Reading newsletters
Although this one might serve as evidence to the contrary, according to Arnold Kling, Substack newsletters are superior to non-fiction books these days.
I am reading fewer books that I did before Substack came along. The most recent book I read was Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, by Randolph Nesse. Relative to what I wanted, the book did not disappoint. But boy, it felt like it took a long time to get there. The book is not information dense. I had the annoying sense that in the time it took me to read the book I could have profitably explored many [S]ubstacks.
Read the whole thing here, succinctly titled “Books are not Information Dense.”
I have read a few non-fiction books in recent years that felt like the underlying material was sufficient for a long article, but not really enough for the book. Such books seem to ramble on for pages that stretched the point rather than clarifying it.
Some books also suffer from bad prose and convoluted narration. They seem to take a complex concept and make it even less intelligible. I usually abandon these because the authors have lost me, and I can’t figure out how to untangle the conceptual mess anymore. This can happen on Substack, too, of course, but at least it doesn’t leave readers with the sense of irritation at the writer’s lack of editing, or their own lack of perseverance. The upfront commitment from readers isn’t as great—and neither is the sense of failure upon abandonment.
Sometimes I’ve started reading a book based on interesting author interviews or enthusiastic book reviews, only to be let down that the book fell short. I suppose some of this is a difference in personal tastes and preferences or personal perspective. At other times, specialist authors seem unwilling or uninterested in appealing to a broader, less academic audience. In such cases, the authors appear bent on demonstrating their facility with technical jargon to their peers.
Kling reads more Substacks than I do. His whole newsletter itself is based on what he calls the FITs, the Fantasy Intellectual Teams, which he describes as original thinkers who are capable of considering opposing views. Most of them used to have blogs, but have converted them to Substack newsletters. I haven’t gotten around to reading all the newsletters I’d like to—I’m still trying to catch up on books, and I’m not a fast reader. But if you’re curious about any set of non-fiction ideas, Substack seems to contain all sorts of authors ready and able to scratch your itch.
As we’ve discussed here and in comments, the problem is that the newsletters themselves are often too long as well as too numerous. If you like a particular author’s newsletter, there will be more and more content from the writer as time goes on—unlike the finiteness of a book.
Kling closes by gazing into the future:
I speculate that nonfiction books are headed down the path of academic journals. They will be useful for academics positioning themselves for tenure, but they will be too slow and ponderous for communicating ideas. People who really care about ideas will turn to reading and writing [S]ubstacks instead of books and journals.
Seems a sensible enough guess based on the assumptions. I wonder what effect other factors will have, such as text-generating programs like ChatGPT, or some people’s preference for reading ink on paper rather than digital screens. Or today’s shortened attention spans.
Any predictions?
A litttle late to the conversation, but I came across this yesterday:
https://www.annettewhipple.com/2023/01/kids-love-nonfiction.html?spref=fb
Cheers
I edit an academic journal (and am an associate editor for another).
The purpose of the journal is not necessarily a place a print, but rather a place for vindicating new material. The gold standard is a blind review (where the reviewers don't know the author identity, and visa versa). Ideally, the reviewers decide if the article advances our knowledge or not.
Some institutionalization creeps in. Our journal uses a template abstract (six topics, 2-3 sentences on each). You're expected to cite between 25-50 journals, so readers can review the source documents. You're also expected to write in an academic style, editors hate my dry humor, for some reason! Ironically, the best authors write the easiest to read material. I bet most of you could read and follow Stewart Myers' work or Danny Kahneman's work. They also are both in a league heaps more smarter than people like me!
Methods today are more robust, because the software is more robust. Speaking of which, the top journals like "robustness" checks, which is where you run a similar test on data not in your sample, to see if your sample is the same or not. Many journals are hiring a "methods" associate editor who only check methods, since there are so many out there.
I'd add that volume is up substantially. in 2017 my co-editor and I did handled submissions. In 2022 we had a "down year", with "only" 894 submissions (2021 had 903). I desk reject well over half of them.
My wife asks why I do it, and I mostly enjoy it. I give feedback to authors, I also learn a lot. My knowledge of methods skyrocketed, because I had to familiarize myself with more methods than I normally use.