The Writers Coin

As you all may or may not know, one of my favorite people in the blogosphere is Ramit Sethi, the guy who runs IWillTeachYouToBeRIch.com. I know his site sounds like a scam waiting to happen, but he’s actually one of the best sites out there when it comes to money and spending.

He writes no-nonsense content that you can actually put to use in your life—that’s why I talk about him so much. He is, as far as I’m concerned, the Michael Lewis of personal finance.

Anyway, his book is coming out today and he’s doing all kinds of cool stuff on his site and on his twitter page, including some awesome giveaways. He’s giving away a Kindle and some serious cash.

So even if you aren’t interested in buying the book or reading about how to make yourself a smarter spender of money, you can at least head over there and see how a smart author goes about promoting his book.

I’m convinced—my book is on the way.

I’ve linked to a few of Ramit’s posts before and he’s on my blogroll, but the other day it hit me: his blog is really good. It came out of nowhere and it made me take a closer look to see what it is about his blog that makes me like it so much.

First of all, Ramit is one of us. He isn’t trying to be someone he isn’t and he uses examples and stories we can all relate to. Granted, he may be smarter than most of us, but that’s not his fault.

He tells good stories. When he tells a story about this friend or that friend, it’s not only instructive but entertaining. So either his friends are more entertaining than our friends or he can just spin a better yarn.

He is genuinely trying to help. This is pretty obvious. Go to the site and surf around for a while—it’s very intuitive and easy to get what you want. Having a “Start here” link is brilliant, and something I’m probably going to steal when I get around to it.

He’s funny. He’s not trying to be, but it’s all humorous and that works wonders when you’re writing about this stuff.

And that still doesn’t cover the reason why I really like his site. To me, he is the Michael Lewis of the personal-finance blogging world: he writes interesting stories on topics that any one of us could’ve written about. But he does it in a way only he could. If you’re not familiar with Michael Lewis, go here and read up on his articles.

This is what I’d like to do with The Writer’s Coin: write useful posts that will entertain and enlighten, all while staying away from the topics that are already being covered ad nauseam around the web. It’s tough but the satisfaction you get from writing something original and thoughtful like that is incredible.

So I tip my hat to you Ramit, well done!

PS Make sure you go check out his blog, it’s in your best interest.