Why are LWBs so slow to change?

My sister and I were having a discussion about our first experiences with Tarot. Her first deck was the Thoth. She recalled the very abstract and esoteric "meanings" that accompanied the deck in the Little White Bookliet (LWB.) I was much luckier as my first deck was the Mythic--which comes with a wonderful book.

Personally, I think the divinatory meanings offered in LWBs are absolutely unnecessary. I would much rather have a LWB that describes a bit about the visuals of a card without offering a slanted interpretation.

Most LWBs also come with the obligatory Celtic Cross spread. This is a terrible idea. For a new reader, a 10 card spread is far too much to manage. I can see how new readers get overwhelmed and discouraged from trying to read this way.

And yet after all of these years, LWBs really have not changed very much. Why?

Do publishers assume that people who are interested will hop online and find info? Or go buy books at a store?

I have wondered who "writes" the LWBs. Is it a staff writer? If they do not personally know the deck/artist, I don't see how they could do anything except the generic product. Add in the printers necessity of including more than one language . . .

I do agree with the idea of dropping the Celtic Cross as the default. But, I don't know what should replace it. Even a simple 4-card position cross or wheel could cause arguments since people use the elemental quarters & assignments in different ways.

ETA: I'd really like to see publishers post PDFs of companion explanations for their decks. Mistakes could be easily corrected/updated.

I think the Celtic Cross is just associated with Tarot because readers used it for so long. The default reading today would probably be three cards.

Maybe the reason for the minimalist LWB is just plain cost. Space is very limited in them and to make them any bigger would just be too expensive and probably more expensive than what the deck could be sold for to cover it.

Also, it's not possible to capture real card meanings in a LWB. Or really, in any book. Because the "language" of Tarot is so fluid. It's like a river. It's always flowing, changing course, and forming itself around "situations" and "questions" which occur within its banks. You can't capture a river without it becoming a lake or a canal. And you can't capture the language of Tarot within a book without it becoming just a stationary dictionary or encyclopedia.

Likewise, i don't think the manufacturers are deliberately trying to confuse or put extra pressure on new readers by incorporating the CC in their books. I think it's an economical and compact way of simply getting an example out there of what the deck could be used for with a little practice. The meanings in the LWB i think are just guidelines, and i think alot of them contain just keywords that can be used to get people through those first initial steps, and on the way to finding out the deeper meaning for themselves. I like to, in a way think of them as some pre-school books. The overall goal while reading them at the time is not really to develop your interpretation of how books should be written, but put you on those steps of HOW to read.

LWBs -

Some of these are much better than others. The Manara looses something in translation from Italian into English - or so it appears.
This whole thing is redolent of the 1970s when Japanese motorbikes had the word "kickstarer" stamped into the lever just incase the brain was left in the seat.

I can think of a few LWBs that do indeed speak to the individual decks: the Stairs of Gold (which is almost worth the price of admission itself!) and the Halloween, to name the first two that came into my head.

I did study the LWBs when I was first starting, but mostly I haven't looked at them in ages. I just like to make sure they don't get lost. Many of them (not all, by any means) are indeed written by staff writers. Even when they're careful to describe something particular to the deck in the Majors, often the Minors get the same treatment from deck to deck. And I agree that's just a waste.