Quote:
Originally Posted by Waylander
Interesting replies. I just notices a trend in the self-pubbed books I have bought recently, in that most of them are shorter than the equivalent trad-pubbed book. I don't have any data to go on, just personal experience, so was interested in other readers' experiences.
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You are not alone in noticing this to some extent. I think part of this is genre. I read a lot of romance and the contemporary romances that are put out often by self publishers are very short. I see often pages counts of 140 listed as books. Those are even shorter than Harlequins category lines, the booklets at the checkout counters. Not all are that short, but many of them are.
There are also a lot more novellas in romance put out by self publishers.
Of course every time I read on the boards they hang out, its all about how to pump out more product. Pump it out, pump it out. 1 a month. So of course, they get shorter so they can pump em out.
Many admit they like writing shorter stuff so they can have more product.
And I am not even talking about 600 page trade books. That is pretty long. For me average length books are 300-450 pages. I never seen this padding some are talking about. Of course I only hear that term when some are trying to explain the shorter SP stuff. I just want a full rounded story with full rounded characters.
That is not saying a 200 page book can't be satisfying. It depends, often they feel a bit shallow and abrupt. I don't really consider anything much below 200 pages a book though.
I think there is this idea that readers are having shorter attention span and all that and reading on their phones. I don't know. Yet most of the readers I hang out, still read and want regular length books. I think there is a market for all of them. Meaning not all books need to be shorter and shorter is not better. And not all books need to be 400 + pages either. They can all co-exist. There are readers for both.
But yes, I have noticed overall the books are getting shorter with self publishers than the trade counterparts.