Except for the sucker bets.
It's the quiet tmes to watch for. Buy gold when everone is laugh
ing at those domsaying gold bugs. Buy bonds when intrest rates
skyroket out of sight. Buy stoks when the botom is flling out of the
market. As a good rule, inves in the exact opposite of what is grab
bing the headlines at any partcular time. When the big ole pendulum
swngs back, you'll be al s
all "'nustment
"
ar cyclical
There is no such thing as a "one dedsion" invesment, something
you contnuously put money into that in tum gives you more money
back. All "investments" have sasons in which they do ver well, and
tmes in which they do ver bad. Most popular "investment" wil
averge their long-tr rturn to zr or slightly les because 0/ thi
cyclicity. For insance, if you hold onto a stock long enough, its value
is almost cerain to drop below what you paid for it. If you buy a bond,
tmes are almost cerain to arve when infaton unyields fr than
the bond yields.
The obvious thing to do is buy in at the botom of a cycle and sell
out at the top. This gets tcky.
But the tcky par is NOT seing into the future. Simply assming
that things wl be cyclical in the fture jus like they have been in the
past takes care of mos of the clairoyance for you. The tck par is
being able and wlling to swtch back and forh beteen "investents"
so you can make the most of a parcular economic situaton. It tkes
rw guts to jump out of something that is doing fantcally good and
swtch over to something that is an obvious loser.
Here's how some of the mor popular "investents" oftn ract to
cycles:
14
Bonds are a ver good buy durng tmes of skyrketng infaton
and supr high intst rates. Havng a 12% bond durng 7% infa
ton year is a god deal, parcularly since you can eas sll it for
much more than you paid for it Havng an' old 2 or 3% bond
durng double-digit infaton is spr bad, snc it dosn't yield
enough and cn only be sld at a sgerng disount

Gold dos best when disster skes, parculary deprssons,
recesons, and glloping infaton. It is a ver por prorer dur
ing tmes when things ar sble and proftble, and durng tmes
when the biges dump gold to shove te prce stight don.
Stocks a a good buy when te market is low and t busnes
outok po, since the didend yields are high and te prce-eam
ings rtos are ver low.

Re" Estate i closly ted to loal economic conditons. People
out of jobs rarely move or deide to add a vacaton home. To
many p in an area desy the orgnal desrbilit of that ara,
through plluton, crme, tfc, higher tes, double ssion
shols, and so on. "Rent-vs-Buy" decisions are a keyed to the
loal economy.

Trasu Bills and other shor-ter papr are a fairy rliable way
to get just barely enough interest to sty ahead of infn. It's
ofen the bst place to be if nothing beter happns to be available
at a prcular tme.
Commodites are scty a crp game w a stcked deck,
besdes being ted into climat, world economics, and insider
manipuns. But-ou want cycles, you've got them with
commodites.
* Collectble like ar, stmps, coins, old car, and so on tend to do
ver well durng prospert tmes but are ver unliquid and los
value catophically durng po tmes. They are a highly
senstve to populart and mo.
So, make tes cycles work for you. Pck sverl "invesent"
fors that sit you and be ready and able to swtch back and forh as
needed, compounding and pyrmiding as you go along.
mat "'n"etment
"
t your "fet'e
You have to defne and know excty what you want to get out of
an "invesent" If keeping what you have is of utos imprnce,
then much more consratve "invesent" are called for. If doing
147
something with excess cash is more your game, then putng up the
nickels for higher returns at higher rsks is ofen the best choice.
Even more important, you have to key yoqr "investment" program
to your lifestyle. Some people like the excitement of shor-term stock
trading. Others can't stand the stress of sudden changes in value. Peo
ple who dig fast acton don't have the paence to wait out slower
responding things like bonds. If you like dealing one-on-one with po
ple, then real estate rentls and sales may be just for you. If you are a
loner, pick something where a few words on papr or over the phone
complete your tansactons for you.
You might like to collect and display your wealth, such as in a paint
ing galler or a stable of vintage cars. Others prefer to keep their net
worth a total secret, even to their banker, let alone their neighbors.
Some pople like to get totally emotonally involved with their "invest
ments," prehaps using a hobby computer to analyze and intensively
work with them. Others want a totally "hands-off' approach in which
they let things sit and don't want to spend any prsonal tme at all on
them.
In any case, you have to match what you call your "investments" to
your attudes toward them. You will almost cerainly do beter in an
"investment" that matches your personal needs than you will do con
tnually fghtng and frettng over something that just isn't rght-vibed
for you.
Invetment-ante up enough t play the gme
Each traditonal "investment" has a minimum or cover charge to
keep the riff raff out. Unless you can ante up enough to play the game
on the big boy's terms, the exta commissions, odd-lot charges, min
imum balances, margin calls, depsit, points, and s on wl eat you
alive.
