I recently came across Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing a short story. I thought they are pretty brilliant, regardless of the scope of you story (they could apply to a full-length novel just as much), so I have reproduced them below together with my thoughts about them.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

I think this is highly apropos the modern era. Do you want books for free? I can bury you under a pile of free books in the genre of your choice that will take you more time to read than you have on this mortal coil. A lot of starting indie authors will tell you that they can’t even give away books.

So, no, we’re not after free books. We’re after good books (we just don’t like to pay…