5 ms·
So, a dirty secret in the publishing industry is that publishers often make book deals based on the number of words you write, not how effective and quickly you
by ElijahLynn 10y ago
So, a dirty secret in the publishing industry is that publishers often make book deals based on the number of words you write, not how effective and quickly you can convey your ideas.
This results in them rather taking a 300 page book vs 100 page book because they sell the 300 page book for more than the 100 page book and thus make more profit.
I personally have a friend who has authored many big name publisher books and he is always telling me how many words he has to have done by X date. The emphasis is on how many words, like 60,000 words.
Even though he can write a book that says the same shit in 20,000 words, the book publishers don't want this, because they won't make as much money.
That really sucks for the tech industry, maybe for fiction it is fine, since people just want more time outside reality anyways, but when you are trying to gain knowledge, a 300 page book is not usually as good as a 100 page book.
:sigh:
- manigandham 10y agoOur company was contacted by a few publishers about writing a book on our industry, but they all wanted ridiculous page counts that were impossible to fill (with anything that most people could actually read and understand anyway). I get the marketing/value angle but it prevents lot of good material that would otherwise be written or written well.
- kalid 10y agoThis is a huge reason I preferred to self-publish. I have a math book that is 12-chapters (~90 pages total), written in a compact, friendly style I prefer. There are too many incentives to pad out your writing when you are trying to fill physical shelf space ("look impressive" vs "be useful"). Instead of a page count, how about an idea count? (I get the occasional feedback that people wish that the book was longer, they want more topics, but never any individual chapter being longer...)
- dogdogdogdog 10y agoWhat book? I'm on the lookout for a good math book.
- jacquesm 10y agoKalid has a whole pile of good stuff at: https://betterexplained.com/ https://betterexplained.com/
- kalid 10y agoThanks Jacques :)
- kalid 10y agoMath, Better Explained https://www.amazon.com/Math-Better-Explained-Unlock-Intuition-ebook/dp/B006J5L3VU https://www.amazon.com/Math-Better-Explained-Unlock-Intuitio... Check out a few articles on https://betterexplained.com/cheatsheet https://betterexplained.com/cheatsheet and see if they fit your style.
- scrollaway 10y agoOh Kalid it's you! I haven't bought your book (and I'll remediate to that right now), but I've followed all your posts, they're fantastic. Go buy this guy's book :)
- kalid 10y agoThanks Jerome =).
- dogdogdogdog 10y agoThanks!
- eru 10y agoJust to throw in a plug: 'The Pleasures of Counting' is one of the best math books you can get your hands on.
- SiVal 10y agoIt's harder to tell how long an ebook is than a paper book and harder to know where you are in it from the feeling of how many pages are gripped in each hand. This is a downside of ebooks for me--harder to get an automatic sense of the geography of the book, where I am in it, where interesting things I read were located, where to flip to in order to check something. But I think there's a silver lining to the length being so hard to see. I suspect it will lead to more authors tailoring their book length to how best to express the content rather than to the market expectations of the physical size of a "book".
- kalid 10y agoYep, exactly. I prefer print for books I intend to refer to often. (I use createspace to turn the ebook to print on demand. With Softcover & LaTeX, you can get print-quality PDFs, best of both worlds.) Focusing on the ebook version first helps you keep the content to the right (best-fitting) length.
- Qantourisc 10y agoWell if I have a choice in book selection, I usually do a few quick skims trough some random parts to see which ones explain things best. So overly verbose books would get less preference here.
- perseusprime11 10y agoThis is especially true when you are reading management books. I always look for some papers from the author on the same topic and substitute them for the books. I wish there is world out there that can reward short form books both fiction and non fiction.