Translating the website

We are looking for native speakers of a variety of languages who are willing to volunteer to translate the text of the website (www.thelifeyoucansave.com) into as many languages as possible. We started with Swedish and have Russian, Polish, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Hebrew, French, Italian, German, Chinese both simplified and traditional, Dutch, Romanian, Tagalog Filipino, Danish, Korean and Japanese now. We also have volunteers for Catalan, Lithuanian, Slovenian and probably Arabic. If you are a native speaker of a language not included in this list, and can spare the time to translate a few pages of text, please email us at thelifeyoucansave@gmail.com. Thanks!

Giving More - gradually

After a talk I gave at the London School of Economics yesterday, one person told me that he'd begun giving a few years ago, starting at 1/% of his income, as the website (www.thelifeyoucansave.com) recommends for 90% of taxpayers, but increasing this by an additional 1% each year. That's an easy way to build up slowly - and especially if you are young, as this person was, it's going to mean that in a few years you will be giving a significant amount, but not in a way that ever causes a shock to your budget. Worth thinking about.

Peter Singer

And The Number Keeps Growing And Growing!!!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who has pledged on the website. The number of clicks are rising fast now, because of the excellent publicity the book is getting.
If you haven't visited the website, www.thelifeyoucansave.com recently, it's worth going back there to catch up with all the reviews, blogs and discussions about the book. There was a great piece in The New York Times and there are many other good reviews as well. And even those reviews and blogs that have critical points to make are contributing to a valuable discussion about aid.

posted on behalf of Peter Singer - he is so busy at the moment...

Over 1000 Pledges!!!

500 Pledges!

More than 500 people have now gone to www.thelifeyoucansave.com and pledged to donate a share of their income to organizations helping the world's poor. Given that the website has only be up for 3 weeks, and The Life You Can Save has so far only been published in Australia and New Zealand, that's way beyond our expectations. It's obviously been helped by the fantastic media response to the book in Australia, and the sold-out talks I've been giving in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Next week I'm off to Perth.

If you are one of those who has pledged already, THANK YOU! If not, please take a look at the website and think about doing so.

The book will be published in the US and Canada on March 2, and I'll be doing a publicity tour starting on that date - traveling to San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Indianapolis, Washington DC, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Toronto. Then on to the UK and Sweden. Check www.thelifeyoucansave.com for details. I'll keep you informed on how it goes, and I'm looking forward to many more people learning about the book, and the website, and pledging as well.

Remember to spread the word. As I describe in the book, there is a lot of evidence that the more people see that others are giving, the more likely they are to give. So pledging is just a start, letting others know of the opportunity to pledge is even more important.

Peter Singer

Publication Day!

Hi, this is Peter Singer, welcoming you to The Life You Save, the blog that accompanies the new website, www.thelifeyoucansave.com.

Yesterday was publication day for my new book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. OK, only in Australia, so far. The next edition to appear will be the US and Canadian edition, due out on March 3rd. That will be followed by the UK and then the Swedish editions, in March/April.

And yesterday, we launched the website, so if you haven't seen it yet, go there now. (It's all due to an incredible volunteer who, at least for the moment, wishes to remain anonymous.) Amazingly, we already have more than 40 people who have pledged to meet the standard for giving suggested in the book. Presumably most of them haven't read the book yet, but heard about it - I was busy doing radio and tv interviews all yesterday - and found enough information on the website to know that this was something they wanted to do - or were already doing.

I hope this blog will be a place where you will want to post your thoughts, and exchange ideas with others about both the book and the website. The rest is up to you.

Peter Singer