For me, today is one of those days you know you’ll always remember. Because today is the day I became a published author, something that’s been on my life list for as long as I can remember. (I don’t count my award-winning but unpublished first grade book, When I Went to Walt Disney World, which was a work of fiction, as I didn’t get to Disney until post-college.)
Today, Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny Way is officially out in the world!
And because the book was made possible in large part by YOU, today I’m sharing some of the behind-the-scenes details and answering reader questions as thanks for your support in making my dream come true. (Seriously, thank you!)
If you want to know more about the book itself, including how it’s different from other early retirement books out there, check out this post. And if you want to read my initial announcement from last spring, this is the post you want.
Stay tuned until the end of today’s post, because I’ve got another big thank you to share!
If you’re interested in ordering the book – available in paperback, ebook and audiobook – here are some links:
- Order now from Amazon
- Order audiobook now from Audible
- Order now from Barnes & Noble
- Order now from Powells City of Books
- Order now from Indie Bound
- Order now from Apple iBooks
- Order now from Google Play
- Order now from Kobo
- Order now from eBooks
And now let’s get to questions that you sent in!
What was the hardest part of writing a book?
I assumed that writing a book would be super hard. Yes, I’ve been writing regularly and at length about early retirement for years, but the mythology surrounding book-writing makes it out to be this super tortured process, and I assumed I’d have that experience. Turns out… nope. BUT, that’s because I spent almost a year writing the proposal for the book (here’s an overview of what goes into a book proposal – it’s detailed!), and that part was hard. So I’d say the hardest part of the process preceded writing the actual book. In terms of the book itself, the hardest part is definitely the fact that it’s final and I can’t change anything. I’m super happy to be able to say that I love the finished product, and it accomplishes everything I hoped it would – being friendly to both beginners and early retirement enthusiasts, being inclusive to people with a range of incomes and financial starting points, and letting readers choose what they value rather than me telling them what they should value – but there’s always something you’d tinker with and tweak, and I can’t do that. I change the fonts on this blog a few times a year, and recently changed the header… can’t do that with a book! Final means final.
New York Post review of Work Optional
Her book takes a practical approach to this pie-in-the-sky goal [of early retirement], however much one might earn. She outlines procedures for saving for a full early retirement but also for partial retirement or just a career sabbatical for those with fewer financial resources. She walks the reader through every aspect of this planning, from figuring out your true annual budget to where to invest for the greatest likelihood of steady passive income later on.
―New York Post
What are the main differences between writing your blog and writing your book in terms of process, satisfaction, time, reason for doing it?
They were actually super different! Writing on the internet needs to be skimmable, and everyone will tell you to use lots of headers and bullets, all things that destroy the narrative in a book. So I had to adjust my writing stylistically. But content-wise, it was also super different. A blog post is generally one thought, or at least one theme, but in a book you need to cover a ton of thoughts and themes. I’d never strung together my entire theory of early retirement money and life before, but the book forced me to do that, and I’m glad it did! A big surprise was that, even in 288 pages, you can’t go super in-depth on any one topic, because you need to cover so much, so there are plenty of things I’ve discussed in much more detail on the blog than I could in the book. I also found that, in the initial writing phases, I needed to blog as little as possible, because I kept confusing myself with what was in the book and what was on the blog, but as I went through subsequent phases of the process, it all crystalized for me what I’d written about where. In terms of time, I wrote the first full draft of the manuscript in about four weeks, so I think my words-per-hour rate was faster than when blogging – mostly thanks to spending a whole year writing that proposal, so I knew what I needed to write in each section. And satisfaction… it’s hard to say! The blog gives me a ton of opportunity to interact with people, which is my favorite part, but the book is putting something out into the offline world, which is special in a different way. We’ll see!
When the ebook first showed up on my Kindle last night!
Would you do it again and write another book?
I would 100% write another book! I loved the process – the research, the writing, the intense focus on something deeper than a blog post. My goal remains to sell enough copies that I earn out my book advance, which means that it’s likely publishers would let me write another book. If I start earning royalties, I’ll donate them to charity, so it’s not about money. It’s just about being able to do something I love again. (That said, I’m soooo thankful that I was able to do this after retiring. I can’t imagine writing or promoting a book while also working full-time, because you kind of need to let it consume you.)
The first copy of the book to make it to Alaska, to Maggie of Northern Expenditure
What bits got edited out that you really wanted to keep?
