Happy Holiday Gift For You and Someone Else

[Andrew Zimmerman Jones]

Hello everyone,

 

This has been a great year for the Jones family. I especially want to thank all of my friends for the wonderful support they've offered through my first full year as a book author. The year ended a bit crazy - with a broken furnace needing replaced and new tires on both our vehicles - but overall, it's been one of the best ever. No only is the family doing great, and my youngest son, Gideon, just turned 1 year old in November ... but did I mention I had a book out?

 

This year, I've worked on two different book projects which I hope to finalize in the beginning of 2011 and get out to my agent so she can seek out worthy publishers for them. One is a novel, the first draft of which was written during this year's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and the other is a non-fiction book on charitable giving. My essay in Green Lantern and Philosophy is slated for release in May, and I've got two or three other related projects that I anticipate participating in during 2011.

 

My Gift to You

Since it is the holiday season, and I'm broke from having just bought a new furnace, I couldn't figure out a better way to thank you all for your support than to offer you this deal through a great discount site, called Groupon. They're offering a $25 Kiva credit, allowing you to provide micro-financing to entrepreneurs in developing areas, for only $15. When the loan is paid back, you have the opportunity to either give a new loan or to withdraw your money. I get no profit from this, other than the knowledge that it's a great deal.

 

In other words, if you paid $15 to buy the $25 credit, then loaned it to an entrepreneur in India to help buy a bicycle so that he can start a delivery service (or whatever - you get to pick who to fund), when you get paid back in a year you can take out the $25. Your $15 investment not only helps someone, but also will result in $10 earned - a 66.7% return on your investment! Much better than having that $15 sitting in a bank somewhere. Unfortunately, it looks like they only let you take advantage of this great deal once, so it can't be taken advantage of to amass wild sums of cash. No doubt, the deal is offered to get you hooked on microlending.

 

If you're interested, check it out at Groupon:

http://www.groupon.com/r/uu3645413

 

You can also find out a bit more about microfinancing in my blog post on the topic from July:

http://40daysofgiving.blogspot.com/2010/07/microfinancing-student-loans.html

 

Disclaimer: Beware! Helping people is addictive.

Have a great holiday season!

 

All the best,

Andrew

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Andrew Zimmerman Jones, author
http://www.azjones.info/
Twitter: @azjauthor

STRING THEORY FOR DUMMIES
     Available at a bookstore near you or online:
     http://stringtheory.azjones.info/