Better stories; digital audiobooks boom; tariffs raise book costs

Newsletter 84. Why well-told case study stories are here to stay, another Gathering of the Ghosts, a section 230 podcast, plus three people to follow and three books to read.

About those case study stories . . .

"Tell me a story, Daddy . . ."

My kids are well into their twenties now, but I fondly remember how eager they once were to hear me tell stories. It's wired into the way we think: we like to hear about people and their adventures. We like to hear about the challenges they face and their triumphs, or sometimes, failures.

When I first started planning to write a book, my agent Ike Williams rejected my first effort. "This reads like a research report," he said. Of course it did: I wrote research reports for a living. But while people will pay for research reports, most won't pay for a book full of dry statistics and facts. I loved to tell stories, so I just needed to take the hint: put the stories into the book.

An editor I respect recently commented that case studies are overdone and passé. I disagree. "Case studies" is just business-speak for stories, and people still respond to stories more than anything else you can write.

That said, there are a whole lot of ways to do stories wrong. Overused, pointless, rambling, hackneyed stories will blow a hole in your credibility and tax your reader's patience. And as I've learned from editing dozens of authors, what seemed obvious to me -- the best ways to tell case study stories -- is not necessarily obvious to writers.

If you're writing a book of advice, especially a business book, here are some tips that will keep your stories from making you look like a fool.

1. Be original. There is nothing that kills a reader's interest like a story they've heard before. Yes, in fact, we already did hear about how blood-pressure researchers serendipitously discovered that their medication led to erections and invented Viagra, or how Johnson & Johnson swiftly acted to save their Tylenol brand when somebody started sneaking poison into bottles of pills. Best are original stories that you discovered and wrote up from your own research interviews. Almost as good are obscure stories you found that few people have likely heard before.
2. Get personal. Don't tell me how Nvidia succeeded. Tell me how Jensen Huang led it to success, and the challenges he faced along the way. People don't relate to companies. They relate to people.
3. Don't write in a straight line. "Mary started a company. She listened to her customers and made good choices. The company took off and Mary ended up successful. The end." Sheesh, what a boring story. Compelling case studies always have their protagonists facing a challenge or three before they figure things out. That's what makes novels and movies interesting, and it's the same with case studies. You can't learn much from somebody who just succeeded with everything they tried.
4. Avoid extraneous detail. Case studies that work are short: 400 to 600 words, a page or two. So cut back on extra words. This adds interest: "Allen had a six-month old at home, which both added pressure to his need to succeed quickly and kept him from sleeping very much." This doesn't: "Allen was six feet tall and balding." (Unless Allen is making a product for bald people). Include the details that make the point or enable us to relate to the protagonist's challenge, and no more.
5. Make sure the story makes the right point. The payoff from the story is learning. The story should make the point. If it's a story about how expensive it is to hire the wrong CIO, then the failed CIO's subsequent success running a bakery isn't a helpful detail. Ask yourself, if this story was all you read, what would you learn? If it's the point your trying to make, great. If it isn't, rewrite the story or pick a different one.
6. Don't interrupt other people's stories with your own insights. Telling a story casts a spell. If you interrupt the storytelling with, "As you can see, Ellen had the wrong idea about the use of analytics," you've inserted yourself into the story as an expert. That makes the story less compelling and ruins the drama of discovery. Your expert "moral of the story" insights should follow the completed story, not interrupt it.
7. Balance stories with other content. Phil Simon's first law of case studies is "When telling stories, striking a balance is essential." Too many, and readers will wonder if you're just showing off. Too few, and as with me and the research reports, you'll be boring.

Storytelling is an awesome power. Do it right, and your book will be fascinating and your insights persuasive. People will believe almost anything if you tell a good story about it. So narrate responsibly.

News for writers and others who think

The next Gathering of the Ghosts, a conference for ghostwriters, is scheduled for November 10-11 in New York. This promises to be even bigger and better than last year -- get a ticket at the early-bird price now.

Trump's recently announced tariffs will make books more expensive. While they may cause more U.S. publishers to print with domestic printers, lots of the paper used in books comes from Canada, and that's about to get 25% more expensive. One publisher told Publisher's Weekly (subscriber link) that he may need to raise hardcover prices by a dollar a book. "I can’t afford to eat the cost,” he said.

Mike Masnick , creator of TechDirt and a national treasure when it comes to insights on technology, copyright, and the law, is hosting a podcast series about Section 230, the law that shields social networks from liability, generating today's interactive landscape. It's called Otherwise Objectionable: the most misunderstood law on the internet

Scott Kirsner , who has been document the innovation economy in Boston for decades, writes in his last column in the Boston Globe (gift link) that the decline in government funding for basic research will slowly and inexorably deprive America's tech economy of oxygen it needs to grow. They'll feel it in Boston, and likely in the rest of the nation over time as well.

The American Association of Publishers reported that (traditional) publishers' revenues were up 6.5% in 2024, to $14.2 billion. While hardback books sold 6.8% more and ebooks 1.6% more, the big growth was in digital audio which grew 23.8% to more than a billion dollars.

Writers at the National Education Policy Center opine that AI tools in education could do more harm than good. If fewer teachers are teaching more students and substituting automation for personal attention, a likely outcome is less effective education.

Three people to follow

Darjan Hil , data viz wiz

Kelsey Alpaio , executive editor of "The Digital Project Manager"

Xina Quan , cofounder of the company that makes Boppli, a medical devices for monitoring critically ill infants, and possibly the smartest person I went to high school with (and there were a lot of smarties in that class)

Three books to read

Building Rocketships: Product Management for High-Growth Companies by Oji Udezue and Ezinne Udezue (Damn Gravity, 2025). How to create and scale transformative products.

You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself by David McRaney (Avery, 2012). Human reasoning is so far from logical.

Venture Everywhere: Travel, Entrepreneurship and a Roadmap for Life by Jenny Fielding (Post Hill, 2025). Harness the power of the "Everywhere Mindset" for startups or just living better.