While making the daily commute this morning on the Metrolink I happened to notice that the woman sitting in the seat in front of me was reading one of those overpriced corporate books with a buzzword-laden title like "21 Secrets to Success: How to Shoot to the Top of the Corporate Ladder By Synergizing Your Life and Becoming a Model of Maximum Efficiency in the Workplace". Of course I read over her shoulder so that I could also become a successful corporate sellout (and a much cheaper one since I didn't purchase the book) and here's what I discovered:

-When writing a book, it is not important to have actual content. Rather, you can simply quote people who are generally considered successful, such as former presidents, generals, or Winston Churchill. The average page in the book had 75% quote, 20% margin, and 5% actual thoughts by the author.

-Generalizations are a great tool for obscuring the fact that you don't know what you're talking about. For instance, "All successful people realize that when the time comes for them to take that first step across the bridge they should stride confidently and not gingerly." Metaphors are great too.

-If you're the CEO of a corporation, a quick way to make a buck is to have one of your desperate underlings write a book about being successful, then slap your name on it.

It's a billion dollar business, that of writing instruction books for how others can make billions of dollars in business.