Please don't write that book?
In a New York Times essay from 2002, a full copy of which I can't seem to find
anywhere on the web, Joseph Epstein suggests that although more and more people
seem to think that they've got a book in them which they'd like to thrust on the
world, for the vast majority of us the best advice we could receive would be not
to act on that thought. Numerous writers (bloggers? posters? do you need to be
a professional in order to be considered a writer?) on the web reacted to Epstein's
essay, some positive, many negative. Many quoted from it, which means that even
if I can't find the entire essay, I can still quote parts of it. Epstein notes
that:
Why should so many people think they can write a book, especially at a time when so many people who actually do write books turn out not really to have a book in them — or at least not one that many other people can be made to care about? Something on the order of 80,000 books get published in America every year, most of them not needed, not wanted, not in any way remotely necessary.
In rather harsh language (though I doubt that the people toward whom he's directing
his comments are actually his readership) he concludes:
Misjudging one's ability to knock out a book can only be a serious and time-consuming mistake. Save the typing, save the trees, save the high tax on your own vanity. Don't write that book, my advice is, don't even think about it. Keep it inside you, where it belongs.
It was a fun read, and even a convincing one. And maybe, when we think about the
trees, a well made point. But although I found myself nodding my head in agreement,
I also found myself reminding myself that cyberspace was a wonderful alternative
to the publishing world. It's cheaper and easier, and nobody is going to tell
you not to write that book. So although writing it may not be a good idea, feel
free to post it to your web site.
Go to: A clear and ever-present danger, or
Go to: The (ir)relevance of hypertext