Erin Lale Publishes Skinflint Hints

Erin Lale published her latest ebook, Skinflint Hints, this weekend. She lives in Nevada, where the unemployment rate is in the double digits and rising. She describes her book as "A guide to surviving the 'new normal' for the formerly middle class."

Erin Lale published her latest ebook, Skinflint Hints, this weekend. She lives in Nevada, where the unemployment rate is in the double digits and rising. She describes her book as "A guide to surviving the 'new normal' for the formerly middle class."

Lale celebrated with an online book launch party on her Facebook page. Her book's dedication says "To my friends who urged me to write this book because I'm the biggest tightwad in Vegas."

Lale says that she developed her skinflint reputation since her job as a techsupport floorwalker ended two years ago. "This June it's been exactly two years," Lale says, "so it's cool that the book is coming out right now, in June. It's like I'm saying, you can't keep a good skinflint down. When all the juice has been squeezed from the lemon and there is no more lemonade, you can still zest the rind and life can still be zesty."

Lale had put looking for work on hold during her political campaign in 2010, and had saved enough to last through the end of her campaign in November, but was still unable to find a paying job in Nevada's economy even after hundreds of her neighbors tried to hire her as their State Assemblyperson.

Lale says, "Since my first book, Asatru For Beginners, was successful and was the only thing bringing in real money, I decided to publish some more books." Skinflint Hints is Lale's seventh book published in 2011, and she has plans for many more, both fiction and nonfiction.

Lale says she published the book as an ebook only "because ebook publishing doesn't cost money."