A few months ago I was at a conference where I overheard a fairly well-respected ‘pundit’ in the world of technology  suggest that Manuel Castells’ book Communication Power would have been much better had it been a quarter of its length. He’d wanted to read it on the train up to Manchester from London but at over 600 pages there wasn’t much chance. It is a long book. It’s also a broad-ranging, meticulously argued, carefully written and edited study which demands the page count and rewards multiple, reflective readings.

But increasingly what people seem to be wanting is the extracted contents, the thesis, the digested read + a sample chapter maybe. Or the YouTube talk by the author. Or the book launch video (try this publishers video for the launch of Steven Johnson’s The Innovator’s Cookbook – an emerging genre), or an interview. Get the gist, the flavour. Make a comment and move on.

Ebooks may be contributing to the trend. We now have writers  planning their output in Kindle terms. A ‘one-sitting read’, 6,000 words and under two quid. I’m not sure I know who’s going to be able to sustain a writing career that way – certainly no more than the diminishing few who are able to do so today and possibly a lot less.

Sam Harris has written an interesting piece about this: The Future of the Book. He’s wondering how he can publish (blogs, hardbacks, paperbacks, ebooks, audiobooks ….) and pay the mortgage. Given his calibre and track record, I don’t think he has many problems but his essay is interesting in that it speaks of and to thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of aspriring writers who would like to pay, at least, a bedsit rent.

He makes reference to the 600 page book:

I love physical books as much as anyone. And when I really want to get a book into my brain, I now purchase both the hardcover and electronic editions. From the point of view of the publishing industry, I am the perfect customer. This also makes me a very important canary in the coal mine—and I’m here to report that I’ve begun to feel woozy.  For instance, I’ve started to think that most books are too long, and I now hesitate before buying the next big one. When shopping for books, I’ve suddenly become acutely sensitive to the opportunity costs of reading any one of them. If your book is 600-pages-long, you are demanding more of my time than I feel free to give. And if I could accomplish the same change in my view of the world by reading a 60-page version of your argument, why didn’t you just publish a book this length instead?

I’m not sure how Joyce’s Ulysses, Sebald’s Austerlitz or John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany could be said to have an ‘argument’ so I think Harris is referring here to non-fiction writing. Of course the idea of a 600 word novel is also a historical/mechanical constraint and convention. We don’t have books of 4,000 pages because you simply can’t stich/glue them together.

But Harris is I think echoing the feelings of many readers, especially the digirati whose radars pick up the short pithy output that just might change the way they look at, if not the world, then at least today. He also addresses the concerns of many writers – indeed of many creators working in the digital network medium. How do you make a living wage when the web’s default price is free? His solution;

to write longer books for a traditional press and publish short ebooks myself on Amazon

As the Kindle Single becomes to book publishing what blogs became to the news media we can expect an explosion of self-published 99 pence essays, rants, reflections, novels, micro-novels …. at least it’ll only take 40 minutes to read them!