‘ Sophomore Zac Bissonnette is not your typical’ college student. An editor for WalletPop.com, America Online’s financial site and blogger for TheDailyBeast.com, the 20 year old has a new addition to his already impressive resume ‘- a book deal. Publishers Weekly announced last month that the publishing company Portfolio beat out other bidders for the first book to be written by this entrepreneurial legal studies major.‘[The book] is about how students and their parents can make better decisions choosing colleges.’ Bissonnette explained. More specifically, Bissonnette’s book will address the real-world value of a public versus private university education and explores how taking on ever-increasing amounts of student debt is affecting students and their parents.

How exactly does a UMass sophomore manage to get his very own book deal? According to Bissonnette, it’s all about being aggressive and ambitious.

‘You have to be willing to put yourself out there,’ he said.

Bissonnette exemplified this philosophy a year ago when he sent an e-mail to Andrew Tobias, a well-respected financial writer as well as Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and one of Bissonnette’s role models.

‘I told him how much I admired his work and sent him an article that I wrote,’ he said.

Bissonnette’s assertiveness paid off. Last July, Tobias invited him to attend a benefit lunch for Barack Obama in New York. At the event, Bissonnette met another one of Tobias’s guests, literary agent David Kuhn of Kuhn Projects LLC. Grabbing the opportunity, Bissonnette pitched the idea for his book.

Kuhn liked what he heard.

‘He struck me immediately as unusually curious, talented and ahead of his years, a financial and business writer full of original ideas,’ said Kuhn of Bissonnette.

Kuhn thought that they would be able to develop the idea further and sell it to a publisher. A few short months later, they did just that when Portfolio, an imprint within Penguin Group, won the bid for the book.

Bissonnette looks back at his initial e-mail to Tobias as the real start to getting his book deal.

‘The whole book thing wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t e-mailed him,’ said Bissonnette.

He advised other students to take advantage of the power of e-mail to get in touch with people they admired who may otherwise seem inaccessible.

‘If there is someone you aspire to be like career-wise, don’t be afraid to e-mail them. You’d be surprised by how they respond,’ he said.

Finance has been an interest of Bissonnette’s since childhood. He said playing the stock market game in sixth grade was what initially sparked his interest in the subject. At 16 years old, he started blogging about finance and business. The fact that he was still in high school did not stop him from expressing his opinion.

‘I felt like I had something to say,’ he said.

It wasn’t long before people started to take notice.

‘Someone at AOL saw the blog and hired me to freelance for WalletPop.com in my senior year in high school, and then I became an editor,’ he said.

Managing Bissonnette’s full schedule is a challenge. He is working to put himself through college and complete his regular homework along with writing his book and working as an editor and blogger.

‘It’s a major time commitment, doing that on top of a full course load,’ he said. ‘It’s very time-consuming.’

Bissonnette emphasized the importance of doing things beyond academic work in college.

‘I think, and this is my opinion, that a lot of people get bogged down in a set system,’ Bissonnette said.

‘Don’t be afraid to do something off the path of just getting good grades. Be entrepreneurial,’ he advised.‘

Bissonnette’s book is scheduled for publication August 2010.

Niina Heikkinen can be reached at nheikkin
@student.umass.edu.