Want To Write A Business Book? Here Are 10 Things You Need To Know

Arts & Culture, Books

You’ve got expertise, insights, and a story to tell. You’re thinking about writing a business book. But is it worth the effort? A new study sheds light on what you can expect.

The Business Book ROI Study, conducted by Amplify Publishing Group, Gotham Ghostwriters, and Thought Leadership Leverage, surveyed 301 published nonfiction authors, including this writer. Amplify claims this is the largest-ever survey of published business authors. Their findings offer both a reality check and useful insights for aspiring authors.

1. Do you need a traditional publisher for your business book?
In the past, the main path to market for a business book was a traditional publisher. Today, the world is different. Self-publishing is comparatively easy. Hybrid publishers offer many of the same services as traditional publishers, but authors pay up front for these services. Hybrid publishing gives the author more control and input in the process, and also higher profit margins on book sales.

The study compared the profitability of the three paths. Traditional publishing led the pack with a median profit of $52,500. Hybrid publishing came in at $4,500, while self-publishing trailed at $1,700. Of course, these numbers need some interpretation.

Traditional publishers buy only titles they expect to sell well, and their books will be professionally produced. Hybrid publishers are more flexible but most enforce quality standards and avoid projects they think will fail. Self-publishing has no gatekeepers and quality can vary dramatically. The revenue differences likely say more about the selection process than the potential of each channel. I.e., a book that is good enough to yield a traditional publishing contract would almost certainly generate self-publishing revenue far above the average number.
And, profit isn’t everything. Authors working with hybrid publishers reported higher satisfaction than those with traditional publishers. Traditional publishers add credibility to first-time authors but tend to have a much longer publishing process. Each path has pros and cons, and the aspiring author needs to weigh priorities when choosing.

Authors were much happier with hybrid publishers than traditional. Fully 45% of hybrid authors strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their publisher vs. just 19% for those with traditional publishers.
Authors with hybrid publishers were more than twice as likely to strongly agree agree that they are … [+] satisfied with their publisher than those with a traditonal publisher.Credit: Business Book ROI Study

2. How long will it take to write my book?
The median author in the survey spent 10 months writing their book. Traditionally published authors took 12 months on average. Self-published authors took only 6 months. The longer times for traditional books could reflect typical publishing lead times, a more rigorous editing process, or other factors. If your contract says you’ll deliver your manuscript in ten months, you’ll probably take the full ten months to write it.
If your topic is very timely, hybrid and self-publishing will usually get your book to market much faster than traditional publishers.
3. Do you need a ghostwriter for your business book?
A ghostwriter is a writer who will write your book for you. They may work from interviews, your own writings, and other sources to create a coherent and, one hopes, compelling book. Just 8% of the authors surveyed used a ghostwriter. But, fully 96% of that small number were happy with the results.
Using a ghostwriter isn’t cheap. The median cost reported was $25,000. Ghostwriter fees can run much higher, particularly for those with a strong track record of hitting bestseller lists. On the plus side, profits and revenue were higher. Ghostwritten books achieved a median profit four times the average book. Once again, there’s a selection bias – an author who hires a ghostwriter likely will invest more in promotion and other factors that increase sales.
4. Can you make money from a business book?
Good news: 64% of business books showed a gross profit. The median profit for books out at least 6 months was $11,350. But don’t quit your day job just yet. The range of outcomes is vast, from significant losses to multi-million dollar profits.
Here’s a key insight: book sales alone rarely drive profitability. The median book generated $18,200 in revenue. But speaking fees, consulting, and workshops often brought in much more. Here are median numbers for alternate revenue sources as reported by the surveyed authors:

Speaking fees generated a median revenue of $30,000.
Consulting produced a median revenue of $50,000.
Workshops brought in a median revenue of $40,000.
Organization sales resulted in a median revenue of $64,000.
Online courses had a median revenue of $20,000.
Partnerships had a median revenue of $100,000.
Salary increases had a median revenue of $10,000.

