How To Sell My Book On Tesco?

Would it be legal to sell large book summaries or book reports (i.e. 30 pages) for people who want to avoid all of the fluff of a non-fiction book, instead of trudging through the whole thing?

• It seems a lot of popular management or business books contain a lot of fluff just to fill the pages, when the idea could be understood with less fluff. Would it be legal to make book summaries/book reports of books, and sell access to the book reports, so people don't have to trudge through 200 pages to get the simple concept that is in the book?

• Answer:

  Is your goal to win any possible lawsuits (which would be inevitable here) or to avoid lawsuits? You would absolutely get sued by the publisher of the book you are summarizing, blocking release of your book to the public until the trial is completed. Those companies that do make summaries do so on books that are no longer covered by copyright (e.g. Jane Austin books, which are more than 100 years old), or they have the permission of the publishing company for the original book (e.g. Animal Farm). I can't think of any, like Cliff Notes, that bases summaries on books of non-fiction. Instead they just summarize the topic, not any specific book (example: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/books/CliffsAP-Economics-Micro-amp-Macro/9780764539992)