Surprisingly, almost nothing has been edited out! Several portions have for sure been improved by helpful feedback from my editor and agent, including making the early retirement math more accessible to people who don’t spend their free time building out endless iterations of spreadsheets. And much of the book has been tightened, of course. But I was lucky that they liked everything I wrote, especially given that I was on a super accelerated publication timeline of 362 days from book deal to pub day (most books are a year and a half to two years from deal to publication).
Bustle tells you to read Work Optional in 2019
Is working with an editor (compared to going it alone on the blog) fun and helpful or not?
I was nervous at first about working with an editor, especially because my editor has edited some very serious and important books like John Lewis’s autobiography. There’s plenty of snobbery in the literary world, and there are lots of “novels are the only books that count” types who will tell you, to your face, that your book is not a real book. (Or, my favorite dis: “Well that’s not a book book.”) I was a little concerned that a how-to book would be treated differently, but everyone at my publisher, Hachette Books, was wonderful. They all understood what I was trying to do and how that’s different from what else is out there (what several friends have dubbed the “choose your own adventure” approach), they gave me tons of support and they didn’t try to push me to make the book or our story (not the focus of the book, by the way) into something it’s not. My editor Krishan absolutely made the book better because she’s super smart and thoughtful, but also because she’s not remotely a math person, and she helped me see where I was asking too much of non-mathy readers. Something really important that I learned along the way is that the lengthiness of the whole process is ultimately a good thing. I turned in my first full manuscript in June, and I didn’t get back initial edits until August. That gave me two months to gain some distance, and when I looked at it again with my editor’s notes in August, I could see it with fresh eyes, which really helped me see what needed tweaking. Then I sent back rewrites, and I got it again in October with copyedits and final notes, and my task was to make as few edits at that point as possible. But again, I’d gained two months of distance, and could see better what changes it still needed than I could have if I’d tried to do every round in quick succession. So yes, ultimately I’m super glad that I worked with an editor!
Work Optional in Florida, with Vicki of Make Smarter Decisions
Are you glad you published the book traditionally instead of self-publishing it?
Related to the last answer, yes! I’m so glad I got to publish traditionally, with a large publisher, and didn’t try to self-publish. The book is absolutely better for it, and I’ve gotten a lot more support with publicity and marketing than I otherwise would have. Plus, as a book nerd, it’s also super validating to have a big publisher want to work with you… you know I love those gold stars!
What caught you most off-guard as you transitioned to writing a book?
It definitely threw me how long each stage of the process took, but that was ultimately a good thing. But probably the biggest thing was that the first thing I submitted, the draft of my first three chapters, required a lot of reworking. The content was fine, but I was writing like a blogger: breaking up the narrative with lots of headers, chatting too much with the reader. (That was a big thing that stuck in my head for a while, when my editor said it was too chatty.) It took me a while to figure out how to stay true to my voice but adjust for a different format. I think I struck that balance, but you’ll have to let me know. ;-)
What were your biggest priorities when writing?
Several things! Like on the blog, I wanted to tell the complete truth and not oversell early retirement, either making it sound easier than it is to achieve or making it sound accessible to absolutely anyone. I wanted to tell the truth about early retired life. I wanted to make life the focus, and not just money. I wanted to be more inclusive, so that more people – lower earners, parents, single people, those older than their 30s or 40s – could see themselves in the book. And I wanted to give people a ton of choices about how to plan for early retirement, from whether to aim for full early retirement at all or instead something like semiretirement to choosing for yourself what you value instead of only spending money on things approved by the frugality police. Ultimately, that’s what the book truly is: a guide to determining what you value most in both money and life.
What aspects of your journey did you want to ensure shone through?
The book really isn’t about our journey, per se, but I do share bits of it to help anchor the narrative and show that we’ve been through what the reader is going through. But I really wanted to make it clear that work isn’t bad, and that work itself isn’t the problem. That’s why the book is called Work Optional, and not something like Quit Work Forever. I enjoy working more now than I ever have, because it’s totally separated from money and necessity, and it’s something I can do purely for joy. I think everyone’s aim should be to work on your own terms, not to never work again.
I’m sure that you had a clue about how much work it would be, but what were the main driving forces to write the book so soon after “retiring early”? Your why and why so soon, if you will.
