What I Read — on books, personalities and ideas

It is not that people do not read anymore, but the forms have changed into tweets, WhatsApp messages and blog posts. So what we read is more quickly forgotten. I am going to periodically document what I read and my short highlights. In another post we will be in search of better ways to capture information.

While preparing this post, what I find most difficult is to choose highlights to summarize the essence of a text. Anyways, here is today’s highlights.

• The one where writing books is not really a good idea

  “98 percent of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies.” — Only 11 books that sold more than 500,000 copies — 10 best-performing Netflix films saw more than 68 million views. — just aren’t enough people willing to pay for fiction.

  “Publishers are always looking for people with really big platforms. If Kanye West is going to publish a book, he’s got a big audience already — can become a bestselling book immediately.”

  

  Why would a reader pay $5/month to read four chapters of a book each month when they could buy a whole book on Kindle for $1.99? - Readers to have the option to join an exclusive online community.

From text: With Wattpad, AO3, Substack and Patreon author retains the rights to their work. While Kindle Vella does not let to publish anywhere else, and Amazon’s cut is 50%. ¹

• Are some personalities just better?

  Personality traits are around 40% genetic.
  all-blues more happy, successful, intelligent, creative, and popular — fewer addictions and less of every mental disorder.

  

  

  Evolution only wants you to pass on your genes. — Extroverted men having 0.8 more grandchildren than introverted. — we’re evolving in an all-blue direction.

  Do successful people still tend to be all-blue?
  Among recent presidents, we see high extraversion, low agreeableness, and no clear trend otherwise. — This isn’t to say that presidents are all narcissists or psychopaths. — same equilibrium process. If there were no psychopaths, the first one to show up would probably manipulate everyone.

• Crazy New Ideas

  …both a domain expert and a reasonable person proposed an idea that sounded preposterous, I’d be very reluctant to say “That will never work.” — that’s how big things start. — wise response to such an idea is not to make statements, but to ask questions. — Are they mistaken, or are you? One of you has to be.

  It’s easy to launch a devastating attack on a new idea, and anyone who does will seem clever. — Popping out of the current paradigm is something only a few people can do.

  Few understand how feeble new ideas look when they first appear. — encourage them. Having new ideas is a lonely business.