Beating the Small Stakes Games!!

Before I read Small Stakes Hold'em, Poker Theory, and Inside the Poker Mind, I was breaking about even at the tables... Since reading these books I have bumped my hourly rate up by 5 bucks so far. I know the Small Stakes Hold'em book states more than once that mastering pre-flop play isn't as important as how you play the rest of the hand, but I feel that it is perhaps the best way to beat the small stakes tables. People will call anything, so the strategies that the book teaches don't have the same effects. What do you guys think??