"This memoir's reward is insights shared by a man honest with himself and his strengths and limitations in a way that is compelling, actually quietly fascinating."
     --Jay Levin, Founder of LA Weekly newspaper

"This is the real joy and struggle of doing local news in America."
     --Dr. Tom Grant, duPont-award winning investigative reporter

Having it all left can leave you with nothing.

About half of all new businesses fail in their first five years. This is the story of one of them.

At the start of the 21st century, Matthew Spaur used his earning from the tech industry to remarry, become a stepparent to three boys, and start a weekly newspaper--all at the same time. Almost overnight, he became a self-employed working parent with bad business timing. He did this despite having never owned a business, worked on a newspaper, taken a journalism class, sold advertising, or been a parent.

Soon, the Wall St. tech bubble burst, the 9/11 attacks exploded, and the country slid into recession and then war. Media outlets started receiving envelopes of anthrax in their mail. The internet revolution began to obliterate the newspaper industry. At home, his new wife and two of his step-sons developed life-threatening illnesses.

With family, friends, and a little humor, he eventually found his way through his attempt at making a small fortune.

Table of Contents

Cottonwood Bay
Emotional Education
Santa Maria dei Miracoli
Early History of The Planet
Out In Costume
The Gift of an Uncalled Ambulance
Money Makes The Planet Go ‘Round
Bright Blossoms of Flame
A Limo to Another Hotel
The Little Imitator
Making a Small Fortune
Down There In Spokane
The Flip of a Coin
A Clinic for Two
Grief Like a Fever
The Man Who Sold The Planet
Words That Start With the Letter P
Beauty Bay
Afterword

Matthew Spaur is a marketing and strategic communications professional with more than 20 years' experience spanning many industries including education, HR, IT, energy, consulting, and publishing. He was the publisher of The Local Planet Weekly, an award-winning weekly newspaper. His writing has appeared in South Dakota Review, Owen Wister Review, Wisconsin Review, Willow Springs, Into the Ruins, and Heliotrope, and in the anthologies Microsoft in the Mirror and Secrets. As a ghost writer for executives, his work has appeared in FORTUNE and numerous nerdy trade publications. Spaur and his teams have won awards and nominations from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society for Technical Communications, and the Associated Writing Programs. He earned an MFA in Writing from Eastern Washington University and an MBA from the University of Nevada, Reno.