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Dealing with Negative Criticism from the Netizens

  A Controversial Blog Post A few days ago, I wrote a blog entry over on My Life! Teaching in a Korean University called, Korean University Jobs: The Golden Handcuffs. Basically, I said that while university jobs in Korea are quite lucrative, they’re also not a great long-term choice for quite a few reasons. I posted the blog to a few of the English teacher in Korea Facebook groups and the reaction was strong to say…

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How to thrive in South Korea- The Empire Grows

It’s all Coming Together! Another book is up on Amazon, bringing the total to 4. One more is in the editing stages and I have lots of ideas, but this summer is going to be all about getting my websites up to speed and focusing on promoting the content that I already have, instead of creating more stuff. The empire is building, not so slowly at this point and I kind of feel like everything…

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Know What you Don’t Know

confusing pension

Last night, I had one of my coworkers ask me about pension plans in Korea because I think she assumed I would know since I wrote a book about finance for ESL teachers: The Wealthy English Teacher: Teach, Travel, and Secure Your Financial Future. There of course is a wealth of misinformation floating around on Facebook and other online forums, as well as expat bars. This is compounded by the fact that the official information…

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All-In Digital Entrepreneur when I Go Back to Canada: Crazy?

all-in

Canada: What to Do I’ve talked about moving to Canada in previous blog posts, and it’s now less than a year away (March 2016). I’ve started preparing in numerous ways such as gathering information about how to get the cats and my stuff back to Canada and also giving away/selling lots of my stuff that I wasn’t really using that much. How Can I Make Money in the Great White North? But, the really big…

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Top 10 Life Lessons I’ve Learned while Living Abroad

I’m coming up on my 10th year anniversary of living in Korea and along the way, I’ve learned a lot about myself, life and finances. I’m sure I would have learned these things, eventually while living in my home country just as a result of getting older and wiser, but I think there’s something about leaving everything familiar that can speed this process up. Top 10 Life Lesson I’ve Learned while Living Abroad 1. People…

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The Wealthy English Teacher- Available on Amazon

 The Wealthy English Teacher: Teach, Travel, and Secure your Financial Future is now available on Amazon. It has a much bigger potential audience than my most nichiest of niche first book about how to get a university job in South Korea. I’m hoping that it’s the type of book that people really like, and tell their friends about, who in turn tell a few other people. So far, I’ve sold a decent amount of copies in…

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Going Home After Living Abroad

These days, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to be successful in the transition back home after living abroad for so many years (10 in my case!). I don’t hate Korea, but I don’t love it either and sticking in a place for 10 more years just because I work 3 or 4 days a week and get 5 months of vacation in not a good way to live. It’s onwards and…

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Personal Finance Rules: Build Strong Relationships

Inspired by The Simple Dollar, I’m doing a series on personal finance rules and have previously talked about: Spend Less Than You Earn, Keep it Simple Stupid, Pay Per Hour Worked, and Ignore Professional Stock Pickers. Today is how you (and me too) should build strong relationships. Over at The Simple Dollar it is rule #19 and they offer some helpful reasons why you would want to do this.  I’ll add my own thoughts to…

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Reviews of “How To Get a University Job in South Korea”

Check out what others are saying about my first Ebook, How to Get a University Job in South Korea: The English Teaching Job of Your Dreams in the reviews on Amazon. You could go straight to Amazon and read them there, or check out this page on my new website, JackieBolen.com. Sales of this book are still going strong into the third month, averaging around 1 sale/day. My goal was to consistently earn around $20-30…

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An Emergency Fund is Necessary

This topic is especially relevant to English teachers abroad who seem to be some of the worst offenders when it comes to not having an emergency fund and then when something bad happens, they post all over Facebook asking for donations But, an emergency fund is necessary! I don’t want to be all judgey because some of these people are totally legit; I’ve actually donated a good amount of money to them over the years.…

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Wal-Mart….what has happened to me?

