3 ms·
It depends a lot on what books. Many technical books age extremely quickly. You definitely don't want a 30 years old C++ book except for some sort of historical
by dale_glass 5y ago
It depends a lot on what books. Many technical books age extremely quickly. You definitely don't want a 30 years old C++ book except for some sort of historical research purpose.
But even in literature there is timing, themes, references and fashion. You'd have a hard time writing Don Quixote today, because hardly anyone reads chivalric romances anymore, so the vast majority of people wouldn't know what you're even parodying. And I suspect most modern readers of Don Quixote don't really get it, excluding those with an education in european medieval literature.
Even without going that far, there are fads and fashions. If you want to write about wizards or vampires there probably are better and worse times to do it.
Even playing your cards right, how likely are you to get a hit? Because there's really no lack of good books on most any subject at this point, and it takes a very dedicated reader to exhaust the existing catalog, and the easiest way for a reader is to find out what's popular and try that, rather than giving a new author a chance.
- dionidium 5y ago> You definitely don't want a 30 years old C++ book except for some sort of historical research purpose. I think even here it depends on what you're trying to get out of it. I wouldn't read K&R to get the latest information about how to write modern C, but I read that book once every 5 years or so because there are timeless aspects at its core. This is even more true of a book like SICP.
- emodendroket 5y agoYeah, but doesn't that make the point? Don Quijote has outlived the works it's parodying and people still want to read it, even if they need a lot of footnotes to get all the references.