How long should a book be?
Everyone has an opinion on how long or short any particular book should be. It’s a fun, but futile argument, as there are too many variables, but authors and editors talk about it all the time. No one works for years on something hoping it’s a tome-like snorefest or that it leaves readers feeling ripped off. It’s subjective and every writer handles it differently. Like many decisions in writing it’s a gamble and there’s no magic answer.
However, there are arguments! Yay! What would life be without things to argue about? Here are the two opinions I’ve heard most.
The minimalist argument, likely defended by Orwell, Hemingway and Vonnegut, is that concision is golden: tight prose is what great writers write. If you have the guts to stay bold, and revise ideas down to their core, you don’t need more than 250 pages to do damn near anything. Hemingway’s The Old Man and the sea, and Orwell’s 1984, run 130 and 330 pages respectively. In geek quarters, Brook’s original Mythical Man Month ran about 200 pages and Demarco’s Peopleware, 245. And, Strunk and White, practicing all that they preach, explain how to write in a scant 103 pages.
The exposition argument is that reading is pleasure and volume is value. Why not take the long road if it’s fun or educational? Steve McConnell’s Code complete (896), or Proust’s Remembrance of Things past all take this approach. If a book is intended to be an epic, or serve as a reference, the higher the page count the more usefulness it can provide.
The bigger problem, a ruse anyone who has written a research paper knows about, is that pages are fungible things. A page, depending on its physical size, font, leading, spacing, and margins, can range from 200 to 600 words, radically shifting the word count, the real measure of a book’s length. But only writers and editors count words – the rest of the world holds tight to physics, using page numbers or the width of a book to guess its length.
What the best books do
Like any designed thing, the best books match the author’s intentions with readers expectations. By crass example, a book titled “The 10 second way to organize your day” shouldn’t be 650 pages long, nor should a book billed as “the greatest epic literary adventure of the modern age” be a 20 page series of rhyming stick figure cartoons. Book back covers and prefaces try to match expectations, but usually backslide into marketing by claiming relevance to the largest audience possible.
What I did
My first book, The art of project management, came in at 453 pages, which was a shock. I intended to be comprehensive in spirit, like a secret handbook, but not a monster reference manual. The reason for the shock was inexperience: the template used during drafts had the count at 320, but conversion into print bumped the count (prompting us to trim like mad). For the 2nd printing the form factor (physical size) changed, dropping the count to 392. (Disclosure: I have written a long book).
For my second book, The myths of innovation, my proposal promised 320 pages. But on finishing the 2nd draft I felt I’d hit the aims of the book and provided a great read, in much fewer pages. I considered expanding topics, adding stories, and even great chapters that didn’t make the original outline (There were 20 or so myths). It would have been fun and a thrill to keep rolling with the piles of research I’d done. But like a good designer, I felt the best move was to let it stand. My editor agreed. Final page count, all in, 192. (Disclosure: I have written a short book).
Two books isn’t many, but the authors I’ve asked for opinions on this question haven’t gotten back to me yet – so you’re stuck with me.
How people buy books
The last variable is cost. Many people weigh the price of the book against its page count. They see a 300 page book that costs $30 and say “Hmmmm. That’s pricey. $1 for 10 pages.” Using volume as the primary guide to book value is the SuperSize approach to reading, but it’s easy.
Publishers know this and index their prices accordingly: they want page counts to jive with costs, especially for non-fiction books. But everyone knows the logic is flawed: if the writing is so boring that you never make it past page 50, what did you really pay for? Or if you make it through all 500 pages, but have no new motivations or ideas, did you get your money’s worth? Perhaps yes if you wanted 8 hours of reading time value, but perhaps not if you hoped to learn something.
I think $30 is a bargain for good ideas and opportunities to learn. Where else can you pay so little for such things? But I’m biased as I’m in the writing game. The $$$/page count measure is lame, but it’s easy, fast and we’re familiar with it. Se la ve.
In summary, I come in as a moderate minimalist. I think long books happen because:
1. The writer was unable to write well
2. The writer chose thoroughness over other things
3. The writer’s ideas were so gigantically original that 600+ pages were necessary (hmmm)
4. The editor was asleep
5. The writer was sleeping with the editor
6. The writer ran out of time
Assuming this post wasn’t too long for you, What do you think?
Yes I know it’s a ridiculous question with zillions of variables, but have some fun. How long should books be? And what effect does length have on whether you’ll buy one or not? Does your opinion change for fiction vs. non-fiction?
We would ask my old-school dissertation advisor about the length of our dissertations. His response would be “Your dissertation should be like a woman’s skirt. Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting.” He believed in brevity, but did appreciate a good reference book.
I will use your project management book as a reference for my Engineering Project Management course this fall. I like the amount of experience and the focus on soft skills. The former instructor focused on Microsoft Project and the mechanics of project management.