To be honest, it all happened sooner than I would have chosen! I’d hoped to write a book about early retirement, but wasn’t even thinking I’d do a thing until after we quit, meaning I wouldn’t get an agent or start writing a book proposal until post-retirement, so I’d maybe just now have a book deal and the book would be out in a year or more from this point. But an editor came to me when I still had nearly a year of work left and expressed interest, and that led to getting an agent quickly, and then the proposal work began. We sent the proposal out on submission right after we got back from Taiwan last January, and by February I had a deal with a first deadline in April. And my publication date was originally March 26, but that moved up six weeks after it was clear what a big moment early retirement is having in the media right now. I definitely don’t regret it one bit, but it didn’t happen exactly how I would have planned it. But as with anything in life, when there’s a huge opportunity in front of you to do something you’ve always dreamed of, you take the leap whether you feel ready or not, and whether the timing feels ideal or not.
Work Optional with Mew, Gwen of Fiery Millennials‘ cat
Put some tangible numbers to the writing experience: estimated total hours spent on each of planning, drafting, editing, proof reading; number of drafts/iterations between the first “I’m done” moment at the end of the first draft, and the final product.
Numbers it is! The book happened in seven real rounds: 1. Write the first draft of the proposal. 2. Finalize the proposal with agent input. 3. Write the first three chapters. 4. Write the first full manuscript with editor notes. 5. Rewrites based on more notes. 6. Final edits and copyedit review. 7. Final review of typeset text and designed graphics (charts, etc.). More or less, each round took less time than the round that preceded it. The first draft of the proposal took almost a year, and final proposal edits took about a month. The first three chapters took me two months to write. The first full manuscript took about four weeks. I had just over a week for rewrites (shorter than usual because I didn’t need to make major developmental changes), and about as long to review copy edits, then only a few days to do final look. The first full manuscript was 75,000 words, and the final version was closer to 80,000. I average about 1000 words an hour when writing. And I printed the full book out seven times (sorry trees!), because I found that I read and edit better when I’m looking at paper, not a screen. From starting to write for real to my final approval was almost exactly eight months.
Money stuff! How many copies do you need to sell to earn out? After that how much will you earn per book?
I’m not allowed to share money stuff, but it’s safe to say that book advances are rarely a life-changing amount of money. Here’s a good article that gets into how advances work, and the sizes they tend to be. Here’s another. And in truth I haven’t calculated how many books I need to sell to earn out my advance, but I do need the book to sell if I want to write more. If I earn out the advance, any royalties will go directly to charity or our donor advised fund, so I won’t personally earn anything. ;-)
Book tour?!
Book tours aren’t generally profitable anymore unless you’re already famous, so they’re not something publishers generally organize for you. If you see authors going on a book tour, that’s something they’re taking upon themselves to organize and fund, and I don’t know if you know this, but I’m retired. ;-) Haha. But seriously, it’s a ton of work! So no official tour, but I will be doing events to coincide with our travels. Stay tuned! (The blog sidebar always has info on planned events, so it’s a good idea to check in there periodically!)
How did you adapt your writing process from writing twice-weekly blog posts to a book? Were there different habits or changes in your mindset that were necessary?
In many ways, the process of going from writing blog posts to writing a whole book was a lot like what I ask readers to do in the book! Writing a blog is focusing on what’s right in front of you, or what’s on your mind in that moment. That’s what it should be! It’s a chronicle of your thoughts and concerns just as much as it is a chronicle of your life. Most of us are stuck in that right-in-front-of-us thinking day to day, and don’t take the big step back to look at all of life and what we want out of it. Writing a book is like taking that step back. I had to ask myself, “What’s everything I want to say, and want to be sure people get out of it, but without putting unnecessary crap in there?” (Sort of like budgeting, actually! So many parallels.) Doing that required a big mindset shift, but once I had my roadmap laid out clearly, it was just writing, which is not so different from blogging.
How did you come to the right balance of sharing your vs. other peoples’ stories?
The book is a how-to guide, and not a memoir of my or our story, nor an in-depth look at others’ stories. I want readers to focus on their own journey and not be drawn to make too many comparisons. So our story and case studies are sprinkled throughout, more like condiments than the main dish, to provide impetus for brainstorming and inspiration, but not to model the “right” way to do something. Because as you may already know, I don’t believe in the idea of the “right way.”
What other questions do you have?
