Central New York man ecstatic about meteoric rise from #2,540,175- to #1,745,833- ranked best-selling author on Amazon.com

SYRACUSE – When 42-year-old Joel Redmond, a lifelong native of this sleepy college backwater known more for its DomeDogs and annual snowfall than its contribution to literary blockbusters, looked at his Author Central page on Amazon this past Thursday, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“It seemed the books were flying off the shelves so fast I couldn’t believe it,” Redmond said. “My ranking was over 2.5 million at midday, and then when I checked it again at 7:30 that night, I’d risen to just under 1.75 million. This is a game-changer,” Redmond said. “My audience literally may have just gone from one dozen to several dozen – who knows? Maybe tens of dozens,” Redmond said.

Redmond, a private bank financial planner with less liquid net worth than most parish priests, said he never intended to create the financial version of The Hunger Games. Asked about his literary research and writing process, he became unduly ebullient. “I’ts not that easy being modest,” he said. “No one in my family has ever become a #1,745,833 best-selling author before.” Pressed about his writing method, he hesitantly elaborated. “I remembered reading this quote by Dave Barry,” he said. “He said something like, ‘Most writers get all hung up on fact-checking, the story-line, and making sure what they write is accurate, which is really pretend writing, when you think about it. Real writing is sitting down and making up stuff from your head, which is what I do.’ And that’s been my inspiration,” he said.

Redmond, whose book is called The One-Minute Financial Planner, said it became available on Amazon.com in November 2011. Since then, according to Amazon, he has sold 11 copies of the book, which is available in softcover, hardcover, and e-book editions.

“My senior partner at my previous firm bought five, and then I think he got three more,” Redmond said. “My manager paid the publisher $2,200 to publish. We gave them away so people would listen to us help manage their money. Actually, he may have bought four more,” Redmond said. “I think he kept his water bottle on a copy – I’m not sure we ever unloaded them all.” That wasn’t the best part, though, Redmond said.

“It was the royalties – I would get $15, and then three months would go by and I’d get another $12. For awhile the money just kept coming and coming,” he said.

What’s next for this up-and-coming Michael Lewis? “I’m not sure, but I did just release another book,” Redmond said. “It’s called Tradecraft, and it’s also available on Amazon in softcover and e-book versions.” But the best news of all is yet to come: Redmond saw it when he checked his Author Central page for the third time.

“I saw the rankings for Tradecraft, and apparently I went up to #228,234,” Redmond said. “This is the most unbelievable thing that’s happened to me yet, since winning that $25 from the lottery ticket my co-worker gave me last month.” 

The website for Tradecraft is at www.unlimitedpublishing.com/redmond. 

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