Some minimums:
* $2500 in stocks at a disount broker hous
* $5000 in bonds
* Ten bullion coins, usl $1200$2000.
* 10% for a real estate down payment
If you can't meet the minimum, save up tl you do. A round tp
commision on a $500 sk tde wl cost you arund ten perent,
plus the odd lot charges, plu the bid-ask diferental. The round tp
on a $2500 sok tade is around to prcent, one ffh as much. The
14
commission on a single bond may be $24, while you can get fve
bonds for $5 each, or only $25. (These are disount broker fgures;
rpoff old-line brokers may charge to or three tes more.)
Needless to say, always fnd out how much exta you have to pay in
"low end" expenss in any "investent." you can't make the
grade, don't t it.
mtmeW~WedNh l9 metld
The more accurt informaton you can pssibly get on any "inves
ment," the beter your odds of gaining by it. The trouble with infora
ton on most investments is that . . .
* much of it is nothing but blind hop
* a lot of it consists of outght lies
* insiders get their frt
* proft is made selling you informaton
* most of it is outrgeously overrced
* it is ofen disounted before you cn m k
About the only truly reliable informaton you can cheaply scure on
any "investment" is its past prce histr. Even this isn't too usful
when the markets are opn, but on weekends when everthing W W
for you, at least you have curent and accurate informaton. Since pst
prce histor is about the only thing you can be abslutely sure of in an
"investment," it makes sns to base your decisions heavily on this
informaton.
highly suspct of trditonal invesment resarh. Some of the
bad guys to avoid:
* L0mg& RU& eg0M are simply slf-srng, ego-reinfor
ing bullshit. They heavily disuis rality. One l got recenty
proudly stated, "Our bes third quarer ever!" The tuth was that
the botom fell out of the sles since the prevous quarer and diss
ter was impending. There is ONE ver mm piece of informaton
in an annual repr. This is the address to snd for your copy of the
company's h d. P you do is wrte the clown listed and tel
him you are a sockholder and you w get a copy of the h. The
h repr tells exactly what the company is dOing, who is suing
them, M patent fghts, M economic clouds on their hOrn, and N
the bad news, placed accurately, conCisly, and unemotonaly.
149
IK rr m wb8 mm t tht l |D th8
DDc| pp
Invstent Avr bwm h8 m sr Ol 08 t
mODtMy cVDg gm0 D8wN8mn, 8X th8 pdD0Dg qq Dd
wd0Dg 8g8 i u8uWy wm, th8 pm |8 I tO I 0m88 h|gmt,
Dd t |DV88Dt |DlOm0OD th8y pVd8 i much ls u.
Pfeulonal Financial Managnc bm8 w |Dk
|Dg8tude8 hw8hOwD thtpml8ODqOD8ymDg
8n nd |DtuhOn8 u8uy m Out |DV8Am8Dt d8OD8 tht
wOm thD tOmy mndOm " " @8 d8OD8. h8 m8
th8y hV8 md8 Ol th8 D Dd moA pOD fd dm8 t
hOm8. 1h8 men|ng |8 umpy th|8Ou m b Ob hVDg
b|ndlOd8d bboD p|ck yOut `|Dw8Dt lOt yOu thD
th|8 pl8OnN h8p. I l, th|Dg8 hV8 gk8D s bd, th8 p
hV8 admitd b8|ng wOm thD b|DdlOd8d bboD8, Dd hw
|nUOduc8d D8w cOnc8p cle Indeng. W |Dd8XDg, t p
ptOmm tO l|thluy Dd dO a g a b|DdOd8d bbD8 |D
th8 ft. bO lt th8 t88uk8 t8 mb8d.
Stk Umkemh8 m wg8 Ol Aok bmk8mg hOu8,
th8 diount brkr Dd t dpbrkr. A d|OuDt bmk8t g
p|d by th8 hOut tO mk8 yOut Otd8t Dd phky 8Xcuk |t Ot yOu
8 ch8py a p b8. M8w |D DO wy |Dktl8wyOut |Dw
m8Dt d8c|8|OD8. A dpb bmk8t g p|d by hO much mOD8y h8
cD cOD yOu |DtO |DwDg. M8 w ch@ yOu w Ot m
0m88a much |D cOmm|OD8 Ot th|8pdV8g. N8 wq D
l88d yOu `mh |DkDd8dk |I) |Dmf h OubgOm
cOmm|OD8, Dd |Z)bOqDyOu th8dcNDddQ
h|8 8mmt c|8DN hV8 c8DQ u8h8d. M y al t Od|D8
Aok hOu8 m dpb bmk8n, y th8 Dm8 bmDd b@8.
h8 nh yOu gmm dmOuDt bmk8t (DOD8 t }wmOA
Ok8D b b t thD wht yOu gt mm dpb bmk8t. OuDt
hOu8 dV8m |DBam Wal SteJoumal, Dd Oth8t
c mgD88.
lnmen~selg N eqlng
PDy |d|Ot buy |Dk D "|DV88Dt t Dy 0m8. ht i DOt t
pmb8m. h8 ky pmb8m |8 d8Od|Dg wh8D k sl D "|Dw8Dt
Dd wmD k M pmht mm i
Lwqg g g|DA u wh8D i i 0m8 tO sl:
110
Your proft Is skyroketng and "waitng just a litle longel
make you even more. Sure.
