The likelihood of your readers recommending your book is based on the amount of value they’ve received before either finishing or abandoning it. And they’re most likely to abandon at the start. So if you withhold value at the start of your book — either intentionally or accidentally — then you end up frustrating your readers and decimating your word of mouth. Nonfiction authors make this mistake all the time via the inclusion of lengthy forewords, introductions, theoretical foundations, and other speed bumps that come from a place of author ego instead of reader empathy.
