You Cannot Give Away Too Many Books

At his blog, Mark Batterson offers a perspective that authors and publishers should thing about more seriously. It begins:

Here is a lesson I learned when I wrote In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: if your book is worth reading then you can't give away too many copies! On one level, every book given away subtracts from sales. But on a much higher plane, every book given away multiplies sales. I've chosen to take a multiplication mindset. Here's my rationale. If people like the book, they will buy a copy for someone or tell someone about it. First generation readers spawn second generation readers via word of mouth.

Rick Phillips interviewed about 'The Masculine Mandate'

Reformed Forum has interviewed Rick Phillips about his soon-to-be released book, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men. Rick wrote the book in part as a response to John Eldredge and his Wild at Heart series. Rick's book was a thrill to edit, so I'm glad to see it getting some attention before it is even released.

FYI, the first 6:30 of the interview are prep and housekeeping.

O'Reilly TOC at Frankfurt Book Fair

At a few points the translation is amusing, but anything involving Tools of Change and the future of publishing is worthwhile.

Revise? Or advise?

The following is a shorter version of an entry at my other blog, which chronicles the editing of a specific book. 

-------------------------------------

One of the things I seem to be able to do, after having had a few exchanges with an author, is to sense where the line is between simply performing edits myself, even if they are substantial, and sending a section or a chapter back to the author with my thoughts and observations. Deciding whether to perform a particular edit myself or to send it back to the author has to do with my comfort level on matters such as these:

_Do I understand what the author is trying to do at this point in the book?

_Do I know what the book ought to be doing at this point? (Sometimes these are not the same thing, which can raise another level of questions about whether to consult with the author or just press ahead.)

_Is there material in this chapter or section that has ramifications for chapters that have already been edited or perhaps are in the process of being revised by the author pursuant to suggestions I sent earlier?

_Given all this, does it make more sense for me to work on this section or chapter, or to return it to the author with my suggestions and observations? 

Writing and editing for a popular audience

I believe writing today for a popular audience means, among other things, not writing as if every reader has the same learning style. Whether due to a lack of aptitude, the press of circumstances, form of education, or some other reason, many people are not particularly adept at tracking closely with an extended argument presented in big blocks of prose. (Most authors and editors do this for a living, so we don't notice.) We must not write as though the reader is unintelligent or childlike, but if there is one kind of person I generally “edit to,” it is the busy parent who only has (or only makes) 20 minutes on a Thursday night to read this kind of book on the couch just before bed. He is tired. He is likely reading this book in part out of a sense of obligation, and he only vaguely remembers the six pages he read three days earlier at lunchtime. How do you serve him? You don't need to dumb down the content. In addition to good, clear, direct writing, you need to use structural elements like heads and subheads to highlight the sub-points of the teaching.

Secondary and tertiary subheads, with the occasional list of smaller one-off points, help the reader in two ways. They allow him to see the logic of the argument unfold forward, not just in blocks of prose but with visual reinforcement (for visual learners). They also allow him to review the recent content backward with the same ease. He can flip back a couple of pages and—without having had to mark up the text as he goes—be able to recall quickly the gist of the author’s argument.

Two common techniques that rarely serve readers are 1) paragraphs that begin with “First,” “Second,” etc., and/or 2) a single italicized word buried in the middle of a block of text and intended to serve as a label for the central concept of that section. To me, a reader of a popular book should never have to mark up a chapter to be able to scan for the basic elements of the argument. We should not ask readers to do more than purchase a book in order to own something that rises to a baseline level of ready intelligibility—and (this may be flipping the metaphor) I believe that bar has been raised several notches in just the past several years.

People expect high-quality content. Given the influence of the web and the pace of life, they increasingly expect that content to be as easily digestible as the concepts will allow. Editors and publishers owe readers: quality content + ready intelligibility, which = surprise and delight. In exchange for their cash and attention we owe them excellent material, as accessible as possible, without dumbing down or compromising.

Quality, plus ready intelligibility through a structure that serves more than one kind of learning style: I  believe this is what popular communication means today, and this is what people expect their money to buy them.