Your brker or whatever is doing everthing he can do to keep you
fom seling out, since, once the herd stars the other way, he Is in
deep trouble.
Even with an absolute disser, maybe, by just waitng, your invest
ment's bankruptcy, class action litgaton, the patent fght, and
stokholder's suit is resolved, things will swing back t intnsic
gones and you can rde off into the sunset on your Lancia with
a Moog synthesizer on your back.
Maybe you need cash NOW, and there is no choice.
Even the concept that investments are for the dark distant future,
for the "long pull" is fghtng you.
Seling is the problem. One of the frst things you should do when
you get your own investment program rolling is to practice seiling
things as soon and as fast as you possibly can. Get into the
tming. Make mistakes. Tr to become objective and unemotonal
about slling tming. Set rles and stick by them.
Above all, tme your selling to maximie your returs, rather than
slling when you desperately need cash.
If you are going to need a bunch of cash sometime next year, sll
out of the things where timing is crucial as far ahead as you can.
Switch into T-bills or some shor-term "investment" that is ver liquid
and dos not have crtical tming involved with it. If you must dump
something, pick the "invesment" with the least potential or the least
retur, not the one showing the most gain. Unless, of course, your
tming tels you that now is the slling hour anyway.
dver'f your "'nvestment"
Oheris known as not putng al your egs in one basket. Nuff
sid.
have trtd "'nvestment"
Remember how we sid that minimizing any and all fxed obli
gatons of your money machine is a major goal? Wouldn't it be nice
if you could completely eliminate all utility bills, insurance pre
miums, and so on? If there only was a way.
But there is. It is called tareting.
151
And it i supr simple. Buy into the companies that ar rpping you
of. For insance, if you have a $50 pr month pwer bill, buy utlit
stocks or bonds that p you $50 a month in interest or divdends
back. You've just worked out a deal that sys, "I'll lend you sme
money, you lend me sme electcit." Only, you can get your money
back anytme you want. Their electcit is gone forever.
T!lis obvously will also work wth the phone company and watr
pople. A we've alrady seen, t same idea is the third best route
to fee life insurance as well.
A tareted investment is one that has a spcifc purs. It gen
ertes a specifc amount of money to ofet or slve some money
machine obligaton.
Targeting does lots of good things for you. It is an automatc
hedge and diverificaton. It can eliminate your fxed expenses. It
can have tx advantges since the income and outg ofet each
other. And, you get your in investment back when the game is
over.
Use targetng as a relatvely small par of your overall "inves
ment" picture. But us it aggresively to eliminate or provde for as
many fxed money machine obligatons as you can. Even if the lop
isn't directy closd in the sme company, using one investment to
provide a surce of needed income for sme other obligaton i a
ver good way to keep things proftble and orderly.
how I make a kiling on Wall Stret witout
shooting a brker
OK, so much for the theor. Here is something that sems to be
working for me. It sems to be doubling my pre-tx money ever
year. It's a method with a medium amount of gamble, hasle, and
rsk. It takes a reasnable amount of tme, sy, an hour pr week. It
is suited for exa nickels that are t b multplied.
The game is simply interediate ter tding of soks thrugh a
disount brker. The soks are usually held around s weeks or s.
There is no intent other than slling the stoks for more than was
paid for them. Two things have recenty made intermediate term
trading more attractive. These are the much lower commissions
oferd by the disount brker, and the uncerint and lenghen
ing of c gains tx tent to where a few months won't help
any.
I cl the method the MQD erctr. Which stnds for mahed
fler/quadrtur demodulator, its electonic analog. It's based on
an electonic prnciple that sys that the more you know about a
signal, the easier it i to exc it out of deep nois. The signal in
15
this cas is a cyclic prce varabon in a sok that las one earings
prod, and the exn is desgned to suck it dr and put it in
your pigg bank.
The theor behind all this ges something like this. I fel that sok
prce varatons are not quit rndom. The actual prce is detrined
mosty by whether there are more buyers or slers at any parcular
hour. But there are some ver defnite unrandoming efect at
work:
On a tinly tded stok, any buy or sll drves the prce away fom
it perceived value.
