'How to' Books

I suspect that the grand-daddy of Dummy books was “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot”. Written by John Muir, in the sixties¸ anyone who has owned a Volkswagen, or has known someone who owned a Volkswagen, knows the book I mean. It’s the Kama Sutra of car manuals.

Written presumably for fellow hippies who would rather spend their spare cash on ganga than garages, Muir had translated technology into user-friendly terms, de-mystifying the carburettor by comparing it to a witch's cauldron. I see on Amazon it is not only still available, but in its 19^th edition! I know Volkswagens are now très chic now, but a couple of decades ago, they were vehicles of choice for the student, the drifter and the alternative lifestyler, audiences not generally known for their abundance of cash. The central idea of the book was you could keep your car on the road with a bit of goodwill, a couple of bandaids and some coat hanger wire.

Now you can buy ‘How to Guides’ for the intellectually challenged on almost every subject. I am still waiting to see ‘Brain Surgery for Bunglers’ or ‘Astro-Physics for the Ungifted’. Apart from every programming language, software application and Information Technology-related subject, I have seen books on Tarot Reading, Dating, Buddhism, Advertising, Home Ownership, Parenting, Sushi and Stress Management…all for people who are self professed dullards on the topic.

Clearly this idea of adding the epithet ‘for the complete idiot’ is an enormous commercial success for the publishers. I suspect that it is a marketing ploy a bit like those travel books promising the delights of Europe on $25 a day. Of course, no such budget existed except in the minds of the hopeful traveller.

And what about those people who don’t consider themselves complete and total imbeciles? What if they have a little knowledge and feel affronted at admitting to being a novice? Is there a market for slightly more advanced titles like 'Windows XP for the Mildly Well Informed?' or 'Dreamweaver for Dilettantes'?

What is the secret to success for these books? Making complex subjects simple is always welcome. As a technical writer, it is something I strive for. I wonder how successful these books are in doing that? Liberally dousing text with cartoons and humour are amusing asides, sure, but do not intrinsically make the topic under discussion immediately understandable.

Surely the purpose of buying any book is to inform yourself of the contents. But I wonder, do you have to publicly profess yourself a total fool when purchasing the volume? Would phenomenology have been more easily absorbed if Sartre had called his book 'Being and Nothingness for Nincompoops'? More to the point, would he have sold more copies?

The ultimate book in this series must be the How to Write a How to Book for the Complete Idiot. I wonder when I will see that one on the shelves?