People generally like stories, so some business books take the form of a fable or contain anecdotes that illustrate their points. In a way, the authors are fictionalizing non-fiction in order to make the books more appealing. If the situation were that fiction and non-fiction are competing for the favor of the masses, then is fiction winning, because non-fiction is taking on a partial mask of fiction? I would like to say so, but I am completely biased, because I love fiction.
Non-fiction lovers will probably disagree with me, because even if the book is in the form of a story, it is fundamentally non-fiction that contains facts or a purpose or message that is applicable to real life. In other words, it is not just an imagination of another life lived by imagined characters. But, if non-fiction must sometimes borrow a form of fiction to boost its appeal, then it is clear that fiction is not dead and cannot die. Even if publishing might be a stagnant industry right now, people just can't get enough of stories. Sure, people can self-publish, but that's still publishing, right? That means, publishing is alive and well, and will probably live on as long as stories exist. Both fiction and non-fiction stories, that is.
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