The commissons and other chares intoduce a threshold efect
that prevent ver shor or ver tny buys and slls.
There is an "atenton getng" fr where more and more people
wl tke a proft when the prce gs up, and more and more peo
ple wl be tempted to buy or averge down as the prce drops.
There's smply the fact tha te rndomness tkes lots and lots of
dat, and a few rndom event wl tpically cluster and behave
vasy non-rndom.
Thes are obvious. It is also rther obvous that the conditon of
the company and the conditon of the economy wl have long-ter
efects on the averge prce.
But the far and away bigge non-randomizng efect is the one
we are ging to tp. Stck have a prce hir pronalt that I
derined by who i buying and slling the sck and their motva
tons in doing s.
The obvous key is to pick stks whos pronalit ft the sgnal
you are ting to exact fom them. The pater we are afer is a
sok that is gnerally rsng rather slowly but that ha four or s
seep cycles in the recent prce histor.
To us t method, I keep a contnuous plot of the weekly prce
of slected stocks against tme. The plotng is done on semi-log
papr s that all changes and prcentge profts are comparble. To
fnd the soks in the fr place, four or s fmes a yar, I pick up a
go d ch srce. The cheaps and far away the b rve found a the
rther crppy lokng Quot N, Quot Amercan, and Quot OTC, us
al y availble arund $5 each fm
Har Lankford
Bx 213
Wichit, K, 67201
15
I a gt an obsure fnanc advr srce cled te Lo
Angele Time. This is used to update the char and cot f les than
most other surces of stock prces.
When you lok at thes prsonality hies, you'll fnd some ju
plain dull stocks that don't change price much. You'll fnd a few
obvious winners that are temporarily skyrocketing, and lots of
losers in a long term nosedive. You'll find some stocks whose
varatons are so eratc and random that, no way, can you fnd a
rule that lets you make a proft on them.
You'll also fnd some stocks with neat cyclic variations, buy
varatons that are too slight to make a proft on afer you allow for
the commisions and any OTC bid-ask diferental.
But, and this is the key pint, if you lok ver close you will fnd a
tidy collection of stocks that are nicely cyclic, going through one
cycle of 30% or so prce change once each quarer. Maybe one sok
in tenty will meet this personalit test.
An absolutely ideal stock for the MFQD Extractor looks like
this:

It long-ter average is genty upwards, sy 15% per year.
It is an obsure and thinly traded stock, having only a few hundred
to a few thousnd shares sold per day.

There are some ver recent and well-defned cycles with a 30% or
so varaton and not much nois messng them up.

There are zero or ver few instttonal holdings.

The past histor o earnings is reasonably good. No defcits, and
preferbly the black dot that means earings are up each year for
the last fve .
The Pce/Earings rato is reasonably low, meaning the stok is
basd on produced value, rather than blind hope
and fnally . . .

The stok is in a company whos products you don't feel bad
about.
You'll find good candidates on the American exchange. Some
obvious ones will jump out at you fom the OTC market, but once
you subtract out the stf bid-ask diferental, thes may not be as
attractive. I've used the method successfully on all three
exchangs.
15
Afr a preliminar sr to fnd sme candidates, you then g to a
pket calculator or a handy-dandy home computer. You then a
the queston "What is the bes single rle I could have u to make
a proft on thi beast ovr the las year?"
.
The stoks that come up with an answer something like "Buy
when the prce drp 20% fm a fairly wide high; sll when the prce
gos 10% above your brak-even" are the ones you want You then
check the stoks with a rule like this for their overall proft, as well
as their annual r of ret. You a check for the unifot and
reasnableness of the cycles.
Now, if a cerin stok obeyed this rle exacy, you would make
ten percent on a tde. Al this rsk for a lousy ten prent.
But wait. Do this four tmes a year and the ten percent com
punds to a 4 prent retur. And since you are only in the sok
half the tme or less, to 4prcent returns together give you a
100-prent retur or an annual doubling. This is afr all commis
sions and charges but before taxes and infaton.
Even the ten prent isn't all that bad, since it's beter than you
can do with a lot of "investment." Bter yet, you mos ofen gt
more than ten percent, since this is the trgger point. I've had a
stok g up 70 prent on the way pas the tgr. And, you ar
likely to be in the stok for les than half the tme with reasnable
luck.
The metho asumes there wl be one more cycle along afer you
buy In. Most ofen this is the cas. You keep upatng your sle
tons as the prnalites of the stoks grdually change.
I normaly buy the stoks in even hundred lot to brng the totl
clos to but above $2500, the bes prce break on the disount cure.
Ver low prced soks are avoided, parcularly on t OTC market.
I always make sure that there are lot of unhappy people stuck with
the sok when 1 buy in on the 20% drop. Ver bref "fash-in-the
pan" peaks are treated as impulse noise and are ignored. Very
expensive soks ar also avoided.
