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I'm not sure it's the fluff that sells the books, but what the fluff
signals.
I buy those books because they won't make me feel like an idiot for not
already knowing that I needed the *left handed* snark whiffler with the
*blue* label. The author of "Snark Whiffling for Geniuses" is afraid of
insulting me by telling me things I should already know.
The fluff means that the author has the whole toolbox open. If an idea is
easier to communicate as a dialog (like, where two characters talk, not the
computer kind) or a comic strip, so be it. And if the idea is easier to
communicate in a more traditional tech writing style, the author can slip
that in, too.
---
Office:
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home:
nax -at- execpc -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Cornellier [SMTP:cornelli -at- CLAMART -dot- SRPC -dot- SLB -dot- COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 1998 3:38 AM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: But, people *like* fluff. (Was: reassuring language)
>
> Sometimes words like "simply" and "easily" are extraneous and do nothing
> to reassure the reader. Not all the time though.
>
> Someone posted "our users are not all idiots". So, are *some* of them
> idiots? Raise your hand if you have a "for Dummies" book.
>
> These books contain headers like "On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!" for an
> installation procedure, followed by "you have spent a long time installing
> and during this time you have probably drunk a lot of coffee". Har hardy
> har. There are cute graphics, unfunny cartoons, and a bumble bee colored
> wrapper reminiscent of Cliff's Notes.
>
> Fluffy though it may well be, it seems to be what millions of people want
> to buy.
>
> As a cultural note, someone said Dummies books had had to be retitled in
> Italy. Not in France, where we are unselfconscious about flying the yellow
> and black flag of dummitude.
>
> Anyhow, it's not really my cup of tea, all this fluffy fluff, but it sure
> seems to move books.
>
