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I include as part of my criteria for deciding whether to purchase a novel the novel's length. I do not like short stories, and prefer what I consider to be full-length novels. (This criterion of length only applies to fiction; I do not use it for nonfiction.)
Once I have purchased a book, I do not use a length criterion as part of my decision whether to read the book now or later. I don't require that I be able to finish a book within a certain time frame -- it takes as long as it takes (or as short as it takes).
OTOH, I do look at whether a book is the first in a series, for example, book 1 of a trilogy. (A book can be the first book in a series such as Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels, but that doesn't matter in my calculation. Each book in that series is really a standalone novel. It just means that the location and characters are constant, not that one book must follow a previous book.) Sometimes I do not want to start a series, I just want a standalone novel. In such instance, whether it is part of a series is considered.
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