Note that these numbers are self-reported and median values. Not all authors have all types of income. An author of a best-selling business book might earn the $30K median (or more) for a single speaking engagement, while many other authors won’t generate any speaking income at all.
5. How much should you invest in your business book?
The median author spent $7,000 on their book. This covered expenses like editors, graphic designers, and PR agencies. Hybrid-published authors typically spent more, with a median of $23,000. Investing in your book seems to pay off – on average, each dollar spent correlated with $2.33 in additional revenue.
Be prepared for surprises: half of the authors reported unexpected costs. It’s smart to build a buffer into your budget.
6. What drives business book success?
Three factors stood out:

Clear strategy: Authors with a strong revenue plan earned twice as much as those without.
Professional support: Ghostwritten books had a median gross profit of $43,250. Books with launch PR teams hit $55,500.
Effective marketing: Email campaigns, Amazon reviews, and contributed articles topped the list. On social media, LinkedIn shone while X (Twitter) disappointed.

7. Don’t just focus on book sales
Here’s one key paragraph from the report: “Book sales rarely met expectations. Median sales were 4,600 for traditionally published books, 1,600 for hybrid-published books, and 700 for self-published books. But book sales didn’t predict success or ROI.”
In short, even though book sales were lower than expected, most authors met their non-monetary or revenue goals. This suggests that authors should focus less on driving book sales and more on achieving their other goals.
Only about half of authors in the study had a clear revenue plan. But, those authors who had a strong plan earned twice as much as those without. Also, authors who had a specific plan for achieving their primary goal were more likely to have their process go as expected.
8. Is it all about the money?
Writing a business book may not be a sure-fire way to make money, but that’s not the only reason authors write books. A whopping 90% of authors reported non-monetary benefits. These included increased credibility, a stronger personal brand, and more speaking opportunities.
One in three saw increases in speaking fees and consulting gigs. Many noted improved social recognition and media presence.
9. What do successful business book authors say?
The study captured insights from authors who’ve been there. One hybrid-published author advised, “Authors don’t make money on book sales. They make money on what the book makes possible. Spend time and money on getting the book off the shelf.”
A traditionally published author shared, “The money comes not from selling your book, but from having written—and published—a book… and all that comes along with it, including boosting your visibility and your credibility as a thought leader and expert in your field.”
10. Should you write that business book?
The report can’t answer that question for you, but it suggests that a potential author who has a desire to write a book can find a way to do it. More importantly, if you do publish your book, you’ll likely be satisfied with the results. 89% of the authors agreed that writing a book was a good idea. A significant percentage, 72%, strongly agreed with that sentiment.
The 32 page report is packed with insights that can guide both experienced and first time authors. It won’t help you write the book, but it may inform your planning process.
If you decide to move forward with your business book project, do so with open eyes. Set realistic expectations, plan your strategy, and consider the book as part of achieving your broader business and personal goals. With the right approach, your book will open doors you never imagined.

Einstein Meets Newton: Scientists Demonstrate New Aspect of Wave-Particle Duality

