Nicolas ColeCo-Founder Ship 30 for 30, Premium Ghostwriting Academy

What Is The Value Of A Nonfiction Book? #shorts

17 Jun 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:40

In this brief YouTube Shorts monologue, Nicolas Cole argues that a significant portion of a nonfiction book’s worth comes from the author’s role as a tastemaker who curates and organizes vast amounts of information. He contrasts the endless, unstructured data available via Google or AI with the structured, distilled insights a book provides, claiming that this curation saves readers roughly 30 hours of personal research. Cole quantifies this benefit, estimating that about 30% of a nonfiction book’s value derives from the author’s selection and organization of key points, freeing readers from the effort of sifting through infinite information.

Chapters

What is the true value of a nonfiction book? The value, or at least a meaningful percentage of the value, is in the organization of information. If I go to Google, I am presented with infinite information. When I buy a book, what I'm really buying is I'm buying not having to spend 30 hours of my own time sifting through Google or asking AI questions, not knowing what I don't know, trying to take in infinite information and organize the most important points. A book is doing that for you. 30% of the value of a book is you going, "There's infinite information. I, the tastemaker, am choosing to organize this group of information for you."