After living in South Korea, land of way overpriced consumer products and no big “everything under 1 roof” stores for almost 10 years, Wal-Mart in Canada seems like it would be a dream. Cheap, huge selection and everything you could possibly want. Except I went yesterday to pick up a few hard-to-find things in South Korea and came away with very little and I spent considerably less than I had budgeted for my “Wal-Mart in…

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Indecision

I waver back and forth when it comes to moving back to Canada, quite possibly forever and making a life there, or living the expat life which is kind of amazing in a lot of ways. I mean, who wouldn’t be happy working at a university in Korea where you get paid an astounding amount of money for a very little amount of work. I go on exotic vacations a couple times a year, cruise…

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Writing an Ebook: it’s a big project

I’ve started writing my new book about personal finance for English teachers abroad, which I hope will have a broader appeal than my first book, How to Get a University Job in South Korea: The English Teaching Job of Your Dreams and have now realized just how serious of an undertaking this actually is. There are so many rabbit holes one could get lost in and never escape out of. Thankfully, I have plenty of…

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Another Ebook: Financial Freedom for English Teachers

I’ve been encouraged by the sales of my first book, How to Get a University Job in South Korea: The English Teaching Job of Your Dreams which was an experiment of sorts and am feeling inspired to write another one during my winter vacation. Although I’ll be traveling to Canada and Vietnam, I’m not actually doing any teaching and I will have significant chunks of time to devote to it. The first book was a…

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Ebook Marketing: Guest Posts on other sites

Ebook

Sales of my new Ebook, How to Get a University Job in South Korea: The English Teaching Job of Your Dreams are maintaining steady at about 1/day since the initial rush in the first couple days, which I’m pretty happy about. My marketing strategy thus far has consisted of the following things: 1. Using my Amazon Associates account to promote the book on my existing blog, My Life! Teaching in a Korean University, both on…

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Know What You’re Good At, and What You’re Not

The other day while wasting time perusing Facebook, I ran across this article: 35 things to do for your career by the time you’re 35 It has plenty of good stuff but I particularly liked #2: Know your Superpower and #3: Know Your Weakness. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately as I consider options for what to do with my life post-Korea (it’s not 100% certain that it will involve teaching, but it’s…

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Ebook Marketing…the importance of having a following/reputation

Something that I’ve seen as I’ve ventured into the world of self publishing is the need to already have a positive reputation and a following of people in whatever community you can find your target audience in. While I’m sure it is possible to self-publish a book that is a one-hit wonder, I don’t think it would be that easy unless it somehow went viral. I think followers of my blog (My Life! Teaching in…

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Early Sales of my new Ebook

I published my first book on Amazon Kindle Direct (How to Get a University Job in South Korea: The English Teaching Job of Your Dreams) on November 11th and early sales have been quite good, especially considering the minimal amount of marketing that I’ve done and the poor timing. Ideally, I would have had it published in early October instead of mid-November. So far, I’ve just posted on a few of the sites that English…

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Ebook into Physical Book: easier than you might think

I originally had the idea to make exclusively an Ebook(How to Get a University Job in South Korea), but that was before I realized how easy it is on Amazon to make your Ebook into a physical book. It takes a couple hours, at most to get everything set up and the price I will earn on commission is about the same as the Ebook, so it seemed like there was really nothing to lose.…

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How to Write an Ebook: Facebook Advertising

Ebook Facebook Advertising

These past few days, I’ve been talking about how to write an Ebook as I go through the process myself. My first book should be up on Amazon in a week or two. I’m definitely a beginner in this world of “Ebook” but my hope is that my readers can learn along with me. I’ve already discussed: How to Choose a Topic Editing Formatting Cover Design Marketing via the Email List Today, let’s talk about…

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How to Write an Ebook: Marketing via the “email” list

When I listen to Podcasts related to anything Passive Income and marketing, it’s all about the email list. People use this list to promote new products that they’re selling and to stay in touch with their customers. One of my deep, deep regrets is not keeping track of all the emails I received through my blog: My Life! Teaching in a Korean University. I’ve had that blog for about 7 years and it’s no exaggeration…

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Teaching ESL as a Career

When I peruse the personal finance, early retirement and digital nomad blogs around the Blogosphere, it seems like a lot of people were working at “serious” jobs making “serious” money by being a lawyer, working their way up the corporate ladder in some other field or selling things and making lots of money doing it successfully. Then, they left these jobs after hating the 9-5 or more often, the 9-9 kind of life they were…

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