Science and Health

Linköping University have validated a theory that integrates quantum mechanics with information theory through an innovative experiment. This study illuminates the role of quantum uncertainty in future technologies such as quantum computing and secure communications. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
Linköping University’s experiment confirms a key theoretical link between quantum mechanics and information theory, highlighting future implications for quantum technology and secure communication.
Researchers at Linköping University and their collaborators have successfully confirmed a decade-old theory linking the complementarity principle—a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics—with information theory. Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, provides valuable insights for understanding future quantum communication, metrology, and cryptography.
“Our results have no clear or direct application right now. It’s basic research that lays the foundation for future technologies in quantum information and quantum computers. There’s enormous potential for completely new discoveries in many different research fields,” says Guilherme B Xavier, researcher in quantum communication at Linköping University, Sweden.
Historical Context of Wave-Particle Duality
To understand what the researchers have demonstrated, we must start from the beginning. That light can be both particles and waves is one of the most illogical – but at the same time fundamental – characteristics of quantum mechanics. This is called wave-particle duality.
Guilherme B Xavier, researcher in quantum communication at Linköping University. Credit: Magnus Johansson
The theory dates back to the 17th century when Isaac Newton suggested that light is composed of particles. Other contemporary scholars believed that light consists of waves. Newton finally suggested that it might be both without being able to prove it. In the 19th century, several physicists performed various experiments that showed that light actually consisted of waves.
However, around the early 1900s, both Max Planck and Albert Einstein challenged the theory that light is just waves. However, it was not until the 1920s that physicist Arthur Compton could show that light also had kinetic energy, a classical particle property. The particles were named photons. Thus, it was concluded that light can be both particles and waves, exactly as Newton suggested. Electrons and other elementary particles also exhibit this wave-particle duality.
The Complementarity Principle and Entropic Uncertainty
However, it is not possible to measure the same photon in the form of a wave and a particle. Depending on how the photon is measured, either waves or particles are visible. This is known as the complementarity principle, which was developed by Niels Bohr in the mid-1920s. It states that no matter what one decides to measure, the combination of wave and particle characteristics must be constant.
With the help of a new experiment, researchers at Linköping University, among others, have succeeded in confirming a ten-year-old theoretical study, which connects one of the most fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics – the complementarity principle – with information theory. Credit: Magnus Johansson
In 2014, a research team from Singapore demonstrated mathematically a direct connection between the complementarity principle and the degree of unknown information in a quantum system, the so-called entropic uncertainty. This connection means that no matter what combination of wave or particle characteristic of a quantum system is looked at, the amount of unknown information is at least one bit of information, i.e., the unmeasurable wave or particle.
Linköping University’s Experimental Confirmation
Researchers from Linköping University, together with colleagues from Poland and Chile, have now confirmed the Singapore researchers’ theory in reality with the help of a new type of experiment.
“From our perspective, it’s a very direct way to show basic quantum mechanical behaviour. It’s a typical example of quantum physics where we can see the results, but we cannot visualise what is going on inside the experiment. And yet it can be used for practical applications. It’s very fascinating and almost borders on philosophy,” says Guilherme B Xavier.
In their new experiment set-up, the Linköping researchers used photons moving forward in a circular motion, called orbital angular momentum, unlike the more common oscillating motion, which is up and down. The choice of orbital angular momentum allows for future practical applications of the experiment because it can contain more information.
The measurements are made in an instrument commonly used in research called an interferometer, where the photons are shot at a crystal (beam splitter) that splits the path of the photons into two new paths, which are then reflected so as to cross each other onto a second beam splitter and then measured as either particles or waves depending on the state of this second device.
Joakim Argillander and Daniel Spegel-Lexne, PhD students in the Department of Electrical Engineering at LiU. Credit: Magnus Johansson
One of the things that makes this experiment set-up special is that the second beam splitter can be partially inserted by the researchers into the path of the light. This makes it possible to measure light as waves, particles, or a combination of them in the same setup.
According to the researchers, the findings could have many future applications in quantum communication, metrology, and cryptography. But there is also much more to explore at a basic level.
“In our next experiment, we want to observe the behaviour of the photon if we change the setting of the second crystal right before the photon reaches it. It would show that we can use this experimental set-up in communication to securely distribute encryption keys, which is very exciting,” says Daniel Spegel-Lexne, PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering.
Reference: “Experimental demonstration of the equivalence of entropic uncertainty with wave-particle duality” by Daniel Spegel-Lexne, Santiago Gómez, Joakim Argillander, Marcin Pawłowski, Pedro R. Dieguez, Alvaro Alarcón and Guilherme B. Xavier, 6 December 2024, Science Advances.DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adr2007

