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Outsourcing book summaries? Not on ThePowerMoves
Some days ago I was talking to an acquaintance entrepreneur of mine.
I was telling him about my backlog of summaries and reviews to write and, of course, as any good entrepreneurial-minded entrepreneur would, he told me I should pay someone to write the summaries for me.
Of course, from a business point of view, it makes sense.
Free up your time, hire people, make money on other people's work and build systems (see "The E-Myth").
It makes sense... From a certain point.
And I have noticed this is has become a huge trend, to give access to "boiled-down knowledge".
Blinkist does it, Mentorbox does it, Paul Minors doesn't write his summaries anymore but hires others. And fourminutebooks doesn't even read the books but does summaries of summaries. And even there now there are outsourced book summaries.
However, that doesn't cut it for The Power Moves.
Why I Can't Hire Writers
There are several reasons why I can't hire book summary writes:
- My book summaries are for myself first, for the traffic second
Book summaries do get some traffic from Google, of course.
And that's great.
But if I hire others, I will lose out on the information myself. And first and foremost, I read and write for myself. I read to learn, write to cement the information.
The web traffic is a consequence of the learning and cementing process, not the main goal.
- My summaries serve as reference and authority: external writers would reduce my authority
Anyone can write an article and pretend it's true by omitting any reference.
Or he might simply "cherry-pick" references.
With millions of papers and researches, it's relatively easy to find a link that would "somewhat" confirm what one is writing.
But when I link to my own summaries, it confirms that indeed I have done a good amount of reading and research about the topic. If I hire external writers, than my links, references and resources would lose a lot of power because I haven't read and researched the topic.
- Can you really trust anyone to do a great job?
Finally, there is the good old quality issue.
I love this scene from "Meet The Parents":
can you really trust another human being?
Well, yes... Up to a certain point.
But what are the chances that a truly driven, smart and knowledgeable person is ready to take your oustourcing job, writing summaries and reviews on demand?
Usually, those high-quality people are not waiting around to get your low-paying gigs. Those guys are building their own lives and careers.
The ones who are ready to take your low paying book-summary gigs are probably not the brightest.
In my opinion, it's unlikely I'd find someone to do a truly outstanding job.
Or, at least, to do the job the way I want it: reading the book with a critical mindset, checking references, research what's not clear and, ultimately, connecting the dots with tens of similar books.
- What about updates?
Reading books like silos is idiotic.
When I read something sometimes I think "this seems good information".
Then I learn more, develop or catch up on the latest research... And the previous book doesn't seem that good anymore.
If I read the book, I will amend and warn the readers.
But if someone else has done it?
Not possible.
This is not rare and it's already happened a ton for times.
For example, the day I realized that "visualizing" your accomplishment can work against you if you do it wrong, I edited the books that are all about visualization.
When I realized that "Grit" was pop-science, I updated it.
And when I realized that most leadership books are "just OK" compared to "The New Psychology of Leadership" I amended the previous books which I thought were great.
If I were to outsource book reviews I'd lose that overview and oversight.
Summary
Book reviews are a critical part of The Power Moves.
And you cannot outsource the critical parts of your business.
Furthermore, The Power Moves is also a business, but it's a different type of business, and it's not built to be sold.
Quality comes before growth.
As of now neither the articles nor the summaries on this website will ever be outsourced.
Glad to read that, your reviews are the ones I trust most.
Except for the art of seduction, I never got what's so special about that book ?
