I’m writing a book, and I’m very cognizant of these issues as I write. It’s academic nonfiction, so basically the worst of the worst. I don’t read these sorts of books myself normally and prefer to find summaries. There’s only rare books in this genre where reading the whole thing is worthwhile, and that’s mostly because it’s a way to get you to think in depth about something.
So what am I doing in response as I write? I’m keeping the book dense and short. I’m aiming for <50k words and am more likely to hit 30k. That means it has higher density than typical academic nonfiction.
Why write a book, though? I am posting the draft chapters here as I write them. But books have a few nice properties:
Perceived by others as prestigious so they are more willing to trust you might have something worthwhile to say.
The format forces a different style of writing that has to be more self contained and can’t lean as easily on references to explain things.
Even though I could explain the main ideas of the book in just a few paragraphs, some of the arguments take time to develop if you disagree, so the book in part serves to develop those arguments and make the case in enough detail that more people will be convinced.
I’m writing a book, and I’m very cognizant of these issues as I write. It’s academic nonfiction, so basically the worst of the worst. I don’t read these sorts of books myself normally and prefer to find summaries. There’s only rare books in this genre where reading the whole thing is worthwhile, and that’s mostly because it’s a way to get you to think in depth about something.
So what am I doing in response as I write? I’m keeping the book dense and short. I’m aiming for <50k words and am more likely to hit 30k. That means it has higher density than typical academic nonfiction.
Why write a book, though? I am posting the draft chapters here as I write them. But books have a few nice properties:
Perceived by others as prestigious so they are more willing to trust you might have something worthwhile to say.
The format forces a different style of writing that has to be more self contained and can’t lean as easily on references to explain things.
Even though I could explain the main ideas of the book in just a few paragraphs, some of the arguments take time to develop if you disagree, so the book in part serves to develop those arguments and make the case in enough detail that more people will be convinced.