So I am copying the draft Prologue (to date) to give you an idea what it is about. Tell me if this is something you would want to read, especially if you could get it as an eBook for $2.99?
The neat thing about the Internet is that no one is forced to "do" anything they don't want, right? If I sent this to a friend, they would feel obligated --or put upon--to look at it. Right?
The Internet makes it all voluntary. It also provides neat solutions. The key to an eBook success is the small icon cover design. If its dull the best book won't go anywhere. Well, i discovered a site where you tell a group of designers what you want and what you'll pay, and you get a bunch to choose from. Awesome.
That is SO much better than trying to pick ONE designer who wants BIG BUCKS to do it, right?
Keep in mind that this is a draft (my esteemed editor is on vacation, so don't expect perfection. What I want is if it makes you interested in buying it and finding out more?
"Prologue
Better Times Ahead: April Fool?
This is a story of how the author transitioned from a farmer with nothing -- to a Fortune 500 global high flyer --- to being laid off -- and not only survived losing everything, but learned to thrive. He helped create at least one U.S. billionaire who listened to him about just one business opportunity out of many. This fast-paced book offers insight to anyone interested in surviving this tumultuous 21st Century. It begins with journal entities in faraway places like China and India before they became today’s major powers and concludes with insightful solutions to create the jobs America needs to lead the world in this inescapable global, space age economy.
It should provide uplift to those people who have been laid off or fear that it will happen to them. It's about an American who went from a small farm in Iowa to being a Fortune 500 international attorney traveling the world negotiating in 30 countries from Europe to South America to the Mideast and Asia, then was laid off during a severe recession and lost it all during the great Texas Oil Bust -- house, cars, cash, all of it.
And yet he survived and eventually began to thrive.
I am that person. My name is Michael Fjetland (“Fetland”). Unable to find a job after losing my big company job during the “Great Texas Oil Bust” with billion dollar, multinational Dresser, I became an entrepreneur and found myself doing things I never imagined before -- like conducting international kidnapping negotiations in Syria for an American girl taken to the Middle East, discovering fraud on U.S. investors while investigating a case in Europe that involved a major bank and Nigerian international criminals, rolling across primitive China in trains during the night, even running out of money in Bangkok, Thailand (and wondering how I was going to get home.)
It wasn’t an easy road, but it led to success in unique ways. I became a TV terrorism analyst on 9/11. I became a Congressional candidate against one of America’s most feared politician (and survived that too). It will tell people that anything is still possible in America, even when you have lost it all. It will give readers a vicarious time trip around the world and how failures lead to successes.
These are my stories, taken from old travel journals kept since 1980. Before being laid off, I was sent to Nicaragua just before the Reagan Contra War. I had to give up a room at the Nile Hilton for a Presidential peace mission. I was one of the first to go to China after Nixon opened its doors, representing a Fortune 500 company selling pollution control equipment.
It gives readers insight into ancient lands few Americans get to see, and how countries once behind us are passing us, and why. It has insights into today's greatest issues that impact our daily lives, our economy and our future.
Today I am CEO of a successful, profitable “green” company I founded whose products cut solar heat and protect people from burglars to hurricanes. It is one of the few things on the planet that actually pays for itself by saving energy. It is a carbon-negative product: it saves more energy than it takes to make it!
There are many people today across America, and across the world, who are going through what I have been through -- being laid off or worrying about it, and wondering “what now?” --this is an inspirational tale that life doesn’t end with a job loss. As one door closes, another opens. This is a story of surviving change.
It ends with a chapter “Agenda for American Greatness” which outlines what Americans need to do now to succeed as a people and a country in mankind’s first-ever permanently global, high tech, space-age 21st Century. It is based on my expertise having been in over 50 countries for over 30 years, beginning with the Fortune 500 – and ending up as an entrepreneur starting without a golden parachute, a silver parachute or any parachute! I tell people that I had to make a parachute out of my handkerchief on the way down.5 weeks severance pay was all I got.
It all started in the 80's during the "Big Texas Oil Bust." The unexpected life can teach us amazing things about ourselves and the world we would never have discovered otherwise…
###
Michael, you have wonderful tales to tell. My only concern is that to try to tell it all in one book will not do justice to the wonderful experiences that you have had. Think about giving these stories the detail they deserve and write your story in at least two volumes -- maybe three.
ReplyDelete