Interview With Author Ernie Zelinski
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have published 20 books that have been published in 22 languages in 29 countries and have sold over 1,125,000 copies worldwide.
My signature book “The Joy of Not Working” was self-published in 1991 and then taken over by Ten Speed Press in 1997. It has now sold over 320,000 copies sold and has been published in 17 foreign languages.
My flagship book “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free” was rejected by 35 US and British publishers so I self-published it in 2003. Random House and Wiley wanted to take it over but their royalty rates were too low for my liking. The book has now sold over 475,000 copies and has been published in 11 languages.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
GREAT FRIENDS ROCK (How to Find Them — And Keep Them!)
This is a book that I wrote in 2002, the same year I wrote my flagship book “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”.
I sold French and Spanish rights but then I set it aside to write and promote other books.
In January 2025, I was working on another book and looked at “GREAT FRIENDS ROCK” for some material to plagerize. I skimmed through it and realized that it was a good book and I should self-publish it given that loneliness had become such a big problem in today’s society.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I imagine that a lot of people will say all my writing habits are unusual:
For example,
1. I prefer to work in coffee bars where there are people around instead of my home office.
2. Being a night owl, I prefer to work in 24-hour coffee bars in which I can hang out until 2 AM or 3 AM.
3. Even though I have a new Thinkpad and an Apple Mac Pro (about a year old), I work on a 14-year-old Dell laptop with Windows XP on it.
4. My latest book “Great Friends Rock” was written on 14-year-old Dell laptop with Windows XP using Word 97. I used Word 97 to lay out the book in color and then used an Adobe 6 to generate PDFs for the offset printer that printed 2,000 copies.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
TOP 10 BOOKS THAT INFLUENCED ME:
1. “Illusions” by Richard Bach
2. “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment” by Thaddeus Golas
3. “Million Dollar Habits” by Robert J. Ringer
4. “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exup ry
5. “Looking Out for Number 1” by “Robert J. Ringer”
6. “Messiah’s Handbook” by Richard Bach
7. “Living the 80/20 Way” by Richard Koch
8. “Winning Through Enlightenment” by Ron Smotherman
9. “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz
10 “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle
What are you working on now?
I am presently working on the 25th Anniversary Updated Edition of “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free” that will be released on September 30 and will be distributed by Simon and Schuster in the US.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
In the past, I had 7 websites that I used to promote my retirement books. The websites were all retirement related and I had such great search engine optimization that sometimes for key retirement words, I would have 4 of the 10 spots on Google for the search term. But those techniques don’t work anymore.
Having said that, the best promotion for books is still word-of-mouth advertising.
For example, recently I was trying to figure why there was such a spike in the ebook sales of “The Joy of Not Working” with the vast majority coming from the United Kingdom. Sales that wouldn’t normally happen are still happening today and I have earned over $3,000 that wouldn’t have happened (from a book I wrote 35 years ago).
I only found out about this video because my good friend Randy Edwards learned about the video and sent me the link.
“The Joy of Not Working” Explained in 14 Minutes
Note that this guy Richard in the United Kingdom has 36,400 subscribers on YouTube and this particular video about “The Joy of Not Working” has now had over 70,000 views.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
“Do it badly — but at least do it!” is my own motto I have lived by.
In the same vein,
“Remember that done is better than perfect.”
— Jen Sincero
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“It is much more profitable to do subpar work on the right project than excellent work on the wrong project.”
— Robert J. Ringer
What are you reading now?
“Complete Dream Healer” by Adam McLeod
“Every Thing Is F*cked” by Mark Manson
“Keep Going” by Austin Kleon
What’s next for you as a writer?
I am 76 years old and I have written 20 books so far.
I want to write 27 books in my lifetime.
Andrews McMeel has asked me to write another retirement book for them so I will work on that after I complete the 25th Anniversary Updated Edition of “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”.
I want my last book to be an autobiography titled “There Is No Off-Switch on This Genius Machine.”
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Great question!
I suppose I would want to bring books that I have never read before.
Moreover, I would chose books that are long and have a lot of content.
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Ernie Zelinski’s Social Media Links
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