Dear Authors, Please Don't Waste My Time
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Jun 30, 2013
Updated:  Jun 30, 2013
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/dear.authors.txt

In 2010, Google estimated that in all of modern history, 130 million 
books have been published.

If I live another 30 years, I will be lucky to read 3000 books, so
I must be discerning.

One way for a book to quickly end up on the Get Knotted pile is to
waste my time and one of the surest ways to waste my time is to not
write about the subject but to write about writing about the subject.

If an author wishes to use a preface to sketch out the chapters
of his book, fine.  It's all in one place so I can easily skip it.
But if, for every three sentences of getting on with it, the author
writes two sentences telling me what's coming up in later chapters
like some daft literary teaser, then:

SLAM, FLING, THUD.

Life is too short.