Shorter E-Books for Smaller Devices

[DonaldL.]

Shorter E-Books for Smaller Devices

The Atavist is among the growing number of organizations that are cultivating a certain niche of writing — stories and articles that are longer than a typical magazine article but shorter than a novel — in the hope that they will find a comfortable home on the glassy screens of evermore prevalent mobile devices. “Word counts are getting shorter in most magazines,” said Mr. Ratliff, who is also a contributing editor to Wired magazine. “On a mobile device, we shouldn’t be bound by those constraints.”

The attention spans of readers — many of us, anyway — are actually not getting shorter, Mr. Ratliff says. The problem lies elsewhere, he adds: “It’s the platform.”

The physical dimensions of mobile devices are, in some ways, quite limited. So it’s important to exploit the advantages that the devices do have, he contends. Success, he says, depends on thinking beyond a “one-to-one transition from book to e-book,” and on doing more than replacing paper with pixels.

[ardeegee]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_phone_novel

[Namekuseijin]

fascinating account of the primitive brains that infest the world today.

I've just started reading the classic novel Robinson Crusoe in my smartphone, BTW...

[Anke Wehner]

What amazes me is how rarely people mention the words "novella" or "novelette" in this context.

I suspect the thing about more short works geting published on their own isn't that shorter works are more suitable for ereading devices than long works, but that for shorter works, digital publishing may be more suitable than print publishing.

Binding something that's 