Financial Gurus Who Cashed in by Self-Publishing

Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki

Jul 15, 2009

Robert Kiyosaki and Dave Ramsey have polarizing viewpoints for the road to wealth, but they took the same path to literary fame.

When it comes to success in self-publishing, most writers shouldn't hold their breath. Publishing one's own books can be very expensive, and if it is not, the end product could be embarrassingly unprofessional in appearance.

However, this does not mean that the world of self-publishing is without its successes. Two very famous modern examples are Robert Kiyosaki and Dave Ramsey.

Finding Publishing Success

Robert Kiyosaki published his second book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, in 1997. According to his own story, no bookstores were interested in selling it since no one had ever heard of him. After all, it was a book on accounting written by a formerly bankrupt Vietnam War veteran.

However, a friend of his owned several car wash stations. Kiyosaki asked if his book could be sold there. Following several weeks of no sales, they were sold out very suddenly. What had happened was that a network marketer had read it, and it spread like wildfire through his organization, pushing Kiyosaki into the best-seller's list where he has remained 12 years and 18 books later.

Dave Ramsey self-published his first book, Financial Peace, as well. Financial Peace was released the same year Ramsey had started a local talk show called The Money Game. The book and his show took off. Currently, The Dave Ramsey Show can be heard on over 400 radio stations as well as on XM and Sirius satellite radio, and it can be seen on the Fox Business Network.

Ramsey and Kiyosaki: Opposing Viewpoints on Wealth Creation

Having grown up in Hawaii, Robert Kiyosaki was inspired to invent the surfing wallet. In doing so he became a very rich man before the age of thirty. However, he did not patent his work. It was not long before these wallets were being made overseas and sold for a price lower than his cost of production leading to him being broke before the age of thirty.

Kiyosaki feels that this event was a great lesson, if not many great lessons. He claims that without it, he would not be rich today.

In most of his books, Kiyosaki mostly discusses investing in real estate. Throughout his teaching, he encourages debt for the sake of leverage (OPM) and could be seen by some as stating, "purchasing a piece of property with income greater than expenses is like paying in full with other people's money."

While this is true, it should also be noted that Kiyosaki says in his books that he looks at about 100 pieces of property before finding five worthy of bidding on. Of those five, he will buy one. The repeating of this process will lead to many millions of dollars of wealth creation and cash flow.

Similarly, Dave Ramsey became a real estate agent in his twenties, and found that he could leverage so much wealth into borrowing that he became a multi-millionaire before the age of thirty. That same year (1986) there was a tax reform act that had a negative impact on the real estate market. One of Ramsey's investor's sold his stake to a bank. The bank evaluated the investments and demanded $1.2 million in 90 days. Ramsey went bankrupt before he was thirty.

Ramsey has stated that "bankruptcy is a life-changing event that causes lifelong damage." Because of his experience, he has gotten away from complicated, risky methods of creating wealth and has broken it down into what he refers to as seven baby steps:

Those reading over the steps may say, 'of course if anyone did that they'd be wealthy.' That seems to be Ramsey's point as well.

Which Guru is Right?

Determining who is right between the two of them is purely subjective. Both encourage incurring large amounts of wealth- one through debt, the other through debt elimination- and the approach is a matter of one's experience and tolerance for risk.

Many people may feel that this time in the real estate market would be the ideal time to capitalize on Kiyosaki's approach, while those who have been hurt by trying such an approach in the past 10 years probably wish that they'd have followed the seven baby steps.

Outside of their polarized approaches to investing and building wealth, both Kiyosaki and Ramsey were both able to succeed in the book business because they capitalized on markets that desired their products.

Sources

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