I do all this on weekends. Everme I get in a hurr and t
smething mid-week, it costs me money. I've a ted using limits
with dismal result. No shor are involved. Divdends are ignored.
No margin is usd, but the stok earings are shuttled back and
forh to a svngs account as tming dictes. Al order are plaed
f thing Monday moring.
Natl, you buy a a low and sll when the exd increas is
met. Your char should include a 10% annual retur sop line to
keep your invesment goal in sight.
Should a diser stke, the sok is avergd down on an addi
tonal 20 prent drp. Twice now, I havn't had the gall to do this,
and tice I los all sr of ptntal proft by not doing s on the
upswing that followed.
155
The hares thing Gt mand fnow them, rther tan working on
hunches or gut feeling. When you fnd smething that sems t work fr
you, believ in 0 faithflly.
Severl mor de. You do the ec opp of "convntnal" W
maret wisom. Nail dwn your prf immedialy and let your k
rde. The longr a prft Wther, the mor likly smeone Wwgb
befor you O. lt g a losr Wmay do no har 0you tde a psble
mm brn or gain for a cn immediat los. Another imprnt
rle is t buy only WMtha ar dering in prc andsll Q/ WMtat
ar incaing in pr. Don't Can alrady movng Wor t t cath
the p or tugh.
A fnal and key detil Gto hav your W8mart aciv b the 8
opp of evrone els's. Rmember that an invesent M cyclcal.
When m maret Gnear an an tme high, ther G n nable way t
make fr prft, s GET OlT! Us the as a guide. Bthe M
long k high was 100and the m0dip was , mthat
reduce your involvement with incg market index Wu9 For in
Wm, beteen and 70 buy heavly and M only lar prf.
Been 70 and b buy mor cautously while tking mor mode
prft mor ofn. Been band V be exmely uptght W any
ne money and M smaner prft yet mor ofn. Frm V t VZ,
don't buy anthing at an. Abve VZ, OlT. Wait M the inevtble
sngback and W over.
No way wI sy the MQD exctr will wor foryu or will wor an te
tme. I onl O that it is woring for me no. L sme tnt-fve
tnons to dat, an have 0prftble for a $71050uI
got in a hurad a loked-in do that sd me in mgme in the
plae. Evn the do was evntually dumpd at a $50 pft Averg
rr on Ofo been near 10 prent annuy, bfor Mand
infaton.
The obvous disdvntgs of the MQD exr Mtat you Mofn
out of a stok when it makes a long kup-move, Mpsbly int a W
when it Gdrpping rdicy, and you have a rlatvly lo pyof e
ton for mminvld. It NMrw gut t buy when ene WG
sling and W W.
But, it sems to wor. If an mcubic godnes keeps up, of cou, rn
wrt a bok on it Ther's far mor rtr in wrtng boks than ther ever
wil be in playing the sok maret The u of home comput t m
m whole mor ac and mor prftble yet G obvous.
Inut In te Incrdible secrt money machine 0/ other
wen, we've come a long, long way. Once again, everthing rve
said so far is my opinion and my belief in things that are working fr
156
me and my money machine, along with my perceptions of what
seems to be working for the scret money machines of others.
I've probably hacked off some people who make money of things
I don't feel are Impornt in secret money machines. But, perhaps, I
have motvated several someones for ever prson I may have dis
pleasd. Hopefully, some of you out there in readerland see that a
ver proftable incrdible scret money machine can be your and
can retum a tremendous amount of profit for very little invested.
This Is done through our keys of a totl lifestle commitment to a
small-scale computer, craf, or technical business; a low profile,
low-hasle approach; careful contol of communicatons; and lead
ing with a maximum amount of prsonal value added.
Its your tum now. You can t out what seems to agree with you
and what seems t be workable for you. But, don't believe a word of
this. Pove it to yourelf, and ripoff only what wl work for you.
And, if you like what you accomplish-help other do the sme.
157
KEYORD INDEX
Abject drivel - 68
absolute ta rates - 135
ac speed controls - 151
access catalos - 72
accrual accounting -22
accurate - 89
accurate information - 139
accurate records - 131
Adobe - 61. 71
advance financing - 19
advertising -18. 54. 110. 124
advertising rate card - 92
advetorial - 41
alias card - 49
alternate energy - 31
alternate signature card -49
always give something - 40
analogy - 89
anaerobic jogging - 121
anecdote -89
appendix - 85
Apple Computer - 6i
Apple le - 71
applying heat & pressure - 111
art - 81
Ask the Guru reprints - 17i
associate approach -19
attack the flank - 39
authors guide - 92
automatic loan guarantee - 49
average reader -84
avoid at all costs - 8
avoid poison and bilge - 39
Bad debts -140
Bakerizing -12i
bank -48
bicycle ride -50
binder fee -93
binder -101. 111. 121
binding kit - 121
binding systems - 121
biorhythms -36
B/ photography -105
black widow effect -33
Blatant Opportunist -161
blind spots -31
boldness -108
Book-on-demand -91. 101.
