Although I’ve written many books, this is my first Dummies book, and writing a first Dummies book is a bit like learning to ride a bicycle — on a very windy day. If it weren’t for Joan Friedman, project editor, who kept a steady hand on the back of my seat, I would surely have fallen off a curb and been run over by a pickup truck flying a Confederate flag. Joan, hands down, is one of the best editors I’ve ever worked with. She’s a very nice person, too.
Other nice people that I’d also like to tip my bicycle helmet to include Marilyn Allen of Allen O’Shea Literary Agency (she calls me “babe,” just like agents do in movies; I love that) and Stacy Kennedy, acquisitions editor at Wiley. If these two gals hadn’t gotten together, I wouldn’t have had a bicycle to ride.
Thanks, too, to Noel Jameson, technical editor, for making sure that this remained strictly a work of nonfiction. And to Michael Pace, who double checked.
I’d like to thank Morningstar, and particularly Sumita Ghosh, for extreme gen- erosity in providing fund industry data and analysis.
I’d also like to thank Donald Bowles, my old professor of economics at American University, for showing me that supply curves can be fun. Sorry we lost touch, but I haven’t forgotten you.