I’ve shared a ton here, but I’m happy to share more! Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter or Instagram, what else you’d like to know about the book!
Extra Special Thanks
Lots of blog friends are giving away copies of Work Optional, and I hope you’ll enter their giveaways, too, if you’re hoping to win a copy! But Our Next Life readers deserve extra love, and so I’m giving away 10 signed and personally addressed copies and I’ll answer a question of your choice for every winner. To enter, simply comment on this post and make sure your email address is attached to the comment, no later than midnight Pacific time on Sunday, February 17, 2019. The book giveaway is only available to addresses in the U.S., but folks in other countries who enter can still get a question answered if you win. If you already have a copy of the book, I hope you’ll enter anyway, because you can then give your spare copy to a friend or family who might benefit, or donate it to your local library. Let’s get this thing into as many hands as possible.
Big thanks to those who pre-ordered! The drawing for the Skype sessions will be next week. Stay tuned to your email to find out if you won.
It’s an incredible thing to have a big life dream come true, but it’s even more meaningful when you know that it was made possible by the support of others, and especially if you have been reading here for a while, you’re a huge part of what made publishers take a chance on me. Your support is what showed them that there was a market for these ideas, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough. But here’s one more anyway:
Thank you.
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Categories: book
Congratulations on the book, Tanja!
It is on my Amazon wish list already but hoping to win a copy :-)
I can’t imagine how good this day must feel for your, what an accomplishment!
Can’t wait to read this book! Congratulations!!!
*for you
Loved reading about your journey, would like to read the book and then donate it to the library.
So happy for you! This is huge! Can’t wait to read it!
Congrats, Tanja! What a huge accomplishment. I’m looking forward to reading!
I preordered, should get it in the mail today. Looking forward to reading it, and would love a copy to give away. Congratulations!
Congrats! I’m excited to read it!
Congratulations on being published! Looking forward to reading it.
Congratulations Tanja! Looking forward to reading it soon!
Congrats! I pre-ordered a while back and lo and behold, it magically appeared on my Kindle. Can’t wait to start reading it.
Looking forward to reading it!
I love this behind-the-scenes look! I honestly loved the book, and I cannot wait to get the audio version to hear it in your voice!
Congratulations Tanja! I look forward to reading it! :) I’ve enjoyed reading your posts over the years and can say they’ve given me inspiration to keep pushing forward on the path to FI. To see where you guys are now only a short time later is awesome. Good luck on your own version of early “retirement” and hope to meet you guys one day!
Congratulations! Requesting my library to buy a copy!
Congratulations! I’ve been waiting for my pre-ordered copy forever now!! And I’ve put off reading any blog reviews of the book until I have a chance to read it for myself. I’m really looking forward to diving into the book myself, and having an excellent jumping off point to share with my husband the idea of Work Optional. While he gets the numbers, I think some of the exercises will be helpful for him.
Thanks for your work to help us!
Congratulations! Your story of origin is so interesting and I love your writing style. I like the chattyness of the writing! It’s relatable. I look forward to reading your book!
Can’t say enough about the book, well done Tanja! This isn’t pat on the back good job, this is legit I thought the book was great and I’m sharing it with clients who even mention the idea of retiring early.
So excited to read this! I’ve been following your blog for a while and really appreciate hearing about your journey and advice. Would love to win a copy of your book!
Congratulations on the book launch! I love reading your blog so I know the book will be awesome!
Congratulations on the book. I have pre-ordered it from Amazon and am looking forward to reading it. I was lucky in that I found your blog early (the pre-capitalization days) and have followed it since. Your writing is excellent and your topics are more often than not very thought provoking.
I’m a new reader to your blog. Congratulations on your book, I know it will inspire many.
can’t wait to read it!
Congrats!! I’m very excited to read it!
I’m happy to see that both the Multnomah County (Portland, OR) library system and the Washington County (Hillsboro, OR) systems have copies of the book (I filled out the request process in both systems a few months ago). Hoorah!
I enjoyed both the book and the inside look. It’s fascinating that the book proposal took the better part of a year, but the first draft of the manuscript was done in a month.
Your point on the difference between blog writing and book writing is spot on. After my 3,500 word review of Work Optional, I wrote a more reasonable 1,000 words on RESET (a U.K. financial freedom book) and my main criticism of the book is that it read too much like a series of blog posts — short paragraphs with lots of white space and large headings. I can understand why you would want to take a break from blog writing as much as possible when writing a book. Different mediums demand different styles.