111. 131. 161
book publishers - 80
bootstrap - 20. 56
bound and determined -121
box rule - 96
brain parity -14i
bread-and-butter -12
brilliant foil colors -111
broke -37
browsing reader -84
bruised egos rot qUickly -31
Bubonic Plague -73
bullshit filter -38
burning -106
Business-as-usual - 81
buyers guide -72
Caller ID -151
CAP factor -37
capital -130
capital gains -140
cash flow accounting - 22
catalogs -73
catch 22 - 140
CD-ROM -tOl. 151
Index - 1
Chamber of Commerce - 55
chaos theory -15i
cheap - 30
Chemical Abstracts - 65
child care -140
Chinese ideoram - 101
Chips & Technologies -61
city business license -70
close the loop -123 141
club meetngs -21
cold cash -27
cold glue binding -121
comatose state - 61
comesoutta -59
commercial service -48
common law copyright - 121
communications -79, 95
complementary income -13
completeness -17
CompuServ -21
computer listings -97
condensed -109
conferences -76
consideraton -U3
consignment - 18
consultant referral serice - 171
continuing education - 75
contract -113
contributions -139
control communications -157
controlled circulaton -67
convival workplace -21
coked -37
coling off -114
coops -55
copy and record -90
copyrght -121
comer rounder - 131
craft guilds -55
credit resere -49
critcal editor -93
crutche -99
cultral acceptability -39
current perioicals - 6
cutomer direct -17
cut rate outfits -72
Ind - 2
cycles - 153, 155
cyclical -146
cyclic variations - 154
Deal dIrect - 38
decentalized - 7
decortve -108
defensive measues -118
deferred income -14
demand proofs -90
depreciate -130
depreciation -133
desktop finishing -91, 111, 131
desktop prototping systems - 131
deskop publishing -41 , 161
desktop publishing package -11
developer -41
Dialog Information Service - 21
die cutting -131
dildonics - 141
direct - 8
direct mail -18
direct mail warehouing -72
direct toner prnted circuts -131
discount broker - 51, 150
distibution problems -101
diversify -151
doging -106
doing doger - 41, 74, 76
DOT technique -118
double-check -89
do your o taxes -139
DRTB syndrome -75
DTP-161
dulling spray -105
duplex prnters - 101
DV vdeo -91
Dell O Trivia -117
dyamic-87
Egle-US
eae Into deep water -38
eay walk -50
editorial exchange -41
educatonal proess -74
efficiency -56
efficient -99
ego reinforcement -82
800 numbers -5
electronic bulletn boards -21
Electronics Now -161
employees -19
English literature -79
envelopes -121
environmental groups -55
escape -82, 125
eschew neologisms -8
essentials -99
etch resist -12i
example -89
exhibits -76
expanded -109
expect the opposite -38
Facts of life -31
fair value received -41
family tusts -139
farce -11
fed -6, 115
feeling of inadequacy -90
ferinstnce -87
fictitious names act file -46
fillers -93
final artwork -90
final copy -82
final polish -82
financial managers -150
finding ideas -89
first atempts -92
flash-in-the-pan peak -155
folder -131
followup - 91
foreshorten -102
form -87
Forth without religion -71
forard through time -65
Fourier analysis -131
fragments -87
free advertsing -18
front money -19
full color ink -121
future income goals -15
f computng -21
fzflock -121
fzloic -141
Galley copies -90
general-8
general-interest -80
GEnie -21, 31, 161, 171
GEnie DTP -161
GEnie HOSB -161
GEnie PSRT -161, 171
gentle -6
get it in writing - 113
get of the beaten pat -21
gifts -140
gotcha's -38
Gothic -108
government official - 115
gOzinta- 59
granfalloon -31, 117
graphs-97
greed -39
guaranteed - 31
guillotne cutter - 121
guilt tip - 51
Half life -11
halfone -104
hard fact -89
hardnosed -40
Hardware Hacker - 161, 171
hardware hacking -161
high beta stocks -61
hobby electronics -91
hollow feeling -90
home office small business -161
honchee guide lines -125
hook -110
HOSB-161
hot stamp foils -111
HR-10 -137
humongous -87
HyperCard -151
hypermedia -lSi
Idx - 3
Ideas -89
ideas of the decade - 71
identify the enem - 63
identify the reader -92
images -95
impulse noise -155
income averaging -138
income goals -6
income sources -11, 12
incompetence -39
incremental tax rates - 135, 136
independent software vendor -41
indexing -150
information -82
information control - 16
information flow -17, 59, 79
information sinks - 60,61
information source - 16
institutional holdings - 154
