About the Curator
Where Smart Choices Help You Live a Better Life
Every book on this site was chosen by one person: me. Not an algorithm, not a committee, not a marketing team chasing trends. I read, I research, and I decide — one title at a time — whether it earns a place under the Smart Choices name.
Why I Built This
I’m retired, but I don’t do retirement the way most people picture it. My days start around 6:30 in the morning and often run until 7 or 8 at night, with plenty of breaks worked in along the way. I’ve never been good at the 9-to-5 rhythm, and running this site on my own terms — funded by a small Social Security check and an even smaller firefighter pension — is one of the things I’m proudest of. It proves you don’t need a big operation to build something that matters.
What You’ll Find Here — and What You Won’t
I deliberately stay away from romance and murder mysteries. Instead, you’ll find:
- Business, Finances & Wealth — for entrepreneurs and anyone building financial stability
- Health, Fitness & Wellness — motivational annd discipline
- Family Reads — meant to be enjoyed together or separately, across generations
- Cookbooks — including gluten-free, vegan, Amish traditions, and yes, a personal favorite: 600 Chocolate Recipes
- Religious — spritial and inspirations
- Self-Help & Personal Development manage stress, motivational, public skills
Every category ties back to the same question: will this genuinely help someone live a better life?
How I Choose Every Book
I search through MRR and PLR marketplaces looking for titles that stand out — and then the real work begins. I check whether the license to resell is actually legitimate before anything else, and I stay far away from the “get a million ebooks for $2.99” sites that flood the market with junk. I read the license terms myself, because there are real limits on what I can and can’t do with a resold title, and I take those seriously.
I dig into the author or rights-holder’s background and, when possible, visit their own website for additional vetting. For financial and fast-changing topics, I hold a strict line: anything older than about a year and a half doesn’t make the cut, because that material goes stale and can actually mislead people. For timeless subjects — a good cookbook, a solid piece of family wisdom — age matters less than whether it still holds up. Sometimes it just comes down to a gut feeling, like recognizing a genuinely fresh twist on an old favorite.
Roughly every two months (sometimes three, depending on the season), I go back through the entire catalog to make sure everything still belongs.
The Moral Line I Won’t Cross
Being the sole curator means the final call is always mine — and the Smart Choices name wins every time, even over a quick profit. I think about who’s actually reading: families, older adults, people from many different religious backgrounds. That’s part of why you’ll find books here that talk honestly about death and other topics many sites avoid.
I’m a cancer survivor — Stage IV, over ten years now, still active and never in remission. My family, like most families, has treated death as the unspoken subject. I don’t have that luxury anymore, and I’ve come to believe silence doesn’t protect anyone. Once someone is gone, the conversation is too late to have with them. So this site will keep carrying those books, because the discussion needs a place to happen while there’s still time to have it.
The Bottom Line
This isn’t a warehouse of cheap ebooks. It’s a small, carefully tended collection built by someone who reads every entry, checks every license, and asks every time: does this belong under Smart Choices?
If it doesn’t earn that name, it doesn’t go up.
