Initial reactions to RPGrad

Overall, I’ve been thrilled with the reception of Recession-Proof Graduate.  It’s been downloaded and read by a few thousand people, and nearly all of the feedback has been positive and appreciative.  I even got a couple emails from college career advisers, thanking me for advice that was not “insipid” or “actively bad” (their words, not mine).  I’m extremely happy that I was able to give away something that so many people found valuable.

Of course, there were a few people who completely missed the point of the book, which didn’t surprise me.  Whenever anyone doles out advice to a large group, no matter how relevant or useful they think that advice is, there are always a few people in the crowd who believe it doesn’t apply to them:

“I’m a plumber.  How am I supposed to use free work to gain an advantage over all the other plumbers?”

“I’m homeless and I’m emailing you from the local library.  You can go to hell if you think I’m going to get some skills under my belt.  Now please… click the link below to donate to my Paypal account.”

“I lost all my limbs in a freak Zamboni accident.  How can I build an online presence if I’m just a torso and type with my forehead?  Very disappointed in this free e-book!”

Look, I’m very aware that a few of the principles aren’t applicable in certain situations.  You can’t become a neurosurgeon through free work, I’m sorry.  I didn’t cater to the 0.02% of people who have those jobs, and for that I apologize.  I suggest ignoring the principles that are irrelevant to you, and embracing the ones that will work.

I will continue targeting the 85% of graduates that these principles will work for, and hope to make a much, much better version of the book next time around.

Just to reiterate what I said before: in the next version of the book, I plan to expand on all of the principles, in addition to covering a bunch of subjects I didn’t discuss in the first version.  These new subjects include:

• How to find work you’ll care about
• The stepping stones of self-employment
• Advice on doing free work
• Email scripts
• Case studies

And probably even more stuff on top of all that.

To all those who read the first version of the book… Thanks.