Many congrats on reaching the finish line is this lengthy process and creating a thoughtful, organized and cleverly written guide to financial freedom.
Cheers!
-PoF
I loved loved loved the book, and like Penny said, I can’t wait to hear your audiobook version. I had one of my old swim team kids (now married and a homeowner) reach out to me about “Financial Freedom” this morning and I recommended your book, among other podcasts and the Shockingly Simple blog post from MMM.
Pinch yourself, Tanja, it’s REAL!!! Soooo many CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
Congratulations! Would love to win a copy. Can’t wait to read it!
So excited to see it pop up on my Kindle App this morning (yay pre-orders!)
Yessssss!! Super excited for you and to read this book digitally via my library, unless this contest pans out, lol). Congrats on the launch!!!
Congrats! What an amazing accomplishment! What did Mark think of all of this? Did he contribute to the book at all? I’ve requested it at my library, but fingers crossed you pick my questions!
Congratulations! Really looking forward to reading!!
congratulations! I hope i win a copy!
Congrats! I’m sure it will be a big success!
Congratulations! What a dream to come true! People have told me to write books, but they’d be much more memoir-ish and I’m not sure I want someone picking apart my life like that, much less thousands of readers. And I’m not an expert in anything else. Kudos on this achievement (and I really hope that you get to write more books because of it!). I’ll be sure to pick it up from the library when they have it (I really wanted to purchase, but I’m still in the late part of the pay off debt/early part of the start accumulating wealth stage. This..is an awkward part of the transition.). :) Woohoo!!!!!
Congratulations! This is so exciting. I’ve requested the book from the library, but would love to win a copy to share with friends. :)
Congrats on pub day! I’d love to win a copy :)
Work optional was just delivered and I am anxious to get started. I found the blog last summer and pre ordered the book in October. My FIRE date was tentatively May 2020. Your blog and great information came in handy when an unexpected buy out was offered at work late last year. We found out that FIRE was a real option for us and we are now living our dream. Thanks and I can’t wait to dive in to the book!
I am anxiously (and very patiently) awaiting your book’s arrival at my local library. Your blog and book are so inspiring!
Congratulations again and would love a copy to give away if I win and to pick your wise brain even more than I already have. :-)
Congratulations! Looking forward to reading it and mapping out my dream of early retirement on Vieques Island, PR.
I’m new to FI and reader of your blog. Excited to get my hands on your book!
Mine arrives tomorrow. I can’t wait. And, congratulations.
Congratulations! 🎉
As someone who wrote stories like “The Most Famous Writer In History” (such a creative title I chose as a child), I totally get your excitement over this accomplishment! Congratulations! Can’t wait to read it!
Congratulations on the book! I’ve loved reading your blog over the years and can’t wait to read this book!
Haha! Nice! Gotta love the chess club!
Congrats on your success! Can’t wait for the next one…
Congratulations! I’m number 7 on the wait list for one of my library’s 4 copies of the book.
Book literally just arrived 1 minute ago! My wife and I will be reading this evening.
My book just arrived . . . at my office. Oops! Hid it quickly in my purse before anyone saw it. Congratulations!
Can’t wait to read this.
Got my book on it’s way from Amazon. I’ve enjoyed this “behind the scenes”.
I am so excited to read this book You and you husband are truly inspiring and I can’t wait to apply all the advice given to my life!
Congrats on reaching the finish line and achieving a life dream! I can’t wait to read the book.
Congrats, Tanja! I’ve got the audiobook queued up for my flight tonight, and very much looking forward to it. #upintheair #work-not-so-optional
Congratulations on this fantastic milestone and thank you for this enlightening behind the scene.
Congrats Tanja! Looking forward to reading it real soon and would love to win a copy to review on my blog.
I usually borrow personal finance books from the library rather than purchase them and have been 9th in line for my library’s ebook version for months. I suspect that this a book that I’ll want to refer back to and share with friends so I decided to purchase my own copy. I can’t wait to get started! Thank you for being so relatable, so inspirational, and so genuine.
Congrats Tonja! I have loved reading your blog so I know your book is going to be well worth the read with lots of great content and inspiration. I’m really looking forward to grabbing my own copy.
