Neil Patel, an author and marketer, got some attention Thursday after a Tuesday video explaining why he doesn’t read books picked up traction among agitated Twitter users.

“The only books I read are kids’ books and that’s to my daughter. People talk about reading books. You know what? I wrote a book and I was even a New York Times best-selling author, but here’s the thing: Most books that you see in a book store, they’re written a year to two years before they were actually published and they go through this really long process,” he said in the video.

Patel pointed out that any information that isn’t outdated can be found on YouTube, which delivers information faster than a book does. He suggested watching videos, reading blogs and getting information from social media rather than reading books.

Twitter users had a fit. The video...