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    593 points ZeroTalent | 20 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    abetaha ◴[] No.43942334[source]
    I am always amazed how most business book authors take a simple idea that could be described in one page, and turn it into a 200+ page book with popularizing narrative. What's more amazing is that the ideas are usually commonsense, but due to human nature are seldom practiced.
    replies(24): >>43942439 #>>43942475 #>>43942519 #>>43942548 #>>43942603 #>>43942700 #>>43942947 #>>43942986 #>>43943133 #>>43943237 #>>43943360 #>>43943406 #>>43943440 #>>43943513 #>>43943672 #>>43943728 #>>43943743 #>>43943785 #>>43943801 #>>43943838 #>>43943959 #>>43944083 #>>43947678 #>>43952013 #
    1. alphazard ◴[] No.43942548[source]
    As I see it there are 2 likely reasons for this.

    1. You need enough paper to create an object with a noticeable mass that takes time to work all the way through. Too small or short and it doesn't feel worth it. Make it short enough and people could read it in the book store.

    2. People are bad at applying a crystalized abstraction in day-to-day life. They are better at learning narratives and fitting the current situation to the closest learned narrative, and then acting out the part of the protagonist. Instead of explaining a statistic or explicit rule of thumb, it would be more effective to give a bunch of examples where someone successfully applies the rule and is rewarded. Those examples can take up many pages.

    replies(7): >>43942707 #>>43942778 #>>43942862 #>>43943000 #>>43943210 #>>43943245 #>>43947326 #
    2. ◴[] No.43942707[source]
    3. ldoughty ◴[] No.43942778[source]
    Point 1 is a good example of the GEICO jingle.

    People felt 5-10 minutes isn't enough time for something as serious as insurance.. but 25-30 is so long it turns people away... And then 5%, maybe even 10% savings isn't enough to go through the effort, but 25% seems unrealistic....

    You need a document long enough to seem informative and authoritative without being too extreme in any way... Then you can slap a price on it and call it a book!

    4. itake ◴[] No.43942862[source]
    Many non-fiction books, you can get the gist by reading a blogger's summary, but I think the length of the book actually gives my brain time to digest and commit to permanent memory the idea(s) in the book.

    Reading a 3 minute summary, once, I will easily forget the knowledge. But reading about the idea with different stories and other auxiliary information help me retain the principles much faster.

    replies(3): >>43943292 #>>43943739 #>>43945227 #
    5. vivzkestrel ◴[] No.43943000[source]
    i have an amazing idea, lets take the top 1000 business books, condense their ideas down to 1 page each and remove all the fluff and sell this as a 1000 page book
    replies(5): >>43943205 #>>43943438 #>>43944516 #>>43945995 #>>43949042 #
    6. ekianjo ◴[] No.43943205[source]
    Most books rehash the same ideas so you could compress it in a much shorter one
    replies(2): >>43943258 #>>43943916 #
    7. freddie_mercury ◴[] No.43943210[source]
    Amazon tried to disrupt this with their Kindle Singles program with books in the 75-100 page range. It is still technically around but consumers clearly voted against it.

    Despite constant complaints about the padding in many non-fiction books (not just business) there's clearly a silent majority who feel like "If I'm going to bother, ugh, opening a book then I want it to be as thick as possible".

    For that matter, you see a similar dynamic on the fiction side too with novellas and short stories bring far distant in popularity to novels. (Even though those same people have zero issues watching 22 minute TV episodes.)

    replies(1): >>43946496 #
    8. bee_rider ◴[] No.43943245[source]
    2 is a good point, but I wonder if it would be best to just drop the pretexts and explicitly describe these stories as Aesop style fables.
    9. ◴[] No.43943258{3}[source]
    10. slt2021 ◴[] No.43943292[source]
    Its not only the idea, but the history, and analysis of the author.

    Reading a book is not just “downloading a knowledge into your brain”.

    Reading is more like executing a program and seeing dofferent result in dofferent people. People will reflect in a different way and come out with different takes, emphasize points, lessons, and takeaways

    11. hurtuvac78 ◴[] No.43943438[source]
    It reminds me of the Tao Te Ching of Laozi... and Jesus' parables in the New Testament.

    So maybe your idea has a future...

    12. progbits ◴[] No.43943739[source]
    I feel the exact opposite. Slogging through all irrelevant filler in those books dilutes everything, and makes me impatient and unfocused, just fast-forwarding through.
    13. smokel ◴[] No.43943916{3}[source]
    Here you go:

    "Focus on value creation. Execution beats ideas. Leadership and culture matter."

    replies(1): >>43944273 #
    14. foobahhhhh ◴[] No.43944273{4}[source]
    Extreme! but a calendar with one of these a day plus a paragraph to explain would be pretty good.
    15. prmoustache ◴[] No.43944516[source]
    Don't we already have linkedin for those condensed ideas?
    16. ghaff ◴[] No.43945227[source]
    Crossing the Chasm can basically be summarized in a page or two. There's probably some value in actually reading the book if it's relevant to your space.
    17. marcosdumay ◴[] No.43945995[source]
    You'll get a 60 pages book, not a 1000 pages one.
    18. graemep ◴[] No.43946496[source]
    There are some very nice short print books suchas OUP's "Very short introduction to...". Penguin (?) used to do single short stories and extracts of biographies etc. many years ago. I do not think they do any more, but I have some.

    Then there was the delightful Bluffer's Guides series.

    I like shorter novels and short stories myself, especially in SF where ideas matter.

    19. pessimizer ◴[] No.43947326[source]
    3. The idea is trite, and the fluff is there to fool people into thinking it is substantial (i.e. it's not fluff, it's ad copy.)
    20. bluechar ◴[] No.43949042[source]
    That's what "The Personal MBA" book did