I’m very excited to announce that I have a new book coming out soon called Sound Retirement Planning. I also want you to know the story behind the new book.
On February 15, 2014 my first book, Thriving In Retirement, will be officially out of print. If you already own a copy congratulations. It turns out that you own a limited edition.
Unfortunately, the decision to stop publishing Thriving In Retirement was not entirely by choice, and I want you to know what happened.
I received a letter from an attorney several months ago explaining that another financial services company owned the federal trademark for the slogan, “Thriving In Retirement,” and they asked us to stop using this slogan in all of our material so as to not create confusion between Parker Financial and their financial services company.
As you can imagine this came as a real shock. I had hired professionals to help us with the original publishing of Thriving In Retirement and no one ever recommended that we check the federal trademark registry before choosing the title for the book. As many of you know we have been using that phrase for years, even before the book was released. Thriving In Retirement started out as the title of our newsletter, and it had been a catch phrase I had been using on Sound Retirement Radio for years. Ultimately we do not own the trademark and another company does.
After prayer, counsel and input from respected professionals and close friends, I decided it would not be the best use of my time or resources to continue to pursue a trademark dispute with another financial services company. I contacted the company and let them know we would stop using the phrase. They were very gracious, and we worked out an amicable resolution between us.
So we are coming out with a new book and it will be better than ever. Tentatively the title will be Sound Retirement Planning. I’ve checked the federal trade mark registry, and it appears that no one owns this phrase. I own the website domain name, and I’ve contacted an intellectual property attorney to help apply for the federal trademark so I don’t end up in the same situation.
The new book will have all of the material from the original book, but we have added about 25% percent new and updated content. This will be a brand new book with a new ISBN, library of congress number and a new cover design. I think the new book is even more comprehensive than the original, and I hope you will agree.
We will be having a lot of fun with the launch of the new book and will invite you to help us celebrate its release. I’ll keep you posted as things progress.
If you would like to be notified with updates about the release of my new book click here.
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