Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“The article is an 11,300-word summary”
I wonder did they even read beyond that phrase? The idea that 11,300 words is a summary suggests that the writer is unable to state his case succinctly.
On the Quillette site I cut and pasted a couple of the recent articles in the Politics section into Word and got a word count for both articles between 3 – 4 thousand words. Did you do any research to see what the typical article length is at that site?
When you had your tax writing career did you ever have to meet a word limit for your articles?
It’s a super long article. I certainly don’t say different. Even 4,000 words is long for the internet. So Quillette was one of my best bets. I worked hard to get the length down. It couldn’t be done. I only address one issue — Why we need to launch a National Debate on the challenge that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research presents to Buy-and-Hold. There’s nothing in there about how to invest or anything like that. But I did want to at least include a brief reference to all of the issues that need to be raised as part of an argument that we need to launch a national debate. It is not possible to achieve that goal in less than 11,300 words. I’ve re-read the article every day since I finished it. I have never been able to identify a single wasted word in it. It’s concise for what it does and the job that it does is a job that very much needs to be done. So I don’t apologize for the length.
The length will make it hard to find a publisher. I have zero doubt re that one. If someone were to say “oh, we will publish only this section” or “we will publish the entire thing but in several parts” or whatever, I am of course fine with that. But I did not want to leave out any issue that is key to the thesis of the article — that we need to launch a national debate. I have had a good number of discussions with my boy Timothy about these issues. He is very smart and he gets most of this. I know because he asks lots of good questions. But one day I was shocked because he asked a question that revealed that he lacked an understanding of a key part of the story. That’s when I decided to write the article. I wanted to be able to point people to one place where they could hear the entire story (in the fewest number of words possible) re the most important question, the need to launch a national debate. It would have been missing the point to have left something out.
So no apologies re the length although I certainly acknowledge that the length presents practical problems re finding a publisher. I can state the case succinctly by saying “We need to launch a national debate re the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research findings.” That’s the story being told. The problem with saying it that way is that for most people it goes in one ear and out the other. They think: “Yeah, national debate, sure, why not?” That doesn’t get the job done. This is for people who don’t see that this is such a big deal or who find it hard to understand why, given the importance of the issues, we haven’t already seen a national debate take place. If you are one of those, you will appreciate that the article touches on all the key issues because the thorough treatment will aid your understanding of where things stand. If you are not one of those, this article is not for you.
I think it is an amazing article. I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it turned out. It was a very hard article to write. But I got there in the end.
I think that there’s a good chance that I will not find a publisher, partly because of the length but also for several other reasons. If I don’t, I will eventually post the thing at my own site. But I don’t intend to do that anytime soon. I would prefer to have someone else publish it.
I am also sending it to non-publishers. If I see an article at the National Review (my favorite conservative site) or the Atlantic (my favorite liberal site) and the author gives his e-mail address, I will send it to that person. That’s another way of getting the word out. It’s a painfully slow and inefficient way. But you never know. Even someone who never writes on investing might know someone who does. Anytime you are connecting with other humans, there is a chance that good things will happen. And I could see sending it to Quillette for another try after the next price crash. If the same person looks at it, she might say: “Oh, I remember this from before, now I get why it is so important!” If that’s the way it works, then that’s the way it works. My job is to get stuff out there. I need to leave it to others re how to react to what I put out there.
I’ll mention one issue that was a struggle for me because my sense is that it is a particular concern of you Goons. Up until the last draft, I did not mention the matter of criminal prosecutions taking place after the next crash. People hate that stuff. It is an unpleasant subject to talk about. So I didn’t want to go there. In the end, though, I didn’t feel that I was telling the full story if I didn’t include at least a brief mention of that aspect of the story. So I added a brief mention. I always talk about the article on the front page of the New York Times that I believe will bring the nasty side of this to an end. I asked myself: Would I expect the New York Times article to mention the issue of criminal prosecutions? It needs to mention that. We cannot close the door on the ugly side of this matter without coming clean as a society re all that sort of thing and further cover-ups do not help us come clean. So I decided that I needed to go there and I did. I think that I made the right call.
Again, though, mentioning that sort of thing will make it hard to find a publisher. Lots of places are not going to want to go there. So I didn’t let my desire for publication rule me as to how to write the article. I did everything that I could do to make the article publishable (it is an amazing story and the accumulation of detail is stunning when taken in in a single sitting) while not compromising re what needs to be done to tell the story that needs to be told. I accept that it may not get published, or that it may not get published until after the onset of the next price crash. But I feel comfortable that I did my part to the best of my ability and that now it is up to the rest of the world to do what it needs to do to get this story before lots of people’s eyes.
As always, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Thanks for your interest and for your expression of your concerns, Evidence. Wish me luck!
Take care, man.
Verbose (But Not Really!) Rob
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