Archived Columns
How To Read The Promise of Sleep
September 11, 2000
My book on sleep for the general public, The Promise of Sleep, co-authored with Christopher Vaughn was released in March 1999. The paperback edition was released in March of this year. In terms of making a difference, The Promise has been a huge disappointment to me. As of this writing, total of sales are less than 50,000. Other than the shocking lack of an effective marketing effort by the publisher, I have come to believe that the main obstacle to better sales of The Promise is the book's relatively large size. By far, the most frequent comment I have heard is, "Wow! It's really big!"
Having become interested in this issue, I have done a lot of informal polling and sure enough, when people look at a nonfiction book that is over a certain size (text, not photographs), they immediately feel it would be too comprehensive to absorb, it would take too long to read, and it would be too much like working.
Though the price of the hardcover edition of The Promise of Sleep seemed reasonable to me, it may have been somewhat of an obstacle to sales. However, in my opinion the recently released paperback edition is a true bargain. It is the best answer to the query, "What can you recommend for the intelligent layman?" It is comprehensive and authoritative; yet, I am told, very easy to read.
I feel badly that the book's size may preclude many people from reading it. But cheer up; you do not need to read everything in order to get all the vital information. The Promise of Sleep consists of 20 chapters plus an introduction, an afterward, and a single page update in the paperback edition. The absolutely essential chapters are 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 15, 17, 19, and 20. These essential chapters total 177 pages, a modest amount of reading for a large amount of sleep enlightenment. Depending on whether you have a sleep problem, what the problem is, and what you wish to do about it, you might read one of chapters 6, 7, or 8, plus chapter 16. The longest of these is 38 pages. There is an index of 14 pages, which is helpful but does not add to the reading. In the afterward, 100 pages are occupied by a listing of all the sleep disorders centers in the United States that are accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. This list unfortunately contributes to the size but is totally unnecessary because the same listings are now available on the Academy's website. Finally, there are 19 pages that list all the recognized sleep disorders, and a listing of informative websites.
To sum up, my first reviewer's exhortation is to assure everyone that bigness should not be considered a problem and the price is $13.45 on amazon.com. The book can also be considered an information resource like an encyclopedia or other compendium.
In addition to my surprise about the issue of bigness, I have learned in a deep personal way what Abraham Lincoln learned many years ago. To paraphrase, you can please some of the readers all the time and all of the readers some of the time, but you absolutely cannot ever please all of the readers all of the time. I have received some pretty nice letters and reader reviews on amazon.com, but I have also received a few unbelievably nasty reader reviews mainly because their particular problem did not receive enough attention, or that what I had to say was sheer nonsense.
One could also think of The Promise of Sleep as the textbook for an introductory course on sleep like my course for undergraduates at Stanford University popularly known as "Sleep and Dreams" which I mentioned in an earlier commentary. Although there were supplementary reading materials on various topics, I did indeed use The Promise of Sleep as the core text for "Sleep and Dreams 2000." The students (who are a very sleep-deprived group themselves) did not complain.
Stay tuned.
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