Why aren’t business books shorter?
7 responses to “Why aren’t business books shorter?”
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Not sure if I agree or disagree with you, probably both. If by non-fiction we mean business type books in the broadest sense then I’m not convinced I would buy a short one. It is too much like an article that I could easily read elsewhere in a magazine, newspaper, blog etc.
However, the style the book is written in is more important. I don’t tend to read cover to cover, rather I’ll pick and choose chapters and sections. So the idea of three short books in one big book is very appealing to me.
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Yes, I’d been thinking about it in a linear way – but a “picking the best bits out” approach means that you still need the bigger book as a collection of content…
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I suspect there’s a middle path: many business books I’ve read would have been better as two shorter books with the obvious padding cut. That would make each book significantly longer than a magazine article, but shorter than a traditional book.
I suspect there’s still too much writing to a set length so that you have something that feels “substantial” as a print product.
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It’s the doing away with a set length that is the fun bit, right? Can we start these things by asking – how long does the reader need this to be, rather than how does the publisher’s format/business model need it to be?
I suspect the answer will be a wide distribution – but the mean for most topics that currently fill business books is 20,000 words.
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This would be user-centred publishing, then….
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It’s not unlike the transition journalism has been through – news stories were around 350 words, features in multiples of 1,000 words based on the numbers of pages involved. Once there’s no pages involved, all sorts of constraints disappear, so you need to find intelligent new ones to give your publishing form.
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I have thought the same however I often skim read so they could be written with that in mind. Besides very few authors write a book with their name on it without a large part of their ego writing it, rather than writing for their audience. If you can skim-read out that you’re 2/3 way thru the book already.
Different writing mediums have different predefined lengths. I.e. TV show, film (min. 75 mins, any shorter find something to pad it out, or it wont get distribution), blog post, novel. Its frowned upon to go outside this definition. Some people think bigger is better. I read The Seven Spiral Laws of Success (very short and precise) which is less is a business book, but then again a lot of business books are about life. It’s short and precise and perhaps better than the 7 Highly Effective Habits (is reading lots of books one of them, I never finished the book). I also have a very thick book called “Time Power” which I’ve not read because its supposed to be about best use of time but it should be 50 pages.on the flip side, reading is therapeutic. So as long as the author waffles on about something useful and you read I in a meditative like state, can have other benefits.
Or are you just being lazy and want to write a shorter book? ;-) what’s an ideal length? Too short – blog, longer – real book. But I’m seeing shorter ebooks coming out but they often just rehash the longer books ideas (although you could argue no idea is new, just said in a different way.
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