“Publishing’s Dirty Little Secret”
Michael Hyatt, the President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, encourages us to cultivate the habit of non-finishing. He said:
"Here’s publishing’s dirty little secret: most books are not worth finishing. Most books could be cut in half and you wouldn’t miss a thing. The key is to read as long as you are interested and then stop. There are too many great books to read without getting bogged down in the merely good ones."
My question is this: why don’t publishers just cut those books in half? I prefer shorter books. I’d rather catch the big idea and then move on to the next title. I think we need more books like The Dip. One idea. No fluff.
Tony,
Great point – I feel this moral obligation to finish the books I start, even if I find myself wading through a sea of “fluff.” But no more. Thanks for the link – I just added Hyatt to my newsreader.
He might as well say, “We produce such complete fluff that I can’t even bring myself to use my own product.” It astounds me that so many companies are run by people who aren’t passionate enough about their own product/service. If you don’t believe in it, why do you expect you’ll be able to convince me I should pay attention?
More pertinent to your question, I think the obvious answer is: books are written by writers, and every writer’s downfall is their inability to edit themselves and write concisely. That’s why they hire a whole other person (or team) to edit for them. We writers think every word from our lips is gold, and we can’t bear to cut one line, for fear the perfect creation will be diminished.
It reminds me of A River Runs Through It, as young Norman sheepishly takes his papers into his father’s study, invariably to be told, “Good. Now make it half as long.”
I think The Dip was even too long. Everything Seth had to say could have been summed up in 100 words or less.
Most books are better left skimmed and read only when a particular concept is of particular interest.
That’s a frightening thought. I hope by “most books” you actually mean “most books of particular genres (like business, management, creativity, innovation, etc.)” e.g. books that exist to expound on niche themes and main ideas.
I can’t imagine skimming classic fiction (or scripture for that matter) and “getting it.”
A book called “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler has a section called Inspectional Reading. It is basically a skimming workflow with purpose. The author says that 95% of all books only require an Inspectional Reading – and from my experience I would have to agree!
Great post Tony.
totally.
fiction and scripture excluded.
read the brothers karamazov last summer. the subtlety and intricacy of the conversation deserves multiple thorough reads…
In college, back in the dark ages, I took an English Composition class and got the best writing advice I ever heard. The instructor said to let the first draft cool a day or two, then go back over it and remove about every third word, then add back only as many as needed to make it grammatical and to make sense. Let it cool another day or so, then go back and identify every word with four or more syllables; make every attempt to replace them with words of fewer syllables. If we want to communicate clearly instead of impressing the audience, it works.