Retirement Places, Success, and Self-Publishing

A recent article in a major publication discussed some of the best places to retire outside the United States.

The writer of the article had a note toward the end of the article about how no other country could compare to the United States:

This was the comment that I left:

This a great article with a lot of valuable advice, much better and more than
most people could ever offer.

I must take issue with this statement, however:

"Understand that no other country on earth is as comfortable or as convenient as the United States of America."

There have been many international studies done that don't have the United States as the top place to live. Far from it, in fact.

For instance, International Living Magazine ranked 194 countries to reveal the Best Places to Live in its 2010 Quality of Life Index.

It considered things such as Cost of Living, Culture and Leisure, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Safety and Risk, and Climate.

International Living Magazine placed the United States as #7 behind Switzerland, Germany, France, Australia, Luxemberg, and New Zealand.

Being #7 is a bit of a distance from being #1, wouldn't you say?

In a different vein, I came across a Squidoo Lens lately that had a few quotations about success on it.

This was my commment:

These inspirational quotations about success are okay:

There is one that is not here which is my favorite success quote of all time, however:

"There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way."
- Christopher Morley

Like you, I have several collections of quotations on several websites

The quotation by Christopher Morley is the one I placed as the #1 of the Top-10 success quotes on my webpage of Sensational Quotations about Success for Smart People Website.

This quotation more than any other reflects my philosophy that I write about and which has helped my becoming a successful international best-selling author, published in 28 countries, with 650,000 copies of my books sold worldwide.

Ernie J. Zelinski
Author of The World's Best Retirement Planning Book
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)

In still another vein, several people on a LinkedIn discussion group have suggested that self-publishing should be banned.

This was my response:

My guess is that the people who are against self-publishing are people who themselves are too lazy or too inept to make self-publishing work for themselves.

Many books such at Mutant Message Down Under and Rich Dad, Poor Dad were first self-published. When the books proved themselves by selling hundreds of thousands of copies, major publishers gave big advances to take them books over. If these great books that sold millions had not been self-published, they would never have been published.

At the same time major publishers have published tens of thousands of books that, according to their success in the marketplace, shouldn't haven't been published in the first place.

These two quotes apply:

It's not creative unless it sells.
— David Ogilvy

A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.
— Henry Ford

In the end, it is the book buyers who will decide which books should have been published and which shouldn't have been published.

That is the way it should be — it's the book buyers' money. The book buyers should be the ones who have final say on what succeeds and what doesn't.

Ernie J. Zelinski, Living Smart in a Crazy World
Author of Book How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)