Quote:
Originally Posted by GatorDeb
It takes a lot for me to buy a book that is less than 250 pages. I love 400+ page books. Fiction, non-fiction, it doesn't matter. The way I figure I get twice the value from a $10 500-page book than from a $10 250-page book. That doesn't always hold if I like the book enough, but it is a heavy consideration. If I'm on the fence whether to buy it or not, long books tip it over to buying them.
How about you?  |
Honestly? The day I consider length as a factor in buying a book is the day I'll have lost all critical faculties and should be placed in an Assisted Reading facility with round-the-clock care.
The book should be as long as is required to tell the story, period. It's the quality of the story that is critical, not how long it takes to tell it.
Technical factors have often influenced this: in the old days, paperbacks were often limited to 60 or 70 thousand words because publishers were trying to keep prices down, and limited length to what would fit in a given number of pages. There were also various requests to "bulk up" stories (like expanding a novella to a full length novel) because the publisher feared readers would be less likely to buy a shorter book for which the publisher would have to charge the same price. How successful these efforts were varied. (And there are lots of examples where it was obvious the writer was paid by the word...)
eBooks have changed this equation, as the technical factors governing length largely don't exist.
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Dennis