The Turn of the Tide

The past 15 years has seen a massive rise in consumer tech. FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) companies differ from previous tech leaders because their main users are consumers, not businesses. But the tide is turning against their model, on almost all fronts all at once.

People are starting to wonder if big consumer tech is:

• Good for investors? FAANG stocks are dropping. Too many well known start ups (Uber, Netflix, Snap) are still losing money after many years.
• Good for users? People are asking about their psychological impact, the loss of privacy, and the fast-and-loose exploitation of personal data.
• Good for society? Fake news, the spread of hate, and the undermining of democracy. And they suck investment away from solving real problems, into providing services that only the tech elite really want.
• Good for employees? The management techniques pioneered by Silicon Valley startups are coming under scrutiny like never before. Lack of diversity, high pressure, low benefits. They expect fanatical loyalty from their people, but give very little commitment in return.

Over the next year or so we'll see books that plug into this change climbing the charts. An early indication is Bad Blood winning Business Book of the Year. Dan Lyons' Lab Rats, Joe Toscano's Automating Humanity, and Basecamp's It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy At Work take different perspectives on the same story. The Silicon Valley model isn't great... but perhaps there's another way.

If you have a killer book idea that plays into this trend, why not contact me on davidb@packt.com? Packt Expert Network exists to provide a platform to discuss these important issues in tech.

Clearer, punchier, more succinct

Do you want to make your writing clearer, punchier, and more succinct? Hemingway App will help you. It measures how easy your work is to read. It highlights the trickiest parts. And it's free to use online.

Paste in a recent email and see how well you or your colleague scored.

http://www.hemingwayapp.com/

Does your book have a strategy?

Good strategy has three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action.

Books should also have a core strategy:

1. A problem you want your books to solve for the reader, and a clear view of why that problem exists. That's diagnosis.
2. A general plan of how your book is going to solve that problem for them. An overall message, philosophy, or approach. That's your book's guiding policy.
3. The specific decisions about how the book will be constructed. Style, length, order, topic coverage. In the best books, every element works together to support the guiding policy. And the guiding policy is a solution to the reader's problem.

Good strategy is rare in business, but the businesses with strong coherent strategy usually rise to the top.

The same is true for books. Most books don't have a clear, coherent strategy. Most authors try to cover the topic, rather than solve the problem.

But the most successful books have great strategy. Check out the top sellers on Amazon, or the books that have stood the test of time. They all have a good, solid strategy behind them:

A clear focus on a problem, with diagnosis. A guiding policy for solving the problem. And coherent decisions about the book's design, all chosen to support the strategy.

What's the problem?

For hundreds of years, people have turned to books to help them:

• Get an edge on their competitors
• Get better at their chosen craft
• Feel hope and security when facing a scary future
• Increase their power and influence over others
• Better understand the world and how it works

The specific threats and opportunities people face change over time. But the reasons people turn to books don't. So however technical or cutting edge your book is, position it so it helps with one or more of the time-tested needs above.

No ditherers

 For any book description there's going to be 3 groups of readers:

1. People who decide to buy
2. People who decide not to buy
3. People who can't make a decision either way

If people can't quickly understand your offer, if they don't know what problem it's supposed to solve, if they're not sure who the target audience is. If it takes too long to read and something distracts them -- they're in group 3.

Group 3 is the worst group. Do everything you can to help your potential reader make a definitive "yes or no" decision.

Chances are about 90% of people who read your description are in group 3.

"I can't write..."

There's a big difference between saying "I can't write" and "I don't like what I write". The first is paralysis, the second is progress.

If you're not happy with what you've written you can read it back and do something about it.