I love books, but I never have enough time to read. Most of my book reading is non-fictional except during the Christmas and New Year when I try to swallow the cream of the crop of the years’ fiction.
A lot of the best non-fiction books are really communicating only one or two core ideas. Something that could be hard-boiled down to 20 minutes worth of reading with optional supplementary material.
I’d love if authors would structure their books in this way or if someone would offer the service of extracting the core and publishing it in compact format (just make sure that the author gets her share). I’d pay the same for the books, and probably buy a lot more of them. In fact I’d pay the same to be able to access such “book cores” online as I do a lot of 20 minute reading sessions there anyway.
Shortened versions have been published for a lot of fiction. Often to the author’s (and literature lecturers’) inconvenience. But it makes a lot more sense with business, popular science and other non-fictional books. And there are probably more people out there willing to pay for it.