insurance protection - 122
integrated -95
intelligent ignorance -40
intellectual creatvity -36
Inter-Library loan -65
interest -21
Intro to Post&ript -71
invest in yourself -51, 145
investment - 143
investment advisory serces - 150
investment tax credit -135
investments -51
IR -138
IRS- 91
irrelevant footnotes -85
isometric -102
italic -109
itemize deductions -130
J-do/lars -27
journalism -79
junior college -74
Keep it simple - 101
keeping informed -59
Keough plan -5i, 137
Kernatski's rule -54
Inde - 4
Kettering - 40
key tools -31
KIM-l -71
know your enemy - 39
Kroy Clor -111
Lnkford, Henry -61
larger original -98
LaserWriter Secrets -7i
layout package -81
legibility -108
legitimate publisher -93
library -63
lightning bolts -29
line art -98
listen -56, 60
literary agents -92
litho camera - 102
lithographers -103
load levelers - 21
local freebie -73
local politics -123
long-term effects -151
look -60
loose ends - 131
low energy -30
low-hassle -157
low profile -39, 115, 157
lowest possible level -84
Major distibutor -72
master plan -89
matches - 85
maximize your returs - 151
media control - 125
megabucks -27, 29
memberships - 55, 139
MFQD extractor - 152, 156
migrate -40
mileage allowance -134
mind-in-a-rut traps -88
mini-dodges - 139
mini-tactics - 37
Monthly Index Gvmt Pubs - 68
Music Index -65
Nae-44,46
navicubes -141
networking -21
newsstand magazine -80
NeT computer -91
nickel-a-bit shift registers - 71
NIH syndrome -76
no lawer -116
no patents -119
non-books -66
non-compettive athletics -38
non-randomizing effect -153
non-verbal -95
nosedive -154
Not Invented Here - 76, 120
Nuts & Volts -161
Obscure sources -17
obscure stock - 154
obvious -37
off-the-top bookkeeping - 132
Omnicrom -111
opposite -39
ordinary drivel -68
Orellian -101
others mistakes -38
out-the-door -38
overall style -107
Pad printers -131
padding press -131
paradigm -81
paradigm shift - 81, 91, 131, 141
paranoid secrecy -39
past price history -149
patents -71, 119
pay for fun -35
pay on acceptance -93
pay on publication - 93
Pelsaer binding -121
Peltier coolers - 81
People's Yellow Pages -73
perioicals -80
perioicals dictionar - 92
personal -85
personal computers -11
personal computing -91
personal netorking -21
personal value -59
personal value added - 15, 22, 3,
56,57,79,82,157
Personal VeloBlnder -121
perspective -102
photoraphy -104
picture compression -131
pictures -81
pie-in-the sky -29
place -49
place to hide -39
plan -89
play in the cracks -40
play for those five -171
points -108
Polaroid 665 film -105
popular access catalos -72
ppular mytholoy -81
pssible directions -14
post office -55
PostScript -71, 131
PostScript Cookbook -71
PostSript Reference Manual -71
present effort -15
price/earnings ratio -154
printing kit -111
probabilities -141
prouct information -71, 73
professional organizations -55
proramming language -11
PSRT-161
psychic energy -30,36,39,56
psychic energy sink -51,81, 19,34,
50,80,92,116,119,125
public domain -120
public serials list -6, 92
publicity -124
publisher's committee -91
pyamid -20
Qualificaton card -67
quality rebuilt -31
query -92
quiz -7,27, 79
Ide - 5
Qer -87
QWRT keyboard -81
Rdio-Electronics - 71
RCF ploy -31
read -60
reader serce card -67
Readers Guild -65
reader's hidden needs -82
reading ads -92
reasonalbe cycles -155
reasonable direction -88
reasonably -60
registering name -46
reincarnations -11
reject slips -81
research -149
resin coated paper -106
Resource Bin -161
revrsed cash flow -31
rpoff broker -150
ripoff potential -40
Roman-108
Roloex cards -151
Rotar-55
RTL Integrated circuits -71
r a voice helpline -21
Sample requests -73
Santa Clau machines -131
sne busines hours -40
San-Srif -108
sturated market -91
sve evrying -59
sared, lean, and hungry -20
scholing proes -74
Science Qtatons Inde -65
scientfc expditons -14
screw off a lot -40
sugy-30
SCSI-lSI
Seagate-61
"SE" techniqu -3
seismoraphy -131
self-fuflling -4
slf-publish -93
Id-6
se1\ -91
seml-custom leterheads -4
seminars -21
separate means of escape -125
separate places -125
serendipity -66
Serif -108
serious student - 8
shared SCSI comm -151
shear nonsense -121
shortest words -8
shows-21
shrink wrapping -131
sidebar -85, 97
silk screen ink -131
simple -30, 8
