Finally, Learning Economics is available for purchase. You may order it here. Some endorsements may be found here.
The book starts out,
Each year, thousands of people study economics, but not many learn it. Most of them leave their economics courses ignorant of important basic facts, such as the differences in the standard of living over time and across countries, as well as basic economic principles, such as the way that a global oil market renders meaningless the notion of “energy independence.”
For Discussion. My goals is to increase popular understanding of economic principles. How can I promote this book in order to get the ideas distributed?
READER COMMENTS
David Thomson
Sep 14 2004 at 7:53pm
I’ve ordered the book. There’s no doubt but it’s a fantastic work. You are a great teacher and I appreciate your efforts. I will be spending more time on this blog after the election. Right now, however, I am doing what I can to help George W. Bush be reelected. The very fate of the world may depend on it. This has to be the first priority.
Michael Blowhard
Sep 14 2004 at 11:59pm
Congrats. I’ll be ordering up a copy.
AJE
Sep 15 2004 at 9:16am
Arnold: I’d anticipate that within your book you’ll explain how marketing is an act of dispersing information, rather than the Galbraithian pessimistic view that it’s merely an attempt to convince people to buy something they don’t need.
So why not be true to such principal? Find a hip-hop star, or football pro, and get them to endorse it. YOu can have the best library distribution system in the world, but if kids don’t go into them it underlines our professional irrelevency. I’m quite sure your work is too valuable to be neglected.
Kieran
Sep 15 2004 at 10:30am
You could publish the book under a creative commons liscence and make it available free for download.
Then you could publish the book in a wiki asking your readers to help you write the second edition by contributing examples, diagrams, anecdotes, actual reasearch, and complete data. As Gilmour says: All of your readers(collectively) are smarter than you.
Take advantage of two phenomena: Network effects and user content creation in your product and you’ll have a run away hit. Best of luck.
Cheers,
Kieran
Chris C.
Sep 15 2004 at 10:37am
I just ordered the book as a gift for my Dad, who is interested in economics but not too knowledgable. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.
Dave Meleney
Sep 15 2004 at 2:28pm
From reading their stuff, I think Chris Rock, Gallagher, and the head of the econ dept of Harvard would all like your book and they’d make a combo no reviewer could resist. A quote from a nobel-winner couldn’t hurt. When will you have a better excuse to call up your favorite nobelists?
Paul N
Sep 15 2004 at 5:13pm
I feel that good ideas that are ready to be heard will sell themselves. But if you want to do something, keep referring to it in your blog, and get other bloggers to post reviews of it.
Paul N
Sep 15 2004 at 5:44pm
Uh, I made the mistake of typing “kling a” into amazon.com’s search…top hits were (1) Naturalamb condoms (2) rolled gauze (3) Sugar & Spice DVD.
Ralph Lee
Sep 15 2004 at 7:52pm
give a copy to the library at uc berkeley so I can check it out and read it 🙂
Ross Nordeen
Sep 15 2004 at 8:48pm
Any particular reason it’s not available on Amazon.com?
Bernard Yomtov
Sep 15 2004 at 10:06pm
Congratulations, Arnold.
Gunjan
Sep 16 2004 at 3:33pm
Don’t know why nobody has noticed this – India’s
economy might cross Japan in size as early as
by the end of next year!
India’s economy is set to surpass Japan’s Economy
in size some time between 2005-2007, reaching a
size of around 3.5-3.8 trillion dollars. It will
become the third-largest economy in the World
after US and China.
Current GDP PPP numbers:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
Number of year’s to cross Japan from 2003
for 6.5 % Indian growth, 1.5% Jap growth =
log (3.57/3.02)/log(1.065/1.015) = 3.48 years from 2003.
Number of year’s to cross Japan from 2003
for 7.5 % Indian growth, 0% Jap growth =
log (3.57/3.02)/log(1.075) = 2.31 years
from 2003.
Jason Lupo
Sep 16 2004 at 5:46pm
Hello Arnold, Just a little story about my economics experience. When I started going to college it was for enviromental engineering at a private school in upstate New York. Then threw some failures and good luck I ended up in Northern California at College of the Redwoods. Where I took my first economics class and realized that by leaps and bounds economics is the most relavant subject of our times. I loved it so much that I went on to recieve my B.A. in economics and natural reasource planning. I often wondered why I never recieved a basic class in high school, its seems that armed with just a basic outlline of economics from high school would have made me a better citzen. But it does seem to me that some in our society with to shelter thier children from some the reality of economics. Thanks Jason Lupo
Brad Hutchings
Sep 19 2004 at 4:24am
Hey Kieran… Follow the links. The whole text of the book is online at ArnoldKling.com via links to the essays.
Arnold… Guy Kawasaki has been promoting his new book with an entrepreneurship test at tickle.com. Maybe you could work with them to make a general knowledge test and subject tests that correspond to your book. I know they sell memberships to avid test takers. I don’t know if/what they charge to create marketing driven tests. Once you have your tests made, they will be bigger on the fwd’d e-mail circuit than the hampster dance! 🙂
Lawrance George Lux
Sep 19 2004 at 12:15pm
Arnold,
I am in the ranks of ‘unread authors’, so probably cannot be much help. Your case is slightly different though, and I regretably have not read your book yet, but I would suggest you put it out as supplemental reading to a general Business Intro course. Talk with some of your old Classmates and Collegues. lgl
Bee Cavana
Sep 20 2004 at 10:20am
Marketing results often improve via emphasis on benefits, rather than simply on features (how good the book actually is).
That is, what will people in your target ausdience experience and be able to do/avoid having done to them, when they have read the text, bought the book, or bought and given the book? Things like: avoid being deceived by superficial statistics? Be able to expose silly assumptions endorsed the media? Be able to make a better judgment when buying big ticket items? Vanquish foolish opponents in argument? Never again….?
Well, you get the drift.
Bill Fellers
Sep 20 2004 at 6:52pm
Really play up the “learn economics without all that annoying math” angle. The angle won’t work on folks like me–the numerate–but since most Americans have poor math skills, you just might sell more books. If you want to sell even more books, change the title to Learning Sexonomics.
Bill Fellers
Sep 20 2004 at 6:57pm
Emphasize the empowering aspects of understanding economics. Sell it as a populist economic manifesto!
(I stole this idea from my wife–the empowering part, not the sarcasm.)
Mark Bahner
Sep 21 2004 at 10:58am
Hi, Arnold:
Sorry to go down the old, “Gotta spend money to make money” trail, but you could send a free copy of your book to one or more of the following people (roughly ranked in order of who I think would do the most to promote your book):
1) Larry Elder,
2) Deroy Murdock,
3) Neal Boortz,
4) Arnold Schwarzenegger (real long shot, but potential huge payoff),
5) Jimmy (“JJ”) Walker (now apparently a radio political show host),
6) Walter Williams (would say Thomas Sowell, but Sowell has his own “Basic Economics” book ;-)…maybe Williams has his own book?),
7) Rush Limbaugh (again a long shot, but a potential huge payoff).
Another way to get publicity would be to get included in various libertarian book catalogs, such as:
1) LibertyTree Books
2) Laissez Faire Books
Brad Hutchings
Sep 21 2004 at 3:08pm
Arnold,
Please put a link “READ MY BOOK” — “BUY MY BOOK” at the top of this blog. In a week, we won’t be able to find it!!
And maybe if we all have a write-in campaign to Hugh Hewitt’s blog… when he’s done flogging CBS and the Kerry campaign over GuardGate sometime in 2006, maybe he could turn his attention to econ 101.
HughHewitt.com
Comments are closed.