It has been two and a half years ago that we published the first edition of the book on low risk investing with Wiley in the UK. Back in the days Pim and I had the idea to just publish one version of the book as we didn't work with a publishing agent. After all, writing and publishing the book was something we pursued outside working hours and consumed quite a bit of our time and energy.
However, due to the ongoing feedback from colleagues, friends and family and the requests to publish the book in other languages as well we started to publish the book with great publishers as well. Think about a German book with FinanzBuch Verlag, a French edition with Economica in Paris, a Spanish edition with Roger Domingo from Duesto and last year we published the Dutch edition with the fantastic publisher Business Contact. Most of times we received incredible help from colleagues that had a better understanding of Spanish, German or the French language than Pim or I possessed. Take the great Dr. Bernhard Breloer for example: native German speaking 'uber'-quant who normally helps out clients in Germany. Or Weili Zhou, our Chinese Queen of Quant and deputy head quant research at one of the leading quantitative asset managers in the world. She had the great idea to publish the book in Chinese language together with CITIC publishers, one of the largest publishers. Weili did special research on the local Chinese equities market, the A-shares market, and we added that chapter about low-risk investing in China to the book.
Pim and I joked many times that we would be very happy if every Chinese investor would know this book (Pim day-dreamed about early retirement....). Well, frankly, we are not their yet (and who wants to retire anyway if you are enjoying your work?), but the Chinese book turned out to be a bestseller with special fan mail in Chinese and many many reviews on Chinese online retail website JD.com. Within half a year over 600 Chinese readers provided feedback, which resulted in a 5-star rating.
You might wonder: What is your plan with this book? Can we expect an update? Are you going to write more books? Well, our plan was to write a book that would be still relevant if our kids would pick it up on a rainy day and start reading it in 10 or 15 years from now. We provide every year an update of the returns on this website and will continue to publish editions in other languages as well (if a language is missing and you know a great publisher, drop us a line!).