simple proprietorhip -43
simplest sentences -8
skimming -9i
skyoketing -15
slant -8
sma1\-7,30
small-is-beautifl -31
snatch defeat from vctor -39
something exta -23
spacing -109
special co1\ectons -66
special interest courses -74
specific -8, 111
stalking the wild pradigm -81
stationary -47
statistical laws -12
stay in control -6
stay in schol -74
steam ca1\iop fund -133
stepping motors -151
stock analyis -61, 161
stock brokers - 15
stategy -11
sucker bets -81, 122
suprglu -121
Suprintendent of Dument - 6
supplemental Income -35
Suppres Eo -3
surplus outit -72
Swampfelder's rule -29
sitching technoloy -151
sergeticaly -39
sop -161
Tactic -11,27
take any coure -21
tareted investent -151
ta doges -129
tax samps -55
tax time -139
teach any course -21
teaching -76
technical illutaton -99
telephone -5
Teletet -9i
television -61, 62
10K reprt -149
test proucts - 52
thermo powder -121
think image -53
thinly taded stok -154
third prty -117
third par technique -117
thou shall not hassle -40
tinaja quest -4
tlnaa questing -161
tinajas - 161
total lifestyle basis -5, 14
total lifestyle commitment -157
total package -95
touch screens -81
trade fairs -76
trade magazines -66
trade name registery - 46
trading serces -19
tragedy -11
transparent -84
trapped -126
transfer masks -131
triage -91
triple reverse -38
TrueType -9i
tune in -59
20,000 Words -88
two-crossed-granfaloons -117
200% annual return - 22
to tone approach -15
taphy -107
Uhrlich1's Dctonary -6
uncluttered -8
Unibind - 121
uniform cyles -155
United Parcel Serice -55
Univ Microfilms Int'I -65
UNI -91
unmatters - 113
unproven market -91
untmely -91
US Government listings -70
US Patent Ofice -69
user oriented -84
ueful tings -89
uvcuring overlay -13i
Vacuum packng -131
vanity publisher -93
varnish -131
vrtual reality -141
vsible laser dioes -141
volunteer serice -2i
Wall Street Journal- 51
wanting more -24
watch - 60
waterknives - 14i
wats lines -54
wavelet teor - 131
weak spots -13
WELL -31
well defined cyles -154
wet dream -121
Whole Earth Review -16i
wilderness areas -161
WIN-WIN -3i
winning change -38
wire binding - 121
wish fufillment -82
word of mout -110
word processor - Ii
words - 79, 81
words-on-paper -79, 94
Ind-7
words-plus-pictures - 95
work tool -2i
worst enemy - 41
write stories -21
writing - 113
Writers Market - 92
wrong now - 38
Xerox-66
Yeahbuts -38
yearly directory - 72
yellow pages -73
you-86
your own effor - 82
Zero deductions - 139
zero sum games - 31, 40
zoning codes -70
Id-8
Synergetics Press
Box 809 Thatcher AZ 85552
(928) 428-4073
YOUR ISMM
VOICE HELPLINE
:
(928
)
428-4073
ISMM WEBSITE
:
www.tinaja.com
. S S o . D o o L 1 0 1 n o m s 1 L
Don lancaster
'
s
INCREDIBLE SECRET
MONEY MACHINE II
Your Incredible Secret Money Machine is your own smaller
scale computer, technical or craft business. You will find
this newly updated and revised cookbook and secret gUide
essential to give you all the key insider details of what is
really involved in starting up and then running with your
own personal secret money machine.
Another one of those get-filthy-rich-in-five-minutes-of
your-spare-time books? Hardly. First, the author has been
there, is there right now, and knows whereof he speaks.
Second, instead of all the usual outrageous promises in the
big fine print ad, we'll simply show you lots of realistic and
proven ways to reduce your taxes as much as you like, to
never pay a utility bill again, to profit on "investments", to
get free or even paid-for vacations, to pick up totally free
insurance, to have others pay you for all of your fun, and
to show you the ultimate solution to startup financing.
Most important of all, and for the first time in print,
this outrageous and contrary opinion book delves into key
secrets such as the Steam Calliope Fund, Kernatski's Rule,
the Black Widow Effect, the Doing Dogger concept, those
deadly j-Dollars, the dangers of two crossed Granfallons,
the MFQD Extractor, all the Honchee guidelines, that CAP
factor, information sinks, and the DOT technique. They are
all here waiting for your successful use.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Don Lancaster writes books.
Synergetics Press
Box 809 Thatcher AZ 85552
ISBN 1 -882193
-
10
-
3