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Can’t Hook Readers for 30 Seconds? 3 Reasons Why.

What I’ve learned from the book I couldn’t finish.

Ron Markley
Write A Catalyst
2 min readJan 9, 2025

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Photo by Marius Muresan on Unsplash

I felt guilty.

I couldn’t finish the book I was currently reading.

So, I put it down.

“Why can’t I finish it?” I asked myself.

  • It wasn’t because of the writer’s skills.
  • It wasn’t because the book provided zero value.
  • It wasn’t because it was written by an unknown author.

But here are 3 major problems.

Problem 3: Slow Rate of Revelation

Have you ever wondered why people can spend an hour scrolling TikTok but run away from a 1-hour YouTube video?

They’re essentially the same thing—both video formats.

So, what’s the difference?

The difference is the rate of revelation.

Rate of revelation = speed of the story.

For nonfiction, the faster you offer transformation to readers, the more attention you grab.

Readers read because they want to go from a place they hate to a place they want to be.

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Write A Catalyst
Write A Catalyst

Published in Write A Catalyst

Write A Catalyst and Build it into Existence.

Ron Markley
Ron Markley

Written by Ron Markley

I'm not a writer, just an ordinary guy who writes. Get free writing tips every Monday. https://writeeasyliveeasy101.substack.com/

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