Great job Tanja! I requested a copy for my library, and am very much looking forward to reading it, and maybe giving some away as gifts. Your honesty and openness are just as important as your insights and hard work. Thank you!
Thank you for the inside look into what it took to write the book! I’m amazed it only took 4 weeks to write the entire manuscript, but like you said, a lot of time was spent on the proposal which led the way. I hope to be a published author one day so it was really interesting to learn how it went for you. And I am SO excited to read it!
Congrats, thanks forthe inside scoop, and I love the book!
I am hoping to be “work optional” as soon as I can! And, I would love a signed copy! I was wrong on all my guesses about where you lived and your line of work before your big reveal, back in 2017. Maybe I can figure out how to work less and live more from reading your book.
Robbarino
You’re living out my dream to be a published author, Tanja. How exciting, congratulations!!! I can’t wait to read it.
Congratulations! Can’t wait to read it.
Congratulations on your book. Must be an interesting read.
Would love to win a copy of the book, since I’m a newbie to FIRE! Congrats on publishing!
I got the book today, but would love a copy for my local library!! Congrats on publication day!
Excited to start the book. I’d requested my library buy it, and got notified they did on the same day my e-book arrived from Amazon! Would love a hard copy for family and friends. Congrats!
Congratulations Tanja! I’m so very happy for you! Your joy is contagious, and I hope you will have the chance to write many more books in your future! You are a gift to all of us. :)
Congratulations! What a fantastic accomplishment. This is the perfect book for me to gift my son and his new bride.
All the gold stars to you, my friend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Absolutely agree on the inclusivity and choose your own adventure-ness of the book.
And I hope you still have a copy of that Disney book 😄
Congratulations!
Congratulations Tanja on an amazing achievement. I’ve been reading your blog since (almost!) the beginning and its been motivating and inspiring to follow the journey. I think you are a strong, intelligent voice for the FI community and especially women. I think my partner may have ordered this book for my upcoming birthday! (a top secret package arrived in the mail yesterday) but if not I will definitely be ordering it soon and can’t wait to read it!
Congratulations! Thanks for sharing the inside scoop. Can’t wait to read the book!
Congratulations on your book! I hope it will help people see the possibilities.
Congratulations! Though not chasing FIRE, sounds like the book could useful for all financial situations/priorities.
Should I win a copy, my question is: What is your advice for a 50-year-old PhD student who will graduate this year with six figures of student loan debt and who has zero retirement savings (or savings of any kind) and is not a homeowner so can’t sell an asset to pay it off or down?
FWIW this isn’t me but would love your take!
Congratulations both on your book finally being out in the world and on writing an AWESOME book that’s made me start thinking about my own plans more concretely instead of just figuring it out when I get there because it’s so far away. Even though I’d already read it, it was awesome to get my preorder copy in the mail yesterday and see that yes, indeed, it does have an index instead of a ton of blank pages ;)
Congratulations Tanya (and Mark)
Adventures shared are more powerful and I can only imagine the emotions you have experienced during your transition and accomplishments (such as publishing this book)
Just read a review on a different site, can’t wait to read/ win a copy!
Congratulations Tanja! I really enjoyed your book and I’m excited for my husband to read it too!
Congratulations on realizing the latest exciting chapter (!) of your wonderful journey! Brava!
Congratulations! What an amazing accomplishment! Will definitely order a copy and then donate it to our local library to share your wisdom!
Would love a copy to donate to the library.
Congratulations! Long time reader of your blog and looking forward to reading your book. You are very unique and real and write in an engaging way. Go get some pow.
Congratulations. This is a great accomplishment.
Congratulations!! Started reading last night on the bus home and almost missed my stop. I’ve discovered that while I have the money side down, I need to focus more on what ER will look like for me.
And as a fellow spreadsheet aficionado, I’m looking forward to adding some of your calculations to my existing worksheets. Thanks!
I am new to your site. I have a feeling that your book will be super inspiring and life changing. Cannot wait to have the book in my hand..
Many thanks for your hard work,happy Valentine’s Day!!!!!!!!!
Congrats on launching the book! Definitely excited to be able to read it soon. We’ve gone ahead and requested our local library get the book as well!
Cheers — The Dragons
Congratulations! I’m excited to read your book!
I can’t wait to read the book! Congratulations and thank you!
