Comments on: When will we evolve past “books”?

By: cara

cara — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:29:21 +0000

Yes, some books are for pleasure and the length, wording, phrasing and poetics in the writing are worth the time. It isn’t too much fun to take a kindle-like devise into a bath or hammock or sunny beach. Aren’t we all just thrilled that we have the freedom in this country to write what we choose as well as a fabulous selection of reading materials…Bookazine? How is that for a name?

By: Heather S. Ingemar

Heather S. Ingemar — Wed, 13 May 2009 04:33:03 +0000

I’m not so sure shorter “doesn’t apply” to fiction — I’ve read some awfully bloated books in the last couple of years that could EASILY have been made into stand-alone novellas and been wonderful, wonderful works. As it was, they just went on and on and on, and I found myself getting BORED…..

Mostly, what I think it boils down to is that authors need to have the freedom to tell the story in the length it needs to be told in, regardless of publishing mores. Be it short, medium, or long, fiction or non-fiction.

By: Daniel Udsen

Daniel Udsen — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:41:21 +0000

Most real scientific discoveries is published as 30-40 pages articles and mainly circulated online via jstor and similar services and completely ignored by just about averybody especially those with money invested In some kind of ebook business.

theres some really interesting mechanism going on here, because for a lot of cases people are moving away from dead tree editions and 25+ pages dont seams to be a real issue to read.(thats what a small slashdot.org tread looks like in print) im seign 50+ manuals circulated as word or pdf files but all of this is somehow branded as not relevant when examining ebook

This mechanism will insure that nothing but the pure 1:1 transition to ebook devices having no real similarities with computers will ever ber considered a part of a move away from paperbased books.

By: David

David — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:10:43 +0000

Also, I think the term “text” works best, and it can be modified by adjectives: long, short, etc.

By: David

David — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:09:37 +0000

Finally authors will be able to write texts of a length appropriate to their subject. Authors won’t have to fluff novels or trim them ruthlessly. Shorts stories and novellas can be written again. Non-fiction can be condensed or expanded as need, could even be published in abridged and expanded versions simultaneously.

By: Jon Jermey

Jon Jermey — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:26:56 +0000

During my long career as a computer trainer I frequently found myself trying to explain to administrators (and sometimes students!) that a computer training manual of 300 pages was not necessarily better than one of 10 pages which actually contained the material they needed to know.
In my later career as a book indexer I often find myself having to read and index material that has come up once, twice, or three times before in the same book. Textbooks are particularly bad in this respect: there seems to be a feeling that they must be crammed full of pages in order to justify their exorbitant prices.

Unfortunately as a book gets bigger and more and more people get involved in it, the chance of duplication increases exponentially. Also at fault is the use of word processing technology, which makes it easier to copy and modify text than to rewrite it.

By: Clark Tracy

Clark Tracy — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:22:32 +0000

I understand that some non-fiction books are written with fluff to boost the length, however, I believe that these sorts of books are in the minority. The fact is that the 200-300 page book is written on a subject that probably could be distilled down to only forty pages, but instead, to build a better argument for their thesis, they use 200-300 pages to ground their thesis in evidence in order to prove its validity. If we start only making 20-40 page arguments we lose the vigorous research that is supposed to (but doesn’t always make it into) go into writing a book and making an effective argument. So, nonfiction books can seem like they’re repeating themselves when in reality the author has written their thesis out using different angles, forms of logic, and evidence to convince a wide variety of readers that what they are saying has validity and merit. \

By: Thomas Knip

Thomas Knip — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:55:48 +0000

The new word you’re looking for is “text”, a concept of any collection of words in a coherent form.

I do hope that eBooks will finally free the text from its “binding” form. Any text, fictional or non-fictional should be just as long as necessary to deliver the message.

By: Kerry

Kerry — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:42:11 +0000

Completely agreed. I felt like half of my fiction workshop this semester was spent theorizing on the most “sellable” lengths of stories. Either cut something down to a manageable 20 pages or bump it way up to a novel. Publicists send me books to review for my blog; tons of them could’ve been cut by half and greatly improved. A few, on the other hand, could have been expanded. The length should fit the requirements of the art and the intention, not the publisher’s profit margins.

By: Jack Tingle

Jack Tingle — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:06:07 +0000

@Greg M.:

That would be the trend that followed the previous trend in fiction for multi-book sets of wrist-rupturing megabooks? As opposed to the prior tendency for short, spare books. Roger Zelazny’s “Lord of Light”, copyright 1967, is (going and looking) is 257 pages. Not exactly long by any standards. Styles change … meh.

The key is to have information arranged to the best advantage of the reader. If hypertext linking is the best tool, so be it. If comprehensive indices, good tables of contents, and copious, erudite footnoting is useful, those should be there, too. Long or short prose not really a critical issue, so long as the subject is covered to the reader’s satisfaction.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

By: Eugene

Eugene — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:59:02 +0000

The word you’re looking for is “mook.” Book content bound in a magazine format (also defined as a “manga book”). The mook is a well-established publishing format in Japan. It’s the ideal “dead trees” medium for novella-length fiction and “hot off the presses” reportage and analysis that demands more depth than a magazine article. The mook is also a simple, low-cost way to compile material from specialty magazines, such as cookbooks. “Mook” (mukku) is a searchable category on Amazon-Japan.

By: Robert Nagle

Robert Nagle — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:54:57 +0000

Ebooks will mean a resurgence in shorter forms (stories, poems). That does not necessarily mean that consumers will pay for individual stories or smaller collections. They still expect a reasonable size of short stories (10-20).

Speaking of freakonomics, I read that entire book in Borders in less than an hour. I couldn’t believe how fluffy it was. (I had already read the NYT story upon which the book was based). The subject was interesting and well-written, but it was not a book. The Freakonomics blog, on the other hand, seems much more substantial.

By: David L.

David L. — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:51:53 +0000

I agree with Greg M. Long, slow books are a pleasure all their own. I thought that Freakonomics was excellent at its length — and it wasn’t even all that long. I don’t like this call for shorter, shorter, shorter. Read a magazine if you want to. For those who want deeper insights, fleshed-out ideas, and supported arguments, it’s books, books, books all the way.

By: Greg M.

Greg M. — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:18:16 +0000

I’m not so sure that shorter is better. Overall, there is a nasty trend in written works for brevity and simplification almost to the point as if the authors expects the short attention spans from readers. Are we becoming an ADD nation?

I listened to the unabridged audio of Freakonomics a few years ago and don’t recall ever thinking it over long; if anything, I thought it was kind of brief. Admittedly, I don’t normally read business books; I prefer history, biography, or science for my non-fiction reading and as a rule I don’t find those would require a condensed version either.

A good author should know the subject well enough to realize if it should be written as a magazine article or a book. Now not all published authors are going to be good authors, or even know the subject well, but I would put a stake in the claim that some readers may not be able to focus long enough to get through a whole book.

By: Robert Nagle

Robert Nagle — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:17:32 +0000

A book (or an ebook) is a saleable unit. And up until recently, we thought in terms of books which were sold at bookstores, requiring a certain minimum length (and price). Now, with ebooks and amazon, many of these requirements have changed. That is good, and I think the result is good both for readers and authors. Readers will be more willing to pay small books for a couple of books, and authors will willing to write smaller books. That’s a win-win.