In my experience as a reader of books the longer non-fiction ones are repetitious. And therefore could have done with a good edit before emerging.
So I am in agreement with you! I purchase based on topic and relevance and not length.
keith
Most of the non-fiction books I purchase are more for reference–in those cases, I look at the page count and the more the better. If there are too few pages, I’m more likely to try to borrow the book through interlibrary loan. If it’s a book that just covers one topic that I can read, learn from, and never read again, I’ll also likely borrow it rather than buy it. For fiction, I tend to pick/enjoy books that are longer than normal, but not -too- long. If it’s a fairly short book, then the story didn’t last long and I know I’ll be craving more. If it’s really long, then a lot of times there is too much description or some other fault, and I won’t finish it.
BTW, on purchasing your first book, I did like how long it was. I’m still debating about this second one :)
When I was in high school, my World Lit teacher only had one answer when people asked how long their essays should be. (Unfortunately she probably wouldn’t be allowed to give the same answer today).
Her response? Your writing should be as long as a lady’s skirt; long enough to cover everything, but short enough to keep your interest.
I wonder if books, on average, have gotten shorter at the same rate skirt lengths have – now there’s a study :)
I wonder about the phrase “cover everything”. That’s what an encyclopedia is for – a good book should cover enough material that I understand the important concepts and can extrapolate those lessons to less important ones.
My high school Latin teacher said the same thing as MP’s dissertation adviser and Joe’s World Lit teacher.
That said, for fiction, I like a nice long book because I hate to come to the end of the story.
For non-fiction, especially technical books, I am highly suspicious of extremely thick books. In the 20 years of this career, I have encountered far too many thick coding books that are padded full of redundant reference material (available elsewhere) and code examples that illustrate trivial topics and don’t compile.
For fiction books the size of the book can be almost anything as long as it holds interest throughout. War & Peace and The Lord of the Rings (technically 3 books but what the hey) weigh in at over 1000 pages. They are so good you don’t even realise how long you have been reading…
Ideal length? One page. And an infinite number of pages.
They should be fractal; you should be able to read a paragraph and say “expand” and get a page with more detail on the topic of the paragraph.
Hi Scott,
I just got finished with my first book, _Designing Web Navigation_ (O’Reilly, August 2007, https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596528108/scottberkunco-20/. It covers many aspects of web design in a text-book-like format. The final page count of text is about 375 pages (412 in total once you add the TOC, index, etc).
That seems reasonable for the type of book it is, but my original aim was around 300 pages. I thought I was heading in that direction until we got the first layouts back. Turns out the production copy was 20% longer than the drafting templates. We were assuming it would be 20% less. One problem is that the publisher (i.e. book designer, whoever that was) felt Verdana would be a good font. Well, Verdana is a really wide font, and it completely blew off our estimates.
This sent me back to reduce the text in the first half of the book, which was a Good Thing (but a pain in the ass at the time). I then found that my writing improved for the second half of the book once I knew I had less to write. There were fewer topics to juggle because I wasn’t even considering minor points any more. So the arguments got clearer.
Less really can be more.
Word count would be a much better way to have estimated things. It was amazing to me that the publisher wasn’t able to judge this better from the beginning. They seemed stumped when I called them on it early on, as if there was no good way to estimate page count. Very odd for a mature business and mature publisher.
Printing cost is also a consideration for book length, particularly when the book is in color. This usually sets a maximum on the length rather than making it longer.
Ciao,
Jim
I’m assuming you meant ‘C’est la vie’ when you wrote ‘se la ve’ – Sorry, just couldn’t let that one go.
I am presently working on a poetry book and have been since June of 2008 and only got to page number 28. I guess it’s so few because I am a mother, work full time and a student so that doesn’t give me a lot of time to write, even thought it’s my passion. I want my book to be at least 80-100 pages long, and have been constantly thinking that the number of pages are important. The poems I write are about love, life, inspiration, and just things that we all think about. How long do you think my book should be?
Jim
Congrats on your first book!
I actually had the same problem with my second; the template overestimated the page count by about 20 percent, forcing me to go back and tighten it up. It turned out to be a good thing, though. I think that the final edition (while a tad long) is better as a result.
ps
Very informative page, gave me some answers. this is my second book, the first was on sales and marketing of the sign business and was never peblished it was picked up by a manufacture and used as a sales guide, for all i know. This one is more serious, about the journey people take dealing with a loved one dying. It’s my expeirences and advice to a journet that has no rule book, but honestly needs one…this is not that rule book, I am not that smart. it is 12 ch 16000 word count not sure how to get it out but your advice is in line with what i thought if its good people will want to read it no matter the length.
thanks
billy
I would agree that it depends on the subject of the book I think MP’s advisor nailed it.