Let Me Summarize

I have found a lot of factual books contain about an A5 flash card worth of content. It is a wonder that they manage to spin it out into a 300 page book. Really, they should get an award for that. You could just read the blurb on the back and know the content. Or, maybe read chapter one. All the other chapters, just break that first one down, or tell you what the first chapter said in a different way. Are we really so dumb that we need to hear it in multiple ways?

I am being incredibly harsh, not like me at all. But I have had enough of reading training books with no real content. I know why they do it of course. A publisher can hardly publish an A5 flash card, instead of a book; there’s no money in it.

Mike Nevin has just produced his latest self-help book, ‘How to sit up straight in a wheelchair?’ Available in hardback for £29.99, paperback for £19.99, as a free download in A5 flashcard or A4 sheet format. Now I ask you, which one are you going for? Great, I’ll put you down for 10 hardbacks.

It’s not just factual books that fall into this trap. A speaker at a conference can be just as bad. There are a lot of conferences that are glorified book publicity tours. If it’s one of those books, that should have been on an A5 flash card, then a two day conference is going to real drag.

Let me summarize. Here’s were you get your hopes up, in all those situations above. At last! They are going to finish. But they go on for another half an hour. I won’t, I have made my point.

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