Steve Salerno is a reporter with wide experience. As a freelance feature writer, Salerno has written for magazines including Harper's, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and many others. He has contributed articles to the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. Many of his articles have focused upon "money stories," that deal with financial scandals and controversies in the business world. Now, he is ready to report on the biggest scandal he has ever encountered--America's self-help movement.
Salerno writes: "In twenty-four years as a business writer and an investigative journalist, I have covered all kinds of 'money stories.' I have written about boondoggles on bankers' row and sleight of hand at Seventh Avenue fashion houses. I've written about the gyrations of the stock market as well as the myriad forces that surround, yet never quite explain, investing itself. I've written about money as it relates to sales, money as it relates to sports, money as it relates to music, money as it relates to love. It's safe to say that if it involves money, combined with some form of human aspiration, I've probably written about it."
Nevertheless, Salerno's experience in reporting still left him amazed when he confronted an industry whose story "represents the ultimate marriage of money and aspiration." That story is the rise and dominance of what he calls the "Self-Help and Actualization Movement"--identified in his book by the acronym SHAM.
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