Books on Prepping and Survival

Over the last few days I have read 15 books on prepping, survival, bugging out, bugging in, bug out bags, and disaster preparedness. For the most part these books should have never been written or published. None of them where excellent, most were average at best, and a few were just terrible. Having the ability to write a book does not mean that you have reason to write a book. 

Following are some of my gripes about these books:

• Almost everything that was written is freely available on the Internet and the book was a failed regurgitation of information that is already available
• No insightful information was provided
• Some of the information was harmful
• Some of the information was incorrect
• All of the information was too brief and lacked useful details that can actually be applied

When someone decides to write a book they should bring something new, innovative, or insightful to the table otherwise there is no incentive to read the book.  My impression is that these authors, and I use the term very loosely, are trying to:

• Make some extra money
• Obtain some credibility by writing a book 
• Doing it as an ego booster

Having survival skills, prepping skills, or knowledge about disaster preparedness does not mean that you should necessarily write a book with the same information that is already available from numerous sources such as other books, blogs, webpages, forums, and videos. I also got the impression that many of the ‘authors’ are really just armchair preppers who rarely practice their skills to truly know what works, what doesn’t work, or tricks of the trade. They sit behind their computer doing numerous internet searches acquiring knowledge but never testing or using the skills. Then they decide to write a book that benefits no one! Absolutely ridiculous and a waste of time and money for the reader. Amazon.com often has “free” kindle books that everyone posts on their webpages and I have done it to. But, I will refrain from this in the future unless I have actually read the book and find it to be of value. After this experience I will rarely, if ever, pay for a kindle book on prepping unless I know from a good authority that the book is actually worth buying and reading

My plea to all authors who are thinking about writing a book:

• Offer some new insight. If you can’t do this then do not write a book.
• Offer details that can be implemented and applied by the reader. Providing just enough information to make the reader dangerous is not a benefit to anyone.
• Have it properly edited for spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and content. If the knowledge and information is good I can live with spelling and grammatical errors. But, having a properly edited book adds credibility if that is what you are striving toward.
• High quality photos, while not required, help. Do not use low quality photos as it just makes your book look cheap.

Of these four number 1 is clearly the most important - insightful. I want new information and not your version of the same crap that everyone else writes. If you are up to the challenge I would love to read your book. I will even write a review on Amazon for you.