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I was always envious of bands that shot to stardom.  Comics who landed on Saturday Night Live.  Actors who won an Oscar on their first movies.  Assholes.

I realized later that these "overnight successes" weren't really.  These were people who worked and slaved unrewarded for years, decades before finding fame and glory.  The "sudden" part was only my perspective.  I began hating instead people who made home videos that went viral, lottery winners and fortune inheritors.  Those were the undeserving twats.

I mostly hated them while I was in my slaving away years.  Who every knows if your unpaid work will ever pay off.  A creative art isn't like working your way up in a company.  In a company, you get paid no matter what you do.  When you're working in a creative art, you practice and practice and work at your craft completely unpaid and unrecognized without any inkling if it will pay off eventually at all.

Standing in my crappy apartment surrounded by crumpled notes and a beat to hell drum set I was the asshole.  All my parents' disheartening advice was sneaking back into my brain, this time betraying me even more by using my own voice to say it.

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You have taken the first step.  By reading this book, you have acknowledged that not only are you poor, but that you no longer wish to remain poor.  Let this book be your inspiration, your first step up and out of poverty.  Hopefully, you didn't pay too much for it.

In this book you will find:

• Inspirational stories from regular people who prove that you can get out of poverty.
• Thrifty tips and tricks to help you gather wealth.
• Tips and tricks to make you appear (and feel!) richer than you currently are.
• Motivational quotes and facts.
• NEW!  Special added chapter for those who have never been poor, designed to help them realize that being poor is not a character defect.

Your journey from poverty begins now.  Good luck!