Small business trends and predictions for 2025

Business News

Keeping up with trends is becoming necessary for small business owners to meet consumer, industry, and technological demands. Year after year, business strategies must evolve with market trends, and small businesses should leverage these strategies to improve business performance and brand value. With the year 2025 coming, here are several business trends and predictions that…

US House Ethics Committee expected to release long-anticipated Matt Gaetz report Monday

US & Canada

Washington —  The U.S. House Ethics Committee is expected to release its long-awaited report Monday into former Representative Matt Gaetz, ending a yearslong investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct with minors and use of illicit drugs while the Florida Republican was in office. The anticipated release comes after at least one Republican joined all five…

The Master Filmmaker Who Just Returned With the Best Movie of the Year

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

In Slate’s annual Movie Club, film critic Dana Stevens emails with fellow critics—for 2024, Bilge Ebiri, K. Austin Collins, Alison Willmore, and Odie Henderson—about the year in cinema. Read the first entry here.

To my fellow celluloid-based life-forms,

Dana, I do indeed appear to have developed a reputation for liking big, sprawling movies. When I went to see Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist at the New York Film Festival this year, I ran into several friends and colleagues who assumed I was there to see it again. (I have also, it should be noted, developed a reputation for watching movies multiple times.) When I asked why my pals thought I had already seen it, one of them replied, “Because it’s such a you movie.”

I’m still not sure what that means, but I think I know what it means. So it’s perhaps odd that I liked but did not love The Brutalist. (Hello, hi, I’m the lone weirdo who thinks that film’s second half is better and crazier and more interesting than its first.) But I do like Brady Corbet’s work in general, and it’s been fun watching him go from relatively little-known actor to niche director to, now, potential Oscar contender. I remember, years ago, interviewing him and Mati Diop at Sundance when they were both actors co-starring in Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer. I met them at a restaurant, right after they had come out of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Elena, a decidedly austere and un-Sundance-y picture that had somehow made its way to Park City that year. I had just heard about the death of the great Greek director Theo Angelopoulos earlier that day and broke the news to them; they were both devastated. We began our interview with a toast to Angelopoulos (whose works, by the way, occasionally clocked in three hours long, or longer), and I remember thinking, These are my people. So it’s been exciting to see them both become acclaimed filmmakers. Diop, of course, won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2019 for the wonderful Atlantics, and then won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale this year for the excellent Dahomey—a mesmerizingly spectral, 68-minute documentary about the return to Benin of 26 looted royal artifacts—which was also at this year’s New York Film Festival, premiering on the same day as The Brutalist! Two very different artists, with very different styles, who were both forged in the nexus between the elliptical and the ambitious.

So, The Brutalist didn’t entirely do it for me (though I’m sure I’ll watch it again at some point, heh), but there were certainly some big-swing epics this year that did. First off, here is my Top 20 list, because I no longer believe in mere Top 10s:

1. Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice)

2. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)

3. Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)

4. The Fall Guy (David Leitch)

5. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin)

6. Girls Will Be Girls (Shuchi Talati)

7. Horizon: An American Saga (Kevin Costner)

8. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor)

9. Ghostlight (Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson)

10. Hit Man (Richard Linklater)

11. The Wild Robot (Christopher Sanders)

12. The Order (Justin Kurzel)

13. Daughters (Angela Patton, Natalie Rae)

14. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson)

15. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Benjamin Ree)

16. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader)

17. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)

18. Anora (Sean Baker)

19. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)

20. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)

When I look at this list, one thing really jumps out: Many of my favorite films this year were about the way we see each other—how much our identity, our very existence, depends on the way others perceive us. Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada is about a dying filmmaker who has been revered as a counterculture hero but is convinced his life has been a lie and feels he must confess it to his wife, in her presence, before he passes away. In Sean Baker’s Anora (which I imagine we’ll be talking about more as the Movie Club proceeds), we see how Ani (Mikey Madison), the stripper who elopes with Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the vape-happy son of a Russian oligarch, is not so different from the various attendants and servants and maître d’s surrounding this irresponsible princeling. Baker’s cutting and framing turn what starts off as subtext into text: Ani ignores all these underlings at first—a better life means never having to worry about those in the Beneath ever again—until circumstances force her into solidarity with a trio of hired goons who’ve come to end her marriage.

