Later this month, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. will publish the paperback version of the second edition of Prepare for the Worst, Plan for the Best: Disaster Preparedness and Recovery for Small Businesses. The list price will be $24.95, but most major retailers typically discount 30% off of list prices, bringing the price of the book down to the $16 – $17 range. This will make the book more affordable to a broader audience, so I am very pleased about that. I also love the new cover; the image of falling dominoes originally appeared on this site, on the first link to the home page. I look forward to meeting as many readers as possible when the new book comes out and am preparing to update my calendar and this site for that happy event.
This paperback version represents the second edition, which is newly updated with 40% new content from when the book was originally published. At that time, we were early in our own disaster recovery process and still held out the hope that promises made by the federal, state and city governments would materialize. Having now worked through the complete recovery process, and seeing how those “aid” programs worked out, I can share that information with small business owners across the country. I think that this is particularly important as you have very little margin for error in recovering from a disaster. We have seen the same themes, time and time again, from what happened to small businesses in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992 to, more recently, what happened to small businesses in the aftermath of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike and the Iowa floods. There should be more national learning taking place, and I think that this might be a unique contribution to help other small businesses that find themselves in this difficult position. It can be comforting to know that you are not alone, that others have worked through this process and what worked and what failed.
