Juniors Justin Rotaru and Preston Cote published their book, “The Essential Investor,” and have invested their own time in studying finance and spreading their knowledge to people of all ages.

Published in July of 2023, the duo’s debut book dives into stocks, cryptocurrency and real estate. The book, which is available on Amazon for $14.99, focuses on empowering teens to take control of their financial futures.

Rotaru began working on the book during his sophomore year due to his concern with how young people handle their money.

“[Younger people] tend to see something and spend money right away, and I feel like people don’t start investing at a young enough age,” Rotaru said.

Rotaru put substantial time and effort into making his advice on financial management accessible to teens.

“The book is really basic, so that way people who are just getting started, which was the primary audience, could easily understand and have a good idea of what to start with,” Rotaru said.

Although he started writing “The Essential Investor” alone, Rotaru found help from a friend in his Sophomore Health and Fitness Class. Originally, Rotaru simply asked Cote for help with fact-checking, but from there Cote began to take on a larger role as a co-author, helping Rotaru increase the book from roughly 20 pages to the published 72 pages.

“Having to more than double the [page count of the] book and increase everything to be able to be published on Amazon was the hardest part of writing,” Cote said.

The process of independent publication had some difficulties, for instance, as they tried to get the copyright, there was another work with the same title. Even with this obstacle, Rotaru believed that the experience as a whole was simpler than he imagined.

“Overall [publishing is] much easier than people think, and I think more people should try to write a book if they have an interest,” Rotaru said. 

The book imparts readers with a variety of advice about finances, but the authors agree on their most important piece of advice.

“The earlier you start [investing], the more time you have to build general wealth, so the earlier you start the more time you have to grow,” Rotaru said.

The two authors emphasized how investing causes compound interest, which is interest earned on top of previous interest. Knowledge of how compound interest works can be simply paired with basic investing to great effect.

“People sometimes spend a lot of time, effort and money to try to get an edge when the S&P 500 and other simple investments can be the best,” Cote said.

While the future for Cote and Rotaru’s writing is not deliberately planned yet, Cote anticipates the possibility of continuing their work in the future.

“We might make a second one that goes more in detail with different investment strategies, or maybe make a book that talks about coming from different situations and circumstances,” Cote said.

In addition to being available on Amazon, their paperback book can also be purchased at Barnes and Noble. 

“It’s never too late to focus on finances,” Cote said.

This story was originally published on The Harbinger on December 6, 2023.