Baby-boomer Suicides spur Author to Offer Free E-Book, “How to Make Money While You Look for a Job”

July 6, 2010

How to Make Money While You Look for a Job Donna D. Buskirk was laid off from Microsoft in November, 2009. This is the third time she has been laid off, but the first time she has used unemployment benefits. Buskirk was a technical writer and recently started writing freelance articles for a small-town weekly newspaper.

The author is offering her full 123-page e-book free, after reading headlines about increasing baby-boomer suicides. She hopes that teachers and facilitators around the country will use the seven-step workbook to teach people in their communities the basics of starting a small service-based business.

She says, “I actually wrote and published How to Make Money While You Look for a Job, Start a Very Small Business on a Shoestring, A Step-by-Step Workbook the first time I was laid off after ten years at MCI, but I didn’t know how to promote it. Now, I’m taking a course in online marketing while I look for a job, but I still couldn’t get up the nerve to go public.”

We don’t know how to work for ourselves. We have to learn.

Buskirk lives with her two youngest children and husband on a small farm in North Carolina. Her husband was laid off and, after unsuccessfully looking for a job in the nearby Research Triangle Park for a year, he recently accepted a position in Northern Virginia. He makes the five-hour commute every weekend. She says, “I was busy and still shy about getting the book out there, but then I read an article about baby boomers not having enough retirement savings. When you add job loss to that, it inspired me to do a search on ‘increase suicide boomers.’

“I found headline after headline asking, ‘Why Are Boomers Killing Themselves?’ That made me get up off my fear and finish the book with just that new content I had. It’s a really good resource now, at 123 pages, including workbook pages,” says the author.

A June 11, 2010 New York Times article titled In Midlife, Boomers Are Happy — and Suicidal cites a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that found, “…for the second year in a row, the group between ages 45 and 54 had the highest rate of suicide, a reverse of historical trends.”

Buskirk says, “Of course I know there are other factors, but I hope the book helps someone. It’s very encouraging”. The book, describes seven steps, starting with, “Step One: Realize You Can,” to help others who are fearful of going out on a limb.

She plans to send a short daily email to people who sign up for her email list at SevenStepsToMoney.com, covering each step in turn. The steps are: