Who Wrote it? (Questions I ask Before I Read a Book)
I have a constantly rolling stack of 20 as-yet-unread books at my house (and 20 more at my office) that I really plan to read. As I hear recommendations, scour the landscape, dig through the book chaff, and consider my upcoming reading time—I need a vetting tool to help me know what to read next.
When I’m ready to pick up a new book I know I’ll find a good one in the stack. Here are the questions I ask of each possible book I encounter:
Do the title and subtitle promise some amount of improvement to my life, health, spiritual journey, knowledge exploration, and/or entertainment? This takes about 7 seconds.
Who wrote it? Are they trustworthy? What do they bring to the table that I don’t?Who endorsed it? Are they experts/authorities on the subject? Are their endorsements for the content itself or the author (both are valuable, but telling)? This takes about 45 seconds.
How long is the book for its genre? Can I foresee the time I invest repaying itself several fold? (e.g. four hours may equal me being a 3% better dad). This takes about 5 seconds, picture me holding the book in one hand literally weighing it and computing the value.
Does the table of contents give me a good picture of where the author is going to take me? Is it somewhere I want to go? Would I be better off reading a summary of the book to save myself five hours? This takes about about 30 seconds.
Even if all of the above questions are answered in the affirmative, does it pass a final few “sniff” tests: Have I already read up in this genre? Does it seem professionally done? Is there something better I should read to cover this same ground? Is it worth the price?
If a book makes it through this gauntlet, I add it to the stack. Ready to read.
For the next few months, I’m going to address each of these questions with a post… Starting in no particular order.
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When we consider which books to publish, we ask three basic sets of questions:
Is the idea any good? Is it original, unique, and/or interesting?
Is it executed well? How’s the writing? Is it compelling, creative, and reflective of the genre?
Is there an audience clamoring for it? Does the author or the idea (or both!) have a group of people congregating around waiting to soak in this project?
All of these questions are key. And they all have their start with the author. Our job as the publisher with the actual product is to help, hone, edit, design, cut, champion, market, sell, and bolster the book… but the author is the beginning!
As a reader, I’m always asking this of any book that makes its way to my attention spectrum: Who wrote this? Are they a professional? Have they practiced this idea in other mediums? Where do they work? Have they experienced some failures on the way to getting where they are?
If they’re “famous” I like to see why they are famous. Maybe they had a viral post of some kind, maybe they are well-known in another medium and they’ve just decided to write a book, maybe they’ve already written a bestselling book, maybe they have a famous last name, maybe they earned every nickel they ever got…
If they’re unknown, I like to see why they are unknown. Maybe this is their first big break, maybe they’ve written many other books to a niche audience, maybe they’ve worked in relative obscurity and now they’re communicating outside their home crowd for the first time, maybe they’re young, maybe they want to be unknown…
None of these are meant to be judge-y, but as a reader I like to understand who this delivery-person is and why they are vying for 4-8 hours of my attention.
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Are they trustworthy? There’s almost no way to know this unless you know people who know them or unless their endorser list (see previous post) is particularly personal. So, you’ll likely need to take a leap of faith here, but it’s worth asking. Who is the publisher? Where did they go to school? How do they behave on the Internet? Again, there’s no way to know all this for sure… but ask some questions and enter in with your eyes as wide open as possible.
What do they bring to the table that I don’t? This sounds like an arrogant question—and perhaps it is—but the whole point of reading is to get someone else’s perspective on something (hopefully something that matters). So, find books and authors who bring something else to your table. Are they older than you? Younger? Where did they grow up? What’s their background? Education? Perspective? Did they spend tons of time researching the book or did they throw it together in a few months? Did they find other experts to help? Or did they write in a vacuum? Do they seem like they enjoy life?
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There’s so much vying for our attention these days. We’ve got to have tests. Hopefully the above can be a small help as you look at the potential stack of books and winnow it down to the next one! No matter what—don’t forget this—reading a quality book is going to be a better use of your time than playing video games or watching another season of that show.