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View Poll Results: Would a visual clue to book size influence your purchasing decision?
Hell yes! 33 30.56%
Couldn't care less 46 42.59%
I'm a tad ambivalent 20 18.52%
What is a visual clue? 9 8.33%
Voters: 108. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 12-16-2011, 04:58 AM   #1
Kumabjorn
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Size matters

One drawback of buying e-books compared with p-books is that it is difficult knowing how much volume you are getting. In the bookstore you can pick up the book, see the pages, feel the heft.
There are no visual clues to that in the e-bookstore.

So a simple question; Would it influence your purchasing decision if the picture of the cover (or similar visual clue) was proportionally related to the amount of words in a book?

Last edited by Kumabjorn; 12-16-2011 at 06:36 AM.
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Old 12-16-2011, 06:31 AM   #2
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What ?

I just voted couldn't care less, then noticed your explanation, and now I don't think I voted, for what I thought I had.... see?

Do you mean a small image of cover = short book, and vice versa ?

In which case I couldn't care even less - I am reasonably numerate, and can see how many pages there are in the book.

And I have the rest of my life to read it, long or short, if it interests me.
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Old 12-16-2011, 07:52 AM   #3
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As long as it's abundantly clear that it's not (or is) a short story, I don't really care. But if a visual "small, medium, large" indicator helps people make a decision... who am I to stand in the way?

That's a "couldn't care any less" vote in case you couldn't tell.
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Old 12-16-2011, 08:26 AM   #4
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I wonder if a word count would help. I have a general intuition that about 100,000 words is a reasonably long novel - not 1Q84 or The Magic Mountain, but not Death in Venice either. Even if it is not relevant for most people because they couldn't care less, it wouldn't hurt and shouldn't be so difficult to do, if a few people would find it useful.
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Old 12-16-2011, 10:02 AM   #5
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After I buy the book, I can use the file size as an estimate.
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Old 12-16-2011, 10:11 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer View Post
As long as it's abundantly clear that it's not (or is) a short story, I don't really care. But if a visual "small, medium, large" indicator helps people make a decision... who am I to stand in the way?
Same here
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Old 12-16-2011, 10:35 AM   #7
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I had to go with "couldn't care less" for the care continuum. If it comes down to it, I could always remove some older books to make room. And, with that, it's not like I LOSE the ones I take off my device. They are happily backed up.

But, I wouldn't rage if some kind of estimate were given on the book product page prior to purchase.

Last edited by RainingLemur; 12-16-2011 at 10:38 AM.
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Old 12-16-2011, 11:01 AM   #8
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Price is not the indicator of size

... (or quality )
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Old 12-16-2011, 11:21 AM   #9
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I like to have some idea of how long the book will be. Even on the Freebies on Amazon I'll check the file size and determine if the summary warrants a short story or something smaller.

I'm not a fan of short stories unless I know the universe it's in. I don't mind them in fanfic, but not a fan of going in blind on something short.

On the other hand, people can add a lot of padding to any format to make it seem longer, whether that padding is huge fonts and margins, or a lot of unnecessary story that does nothing for the plot line. So you can't always be sure.
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Old 12-16-2011, 11:21 AM   #10
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With so many authors and publishing houses using the novella as a marketing tool now, I prefer that they be listed as such in the title.

"A Book - A Blank Series Novella"

But I guess some sort of visual clue would work if they could agree on a universal tool. I'm really not a huge fan of the novella or the short story and I do try to avoid them.
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Old 12-16-2011, 11:24 AM   #11
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Hmm, In reality it doesn't matter to me. The size of the book doesn't make my decision about whether I'll buy it or not.

On the other hand, I really do take into account how long a book is when I start to read it. I would like to have a general idea of what I am about to get myself into.

On the other hand, there is a participant in my book club who reads, on average, a book a day. She reads so much that she doesn't like to purchase short novels that she could read in a couple hours at her speed.
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Old 12-16-2011, 11:28 AM   #12
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I'm really not a huge fan of the novella or the short story and I do try to avoid them.
I'm a huge fan of both. I'm just not willing to pay novel price for a short story. But the difference between novel and frickin' doorstop of novel doesn't really affect my purchase decision.
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Old 12-16-2011, 12:54 PM   #13
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I tend to prefer longer books. Even if I enjoy the story, I tend to feel a bit cheated if I'm through it in a day or two; especially if I’ve paid ten or twenty dollars for it.

Many times Amazon lists the page count for the paperback version (if it’s available in pbook), and I find that useful.
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Old 12-16-2011, 02:52 PM   #14
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Size is not an indication of quality. I voted I couldn't care less.
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Old 12-16-2011, 03:43 PM   #15
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I hate buying, or downloading, what looks like a promising novel only to find out it's a short story or short novella. Other than having short works clearly marked as such I'm kind of ambivalent. A marker of some sort for long works might be nice though.
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