Meanwhile, in Richard Linklater’s marvelous Hit Man, Glen Powell’s nebbishy, jorts-wearing philosophy lecturer/audio-tech guy poses as a hired killer for a series of police sting operations, and soon adopts the persona of an outlaw badass as his own, especially once he falls in love with a prospective client who continues to believe that he’s actually a freelance murderer. (He even gets better at sex.) In Benjamin Ree’s utterly crushing documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, we learn about Mats Steen, a young man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (a debilitating, progressive, ultimately fatal disease), who spent most of his final years playing World of Warcraft from a wheelchair in his basement. After he dies, his parents discover that in this virtual world, he was Ibelin Redmoore, a brave, wise, muscle-bound private investigator who had a genuinely positive impact on the real lives of his fellow players, none of whom knew he was dying and in extraordinary pain. (I get teary-eyed just trying to type out the premise of this movie.)

Ultimately, that’s what really got me about my favorite film of the year, Víctor Erice’s Close Your Eyes (which actually premiered at Cannes last year, so a lot of people who should have it on their Top 10 lists probably didn’t even consider it). It’s the story of Miguel (Manolo Soto), a filmmaker searching for his best friend, Julio (José Coronado), an actor who walked off the set of one of their movies three decades ago and hasn’t been heard from since. In the final act, Miguel finds Julio living at a retirement home run by a convent of nuns. Julio has lost his memory and has no idea of his past as a famous actor. He lives in a shack at the convent, doing odd jobs. The nuns love him, and he seems content. Miguel’s struggle now becomes trying to spark this man’s lost memory using images from the picture they were shooting when he disappeared, hoping that something will make him remember who he once was. But as we watch Miguel’s efforts, we realize: He needs Julio’s memory more than Julio does. Miguel’s career as a filmmaker, along with a huge part of his life, ended with Julio’s disappearance. He’s lost his family and has spent the past however many years living off the grid, growing tomatoes by the beach. He needs Julio’s redeeming gaze so he can recover his own identity, to recognize that he himself exists—not the other way around.

Related From Slate

Dana Stevens
The Daring, Original Movies That Actually Brought People to Theaters This Year
Read More

Coming from an 84-year-old legend of Spanish cinema, a director who has, sadly, made only four features over more than 50 years (all of them masterpieces), Close Your Eyes is one of those movies that make me perceive the whole world differently after each viewing, even though the truth it ultimately expresses is universal and obvious, if often unspoken.

This is the point where I should launch into an extended riff on RaMell Ross’ stunning, stunning, stunning Nickel Boys, my other favorite film of the year. Adapting Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel about horrific abuse at a Jim Crow–era “reform school,” Ross employs a first-person point-of-view camera—which has traditionally been a very gimmicky device, but he makes it work by crossbreeding it with a fragmented, elliptical editing style, then intercutting between the points of view of his two protagonists. Talk about a movie that’s all about seeing!

But really, I’ve gone on too long, and I know there are other big fans of Nickel Boys here. So I’m really just setting it up, to pass the baton.

Take it away, folks,

Bilge

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The best Canadian books of 2024 CBC Books has rounded up all our best books of 2024 lists in one handy place! Check out the top Canadian fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics and kids books of the year. Books |20 minutes ago

Arts & Culture, Books

CBC Books has rounded up all our best books of 2024 lists in one handy place! Check out the top Canadian fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics and kids books of the year.What I Know About You is a novel by Éric Chacour, left, translated by Pablo Strauss.

