Creating a work of art be it a song or a book requires a lot of work and often all that work becomes too important. It is as important to leave things out as it is to keep things in and editing is often a difficult and even painful experience.
I recently learned that someone I used to know got a book of original poetry published as an ebook for the Kindle. Kindle allows you to download a free sample of a book before deciding whether or not you want to buy the whole thing. These samples seem pretty generous, including three or four chapters worth of material. I assume they just grab a certain percentage of the total book to use as a sample and this person's poetry book was 400 pages so its free sample was 85 pages. I downloaded the free sample.
The 85 page free sample started with a preface that read like an old 60s radical's manifesto then came a biography and a list of acknowledgements that included everyone from his grade school teachers to old girl friends. Then his philosophy of poetry and a bio on each of the poets who have inspired him throughout his life. The point is that I had to read (skim) 85 pages of text and never got to one poem. If this is meant to be a free sample, and a huge one at 85 pages, of a book of poetry shouldn't there be at least one poem included? Naturally I did not purchase the book.
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