Spring 2014 Book Festival: The Prepper’s Pocket Guide

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I almost started out by saying “today I share a very special entry in the current Backdoor Survival Spring 2014 Book Festival”.  The problem with that is they are all special – or so it seems.  So let me skip that part and get right to it with this week’s author interview and book giveaway.

This week’s book is “The Prepper’s Pocket Guide” by Bernie Carr. Believe it or not, this is one of the very first purely prepping books I read and reviewed (Prepper’s Pocket Guide: The Survival Guide for the Rest of Us) way back when Backdoor Survival was the new kid on the block.

Anyway, long story short, Bernie and I have become friends over the years and you will often see many of her Apartment Prepper blog articles featured in the Sunday Survival Buzz.   I asked Bernie to participate in the Spring book festival because with so many new books on the market, I wanted to bring The Prepper’s Pocket Guide back to the forefront.  It is that good.

Enjoy the interview and be sure to check out the details of this week’s giveaway below.

An Interview with Bernie Carr

Tell me about your book, The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster.  What is it about?

The Prepper’s Pocket Guide is a step by step handbook for beginners. It gives small, easy steps to help someone unfamiliar with preparedness get started in a short amount of time and with a limited budget.

What type of research did you have to do while writing your book?

When I was getting started on my own preparedness plan, I read a lot of books on survival, self-sufficient living, home remedies, and fix-it yourself guides. Much of what I wrote in the book were things I tried out myself, as I applied what I learned to everyday life and as well as disaster readiness.

How long did it take to write?

I wrote every night after work and on weekends for about eight months.

Every book, fiction and non-fiction, includes a message. What message do you hope my readers will take with them after reading The Prepper’s Pocket Guide?

I hope readers will take the necessary steps to get themselves and their families prepared – do it one chapter at a time. Anyone can get started, even if you live in a small space and have tight finances.

I also advise readers to not only stock up on emergency supplies but learn skills such as first aid, gardening, cooking, canning, dehydrating, woodworking, herbal remedies – anything that will help them be a bit more self-sufficient.

Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

I started Apartment Prepper blog four years ago, as a means to share experiences related to prepping in an apartment in a big city. I consider myself a “do it yourself-er” so I always test out projects that I write about, with some good and some bad results. Fortunately, my immediate family is good-natured about trying out my sometimes crazy experiments.

As an author in the survival, prepping and/or homesteading niche, what are you personally preparing for?

I try to be prepared for both short term and long term emergencies. As far as short term disasters, hurricanes and floods are the most likely threats, since we live in Texas.

Regarding a long term situation, I am most concerned about an economic collapse. The Great Depression was bad enough, but I fear our current population that has different values and expectations may be ill-equipped to cope with such hardships.

Do you have plans for another book?

Yes, my next book is a children’s book called Jake and Miller’s Big Adventure: A Prepper’s Book for Kids. It is scheduled for release on April 15, 2014.

Note from Gaye:  Jake and Miller’s Big Adventure will be featured here in a couple of weeks.

Is there anything else you would like to share with my readers?

Prepping benefits everyone whether an emergency happens or not. Once you get started, you will notice you have less stress in your daily life. If you’ve prepared as well as you can for emergencies or disasters, you will find you are also prepared for small, everyday emergencies.

The Book Giveaway

A copy of  The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster has been reserved for one lucky reader.  To enter, respond to the following question in the comments area below:

What DIY project would you like to see featured on Backdoor Survival?

To enter the giveaway, you need to answer this question by responding in the comments area at the end of this article. The deadline is 6:00 PM Pacific next Thursday with the winner notified by email and announced in the Sunday Survival Buzz.  You will have 48 hours to claim the winning book.

Note: If you are reading this article in your email client, you must go to the Backdoor Survival website to enter this giveaway in the comments area at the bottom of the article.

The Final Word

It is human nature to want the newest and best but you know what?  Sometimes the tried and true is as good or better than the new kid on the block.  The Prepper’s Pocket Guide has been out for a few years but it is still one of the easiest guides to follow when your are beginning to prep

As Bernie says at the end of the book:

“Even if you try only a handful of tips, you will reap some benefits and peace of mind knowing your family is prepared.”

I hope you will enter the giveaway to win your own copy of this book – if not for yourself then for someone you know that will benefit from learning some easy steps toward being prepared.

Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye

New:  Click Here To Vote For Me at Top Prepper Websites!

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In addition, when you sign up to receive email updates you will receive a free, downloadable copy of my e-book The Emergency Food Buyer’s Guide.

Spotlight Item:  The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster.

Be prepared and be safe.  From California earthquakes and Rocky Mountain wildfires to Midwest floods and Atlantic hurricanes, you can’t escape that inevitable day when catastrophe strikes your home town — but you can be prepared!

Offering a simple DIY approach, this book breaks down the vital steps you should take into 101 quick, smart and inexpensive projects:

#6 Make a Master List of Passwords
#16 Calculate How Much Water You Need
#33 Start a Food Storage Plan for $5 a Week
#60 Make a Safe from a Hollowed-out Book
#77 Assemble an Inexpensive First Aid kit
#89 Learn to Cook Without Electricity
#94 Pack a Bug-out Bag

Bargain Bin:  Today is all about books.  Listed below are all of the books in the current Backdoor Survival Book Festival. There are both fiction and non-fiction titles and a bit of something for everyone.

If you covet an e-Book reader, consider the Kindle.  And if not, at the very least pick up the free Kindle app so that you can read Kindle books on your PC or favorite electronic device.

Spring 2014 Book Festival #5 – Fiction
Brushfire Plague: Reckoning
Through Many Fires: Strengthen What Remains
Flight of the Bowyer
The Jakarta Pandemic
The Perseid Collapse
Leaving The Trees
Fury of the Fifth Angel
Fugitives from Northwoods
Phoenix Island: A Tale of Disaster, Survival, and Rebirth

Spring 2014 Book Festival #5 – Non-Fiction
The Prepper’s Complete Book of Disaster Readiness: Life-Saving Skills, Supplies, Tactics and Plans
Simply Canning: Survival Guide to Safe Home Canning
The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster
The Prepper’s Cookbook: 365 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals
Jake and Miller’s Big Adventure: A Prepper’s Book for Kids
The Pantry Primer: How to Build a One Year Food Supply in Three Months

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No list of books would be complete without my own e-book, The Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage.

The Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage is a book about food: What to store, how to store it and best practices. It is a roadmap for showing ordinary citizens that long-term food storage is not something that will overwhelm or burden the family budget.   It is based on my own tried and true experience as someone who has learned to live the preparedness lifestyle by approaching emergency preparedness and planning in a systematic, step-by-step manner.

Whether you simply want to prepare for natural disasters or whether you believe the world is headed toward a major food crisis, this book is for you. It covers basic tips and techniques you can use to stock your food storage pantry so that you can be assured that your family will have food to eat, no matter what.