Why I Love My Travel Drawer (and What I Put In It)

Travel

We may earn a commission from links on this page.I first heard of a “travel drawer” right here on Lifehacker, where Kristin Wong wrote about the idea in 2016. I mentally rolled my eyes. Setting aside a whole drawer just for things you only use on a trip? But now I have one, I love it, and I’ll tell you all about what I keep in it and how it’s changed my life.
What is a travel drawer, and why would you want one? 
A travel drawer is a permanent drawer (or similar location) in your home where you keep all the items you only use when traveling. As Kristin Wong wrote in that fateful article: “Packing typically means rounding up all the junk you’re going to take with you on your trip: your passport, travel adapters, chargers, toiletries, and so on. You can save a lot of time keeping all of that junk in one area.”
My travel “drawer” is a rolling plastic tote that lives under my bed. My passport lives elsewhere, but otherwise I use it exactly as she described. My beloved hanging toiletry bag? It’s in there. Adapters I only use in hotel rooms? Of course. A selection of packing cubes? You know it. And not only does it make packing easier, it makes unpacking easier as well. I come home, dump my dirty clothes in the laundry, and put my travel items right back in their drawer. Five minutes and I’m 80% unpacked.

Sterilite 66 Quart Stadium Blue Ultra Storage Box

$19.98 at Walmart
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Get Deal

$19.98 at Walmart
$16.86 Save 0.00

In theory, you could use your suitcase as the travel drawer, but I find a suitcase is one of the least convenient places to keep travel things. Because when you travel, you don’t usually want all of your travel items. (Some are for flying, some are for road trips, some are seasonal…you get the idea.) You’ll bring this item, but not that one, and then what happens to the rest? You just have a big pile. If you go this route, at least have your travel things in a bag or box inside the suitcase.
What I keep in my travel drawer
Besides the waste of a drawer, the other reason I was skeptical at first was that I didn’t imagine I had that many travel-specific items. But not only did I turn out to have more than I thought (once I collected them together), I found that having a designated space for travel items allowed me to assemble a thoughtful collection of travel items. No more “where will this toiletry case live in the bathroom?” or “is it worth buying this mug if it’s going to get lost amongst all my other mugs?” 
So here, below, are the most game-changing travel items I keep in my travel drawer. I’ll also shout out my colleague Allie Reinmann’s list of travel essentials, which you should peruse as well. 
Packing cubes
I am not kidding when I say packing cubes changed my life. I have a large collection of them in this drawer, because I need enough for my whole family. (I travel probably half a dozen times a year. The rest of the family, usually just once. That’s why the travel drawer is mine, but I share.) I have different sizes and different types, including regular, compression, and my new fave, the clean/dirty packing cube. There’s a divider that lets you put dirty clothes in one side and clean in the other, so you don’t need a separate laundry bag for the trip home.
A pop-up laundry hamper
For the laundry situation while you’re in the hotel, though, it’s super handy to have a pop-up hamper. Toss your dirty clothes in there at the end of the night, instead of stuffing them into a drawer or leaving them in a pile on the floor. Any basic pop-up hamper will do; pick one up from the dorm supplies section during any back-to-school sale.
An organizer for all my chargers
You can organize your cables and adapters any way you like. I’m partial to this roll-up organizer. For my phone, I have a magnetic charging puck that can plug into any USB-C cable, which saves me from having to pack a dedicated magnetic charger or a lightning cable. 
Sleep shorts
You know what I’m always forgetting to pack? Pajamas. Even when they’re on my packing list, I’ll hem and haw about which ones to bring, because I like a nice cozy pair of sweatpants at home, but sweatpants take up a lot of space in the suitcase. On one trip where I had forgotten any sleeping clothes (again), I bought a pair of thin, soft sleep shorts. Not only do they pack up small, I’ve designated them my Travel Pajamas (they can be paired with any of the T-shirts I always pack) and they live in the travel drawer. I never forget my pajamas anymore.
A good toiletry bag with all your mini toiletries
I like a hanging toiletry bag, since it doesn’t really need to be packed or unpacked. My favorite is this little one from Travelon. Pro tip: Bring a single shower curtain hook so that you can hang it anywhere, even if the hotel doesn’t have a spot that fits the little built-in hook.
Inside the toiletry bag, most of the contents are predictable, and I won’t bore you with them. For example, I have a collapsible toothbrush and a mini toothpaste tube. (I don’t usually bring shampoo or soap; a hotel or a local drugstore will provide.) But there are two specific items I’d like to call out, since they save so much space, time and trouble. The first is a little razor that comes in its own compact case. Mine is the Venus Mini, which seems to be discontinued, but here’s an off-brand with the same form factor.

