THE MILLIONAIRE'S FAVORITE AUTHOR
YOU WON'T FIND W.G. HILL ON ANY BEST SELLER LISTS, BUT IT'S HARD
TO FIND A MILLIONAIRE WHO HASN'T READ MOST OF HIS $100 "SPECIAL
REPORTS".
Hill's Low Profile -- The name W.G. Hill isn't bandied around
much in the book-publishing world. No literary society has ever
discussed any of the two dozen or so volumes this author has
produced. But over the last thirty years, in the world of
bankers, accountants, high net worth investors and financiers
with offshore interests, Hill has been a seminal influence. His
most famous book is P.T., or "Perpetual Tourist." Though this
title might convey the idea that it's a book about traveling, it
isn't. The subject is, how wealthy people can - with proper
paperwork - enjoy life more. Its "How to have a good time with
your money, but at the same time avoid unwelcome attentions that
conspicuous consumption and high profile wealth always bring."
These negatives include the unwelcome intrusions of tax
collectors, insurance salesman, contingent fee plaintiff's
lawyers, alimony seeking ex-wives, kidnappers, burglars. Not to
mention every description of con-man. Do these matters concern
millionaires? Judging from Hill's book sales, they do, indeed.
The original Hill (who could not be found for an interview - EW
hears he's in Patagonia doing hands-on research on female female
gaucho wranglers - was back in the 1970's a self-publisher who
advertised his books as "Special Reports" in the London based
Economist and International Herald Tribune. One of his early
fans was the newsletter guru, Sir Harry Schultz, who must have
made enough beforehand or sold enough books to live well. Sir
Harry writes in PT, "I spent my first few years as a tax exile
at the Monte Carlo Beach Hotel, interacting with hard-bodied,
high maintenance cost divorced women who in their topless
bikinis populated Riviera pool sides like motes in the
sunshine." Hill's books always offered his personal services to
assist any reader to accomplish the goals set out. For instance,
his 1975 Lloyd's Report promised the reader would "make serious
money without any investment, work or risk." This was two
decades before many Lloyd's names did in fact suffer substantial
losses. But Hill wrote later, "If people handled their Lloyd's
relationships as I suggested (with stop loss insurance) they
came out way ahead." Hill charged a hefty fee to introduce new
names and get them into Lloyd's as insurance underwriters.
Eventually, around 1985 Hill's maneuvers were picked up and
thereafter published by Nicholas Pine. Pine was then operating
as Milestone Press of Plymouth, England. He was a very minor
publisher of books for collectors of ceramics. Their typical
press run in the pre-Hill days was a thousand copies. With
Hill's books for millionaires soon selling like hot cakes,
Milestone hit pay dirt. Pine changed his company's name to Scope
International. An ex-employee revealed that at the time he quit,
sales of well over 100,000 copies of each Hill book would have
been "a low ballpark figure." With ten books being major sellers
and a direct mail price of