Excuse the flagrant use of suggestive headline above. Of course, I’m talking about the size of your book. Get your mind out of the gutter! Oh wait, I started this.
It’s not the size of your book that matters. Gone are the days when you were required to produce a gigantic book. My book, Attention!, came out at over 75,000 words, only because that’s what my contract said from my publisher. Looking back, I would much rather have broken the book up into 2, or maybe even 3 parts. Which is exactly what I’m doing with my Business Around A Lifestyle books (3 parts).
Here’s what you need to think about and understand when it comes to writing a book and how long to make it.
1. Worry about quality, not quantity. Your book could be 5,000 words. As long as it’s good.
2. Don’t waste people’s time. There probably nothing worse than reading a book that is 95% too long. You get the book, all excited to read it, only to realize later that everything you needed to know could have been summarized in 5 pages. Yet, you had to read through 200 pages to find that out.
Is there anything worse than wasting somebody’s time? I think not. If you can say it in 5 pages, then do it! You book is no less a book because it’s short. That’s the publisher talking. Provide value and you win, period.
3. Nobody wants War & Peace anymore. If you haven’t noticed, most people have ADD nowadays and even if they don’t, they are multi-tasking ten different things at once, and working 2 jobs and in general running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Who has time to read something that’s over-bloated? Consider breaking up your book into pieces parts.
I love this strategy because you can let people consume your content in smaller sections. And assuming you’re a good writer, you can hook them with the first book, then get them to consume the rest of your work, one by one. This technique also allows you to price at smaller amounts, and if you haven’t noticed, Amazon is squeezing authors on price these days. The days of $25 books are gone.
I sort of am sorry to agree. People are more rushed and have less of an attention span than previously. Still I think that avid readers still want to stay in one world, one story for a long time. Serialization could be the answer. Cut War and Peace into parts and it's just as readable now as when I read it back in the days before the whole world had ADD. Just don't try Anna Karenina. That one should be cut right in half. It has two stories, one a snooze, and the other good.
Serial literature fascinates me. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.