I pre-ordered your book and read it Wednesday morning on my flight to San Diego. I certainly noticed the change in tone from Web Blogger to Book Author. It was still your voice but definitely less “chatty” :) . I do think you hit a great balance in covering the various options of work options, earning and saving. I loved your book. Congrats!
So exciting! I can’t wait to check this book out!
I just got my copy yesterday and I can’t wait to dig into it today. Congratulations!! I’d love to win a copy to gift to someone else. Thank you for writing such an informative, inspiring blog and now a book.
Congrats on your book being published; I enjoyed reading the behind the scenes info :-)
In looking forward to reading the book. Thanks for all the publishing into too.
Congratulations on your first book! Here’s to many more to come in the future!
Can’t wait to read it
Congrats! On my reading/Amazon wish list but hoping to win a copy and looking forward to the read!
This is amazing! I’ve been following this blog for a while and I love it. Your authenticity and inclusion resonates with me so much. I just got the book on Audible and can’t wait to listen to it! Congrats!
Congrats on such an achievement! I’ve put in requests for digital and paper copies of your book at my library. Hopefully they’ll get it. I enjoy reading and thinking about the many topics you bring up – many of which I had not considered before.
Hi! I loved hearing about your book and reading all of the reviews by FI bloggers! I’d love to win a copy and get to ask a question!
Hi Tanja! A HUGE congratulations on this milestone! And extending gratitude, too, on behalf of my mom–who I can admit is not (yet) familiar with your blog because she’s still learning that blogs are a thing. :) She’s a single mom who raised 4 kids on her own with a salary that was well below the federal poverty line. Because she was always living paycheck to paycheck (making decisions like “food or lights?”), she always assumed that she’d be stuck in low-paying jobs for the rest of her life. Retirement, in her mind, was just for people who made lots of money. I’m getting her your book and I am so excited for her to read it — She sounded hopeful about her finances, and even the prospect of retirement, for the first time that I can ever remember once I started to describe it to her. (She’s 65 now, so she won’t retire early, but she WILL be able to retire in her lifetime which used to feel impossible to her.) Yours is the only book I’ve come across that will be palatable for her and that won’t make her think “That’s great for him/her, but doesn’t apply to me.” Thank you for all you’ve done to create an inclusive and realistic message!
I don’t think we can donate a giveaway copy to the library for circulation but we can definitely give the library some money to buy it for their collection! (Which is what we like to do.) I’m thinking about which other friends would appreciate a copy as I have so appreciated my copy and would like to share this with the world some more.
You are the best FI blogger out there and I very much look forward to reading your book!
My pre-ordered book arrived on Tuesday, and I finished reading it this evening. I look forward to finding the worksheets over at theworkoptionalbook.com soon!
I found your blog by accident about a year and a half ago, sitting in the O’Hare airport, thinking about retiring (although not too early). Your post about insurance costs was a very important reminder for me of that consideration in retirement planning. Thank you! I have been following your blog ever since. Would love to win and/or read your new book. Congratulations and cheers!
Congratulations Tanja! Would be awesome to win a copy, and get a question answered.
I finished reading Work Optional today, though a signed copy would be an extra treat!
I’ve seen great things about your book and I look forward to reading it! I’ve told my local library to get a copy, too!
Congratulations on your new book! I do have a question. You mentioned that your editors asked you to downplay the math. Would you be willing to share your more in-depth spreadsheets for the math heads among us? I just found your blog today. Thanks for sharing your adventures. :)
Really enjoyed the book. Congratulations on such an accomplishment. When will the workbooks be available?
I am so stinking excited for you. I was showing off my copy to unsuspecting friends at the little man’s birthday party on Sunday ;)
Congrats and best of luck to you! The cover looks terrific!
Loved your book. Couldn’t put it down. It was very concise and well-written. Thought-provoking too. It has just been put up on my bookshelf…right beside “Your Money or Your Life”…for future reference. Sending a huge gold star your way. Thanks for writing!
Thank you for breaking the process down for us. Very illuminating! I hope you earn that advance and get to write more books.
Hello, I found a PDF of your book available for $2.83 on ebay. I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you weren’t aware of this.
Here is the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Work-Optional-Retire-Early-the-Non-Penny-Pinching-Way-by-Tanja-Hester-PDF/392291436378?hash=item5b5664475a:g:1GEAAOSwsrBcz281
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll flag it for my publisher.