Travel Razors for Women Include 1 Handle and 5 Cartridges, Extra Smooth 5-Blade Mini Razor with Travel Case, Portable Travel Size Toiletries for Women, Orange

$14.99 at Amazon

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Get Deal

$14.99 at Amazon

The other, which also fits in my little toiletry bag, is what some product listings call a “pocket pharmacy.” It’s a pill case, but instead of being organized according to what meds you take each day of the week, it’s just a little selection of things you may or may not need. I have ibuprofen in there in case I have sore muscles after a weightlifting meet (a lot of my travel is for weightlifting meets). I have Claritin in case I encounter something I’m allergic to. I have melatonin tablets in case I need help sleeping. The best pocket pharmacies come with little stickers to label all the compartments.

Pill Organizer with 161 Medicine Labels Travel Daily Pill Container Mini Medication Organizer Storage Pill Organizer Pill Case 7 Day Pill Organizer (Grey)

$4.99 at Amazon

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Get Deal

$4.99 at Amazon

This strangely versatile 50-cent tumbler
When I picked up a 50-cent plastic cup at a Walmart while traveling, I never imagined it would become such a staple for me. Not only is it handy as a water glass, it’s also microwaveable, so it works as a mug if you want to warm up a hot drink. And it’s big enough you can eat a decent sized portion of cereal or oatmeal out of it with a spoon (or a mini travel spork). I got four more of them for our family vacation, and the kids got into the habit of saving a little bottle of milk from breakfast and then making themselves hot cocoa in the evening. Get a different color for each family member, and do yourself a favor and rinse out the milk immediately after using it, OK? 

32 Ingenious Travel Products To Bring On Vacation In 2025

Travel

The wallet has a passport pocket, boarding pass compartment, three credit card slots, an ID slot, a slim card pouch, slim pocket, a ticket slot, a cellphone pouch, a coin zippered pocket, key holder, and pen holder. Promising review: “I absolutely love this wallet. I needed a new travel wallet, and this holds everything I need all in one place, and it still closes nicely and stays flat! I can fit my boarding pass, passport, ID, credit cards, money, checked baggage tickets, receipts, and more in it, yet it doesn’t bulk up or look like an overstuffed mess. It’s just amazing. The description says it only holds US money, but I just used the boarding pass flap to hold all my Japanese yen (¥), which are larger. I didn’t use the zippered pocket for coins as I much prefer a separate coin purse for that sort of thing. I definitely recommend to anyone who travels a lot!” —Anthony LuuGet it from Amazon for $13.99 (available in 32 colors).

I Bet You $10 You Can’t Tell Which Of These 2024 Movie Titles Are Real And Which Ones I Totally Made Up

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

2024 was full of a TON of huge pop culture moments — including a bucketload of NEW MOVIES. So many that, TBH, it’s pretty much impossible to recall them all.

So today, we’re gonna take a look back at some movies that came out in 2024. The catch? Half of these titles are FAKE. Let’s see if you can figure out which are real, and which I just made up.

What was your favourite movie of the year (and why was it Wicked: Part One)? JK, JK, I’m genuinely curious, so tell me in the comments below!