You don't have to be a twenty-three year old dancer with no savings to end up with the excruciating debts young Iris is confronted with in this latest work by financial and legal advisor Tad Crawford. Every year, thousands of Americans of all ages and backgrounds overtax their bank accounts and credit cards and are left with the tricky task of pulling themselves out of their financial chaos. Rarely can they receive such high-quality financial and moral support as the The Money Mentor provides—and certainly not in the guise of an entertaining, up-beat novel!
The Money Mentor provides debtors and those with risky financial habits with both a first-aid kit and long-term therapy to achieve financial freedom. As the author tells the story of the recovering debtor Iris, he walks his readers through all the stages of money management, from the painful assessment of assets and debts to increasing one's income and starting to save. Choosing a sympathetic "girl-from-next-door" as protagonist, The Money Mentor offers people in financial trouble what they lack most of all: the ability to look at themselves from a healthy distance and realize that there is a way out of their trouble.
What are the options for a 23-year-old injured and out-of-work dancer who is over her head in credit card debt? In The Money Mentor: A Tale of Finding Financial Freedom, Tad Crawford (The Secret Life of Money), who has appeared on TV shows like The O'Reilly Report, explores the possibilities through his fictional protagonist, Iris. Her debt problems are common among young people seduced by credit card companies' unrelenting buy-now-pay-later temptations, he explains, in this unusual yet practical look at financial management. Agent, Jean V. Naggar.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Tad Crawford, Publisher for Allworth Press in New York City, graduated from Columbia Law School, clerked on New York State’s highest court, and served as general counsel for the Graphic Artists Guild when he practiced as an attorney. He originated the course titled “Law and the Visual Artist” at the School of Visual Arts and wrote Legal Guide for the Visual Artist (now in its fifth edition) to serve as the text. He is the author or coauthor of more than a dozen books, including Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer, The Graphic Design Business Book, Business and Legal Forms for Fine Artists, and Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers. He lives in New York City.
Allworth Press publisher and founder Tad Crawford is an author, attorney, and artists' rights advocate.
Born in New York City, Crawford grew up in the artists colony of Woodstock, New York. Interested in writing both fiction and nonfiction, he majored in economics at Tufts College and graduated from Columbia Law School in February 1971. ("That explains the unusual amalgam of my activities," Crawford says. "A lot of legal skills are crucial for helping the artist and for running a publishing company. Of course, writing is an excellent background for publishing. So it's come together very well.")
Crawford clerked for a judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, then went to work for a small general law firm in New York City while writing and teaching writing and literature at the School of Visual Arts. Until he took the teaching assignment at the School of Visual Arts and learned of the need for materials to help artists understand their rights, he had not envisioned being an advocate of artists' rights.
"I found nothing in print to help artists deal with such legal matters as copyrights, contracts, income taxes, the 'hobby loss' problem, estate planning, or even how to get grants," recalls Crawford. And so, responding to what he saw as "an extreme need," he wrote a book dealing with those and other relevant issues, titling it Legal Guide for the Visual Artist and using it as a text for the "Law and the Visual Artist" course that he taught at the School of Visual Arts. Published in 1977, Legal Guide for the Visual Artist is now in its fourth edition and has one hundred thousand copies in print.
He followed this with The Writer's Legal Guide in 1978 (which has been updated and reissued with The Authors Guild as co-publisher and Kay Murray, the General Counsel for the Authors Guild, as co-author). With Arie Kopelman he wrote Selling Your Photography in 1980 and Selling Your Graphic Design and Illustration in 1981. At the same time Crawford served as Chairman of the Board for the Foundation for the Community of Artists, legislative counsel for the Copyright Justice Coalition (which had many arts groups as members), and general counsel for the Graphic Artists Guild. In 1982 Crawford was asked to help publish books for some of the organizations that he had represented as an attorney. In response, he became publisher of Madison Square Press, which issued annuals for such artists'organizations as the Society of Illustrators, the Society of Publication Designers, the Art Directors Club of New York, and the Art Directors Club of Los Angeles.
In 1988 he decided to strike out in a new direction, "to create a press that would offer the kind of information that was more like what I had taught, written about, and lobbied for." Crawford saw the need for a publishing company that would provide practical information to creative professionals, such as artists, photographers, designers, and authors. He knew first hand the issues faced every day by such creative people and could envision a spectrum of books to help them survive and prosper professionally.
In the Fall of 1989, Crawford published Allworth Press's first book, a revised edition of his classic Legal Guide for the Visual Artist. Ten more titles followed in 1990, offering information about marketing, promotion, pricing, copyright, contracts, health and safety, and much more. The first edition of Business and Legal Forms for Photographers was published in 1991. "The information in these books,"Crawford says, "can make all the difference in terms of success and prosperity." Today Allworth Press has a backlist of more than 250 books, publishes 12-15 books annually, and employs a staff of six very talented people.
Crawford's last involvement as an active lobbyist was in 1986, and he's given up active practice of the law to devote his energies to his publishing and his writing. The full list of books that he has authored follows:
AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design (editor) The Artist-Gallery Partnership (with Susan Mellon) Business and Legal Forms for Crafts Business and Legal Forms for Fine Artists Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers (with Eva Doman Bruck) Business and Legal Forms for Illustrators Business and Legal Forms for Interior Designers (with Eva Doman Bruck) Business and Legal Forms for Industrial Designers (with Eva Doman Bruck and Carl W. Battle) Business and Legal Forms for Photographers Legal Guide for the Visual Artist The Money Mentor The Secret Life of Money Selling Your Photography (with Arie Kopelman) Selling Your Graphic Design and Illustration (with Arie Kopelman) Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer The Writer's Legal Guide (with Kay Murray)
5.0 out of 5 starsManhattan Librarian's recommendation, April 29, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Money Mentor: A Tale of Finding Financial Freedom (Paperback)
I highly recommend this compelling story of a young woman's coming to terms with debt incurred by overuse of credit cards. Iris Cassidy is a contemporary "Everywoman" whose coming to awareness about her finances also involves a journey of self-discovery that has a profound spiritual dimension. This is a warm-hearted didactic tale, a novel with a message, of one woman's experiences of life, work and relationships, as she wrestles with her realization that she has been spending more than she earns, and resolves to free herself from the burden of debt. In her story, personal transformation occurs through growing self-awareness, with the help of a mentor. She comes to see that forming a viable spending plan for repaying her debts has to make room for what gives joy and makes life meaningful for her--in her case, dancing. This well-written book can give anyone -- young or old -- insight into how to find financial freedom through careful planning and openness to change. It entertains while it teaches, even includes helpful exercises at the end.
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This review is from: The Money Mentor: A Tale of Finding Financial Freedom (Paperback)
I liked this book because the financial information is user-friendly and told as a story, which makes it easy to absorb. It is not dry as if coming from a text book. I found the information easy to apply to my life. It is a great resource book that I will keep by my side for a long time. One of the many important things that I remember from the book is that "I have to do what I love" and abundance will follow somehow. I liked the money exercises at the end of the book, because they are very clear to follow. I was so enthusiastic after reading the book that I started working on my numbers right away and collecting the information needed to help improve my finances. I have purchased the book several times already to give it as a gift to my friends. My thanks to the author.
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4.0 out of 5 starsA novel way to learn about managing your money, April 23, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Money Mentor: A Tale of Finding Financial Freedom (Paperback)
This is a work of fiction about an honorable young woman's struggles to get out of debt and get on a firm financial footing. She succeeds with the help of a mentor and by working hard, visits to Debtors Anonymous and much will-power. Along the way, she, and the reader, finds out a great deal about dealing with money in all its aspects in an entertaining way. I am not just starting out in life and I learned a lot.
I liked the book, though I would sock any dentist who tried to talk about compound interest while he was drilling. This could be an excellent gift to give anyone going off to college, or starting a small business, especially an arts business. Anyone heavily in debt might find the heroine a wee bit hard to live up to.
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