Books

Say NO to Forewords and Preface!

A friendly note to all authors and writers (specifically to non fiction):

Frankly speaking, I am a pretty direct person. I don’t like to read books with Forewords and Prefaces. I know some of you might have different opinions but I have gather a huge list of friends who have similar viewpoints.

I understand that the reason behind forewords and Prefaces as well as Introductions are to grab readers’ attention who want to know what this book’s about before buying them. However, I believe that the front and back cover are convincing enough. Put whatever short praises from other authors in the back cover and you are good enough.

In my humble opinion though, short praises are absolutely unnecessary. It’s useless to have good praises from established and well known authors because 90% of the readers never really read them. What I want to know is what you can offer not what others think about your book. They are all positive, too good to be true reviews anyway.

I am not a big fan of book flaps aka dust jacket aka book jacket aka dust wrapper aka dust cover (Gosh, why couldn’t they decide on one term only) but if you insist, I think that’s fine too. Although to be honest, I like to remove the flaps when I am reading. So, at the end of the day, I will just misplaced it.

On the contrary, foreword and preface are a waste of time and papers and trees! I am not sure what’s the use of foreword. “I recommend you to read this book”. “I am acquainted to the author in some way or another”. “This book is about blah blah blah”. OK. I got it. I have read about the summary at the back cover so you don’t need to enlighten me about what this book’s about.

Preface, on the other hand is just a few boring pages on how the author came to write the book and why it’s titled to be *Why Authors Should NEVER EVER Insert Forewords and Prefaces Into Their Books*, why it is published now, why this, why that which in my humble opinion, doesn’t arouse me to read any further.

Cover of "Rework"

Cover of Rework

I like how Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod and Rework by David Heinemeier Hansson starts straight to the point. It’s light-hearted and easy to understand in spite of the fact that the genre of these two awesome books is classified as business.

I quote Urban Dictionary for the meaning of Foreword, Preface and Introduction:

The part of a chapter that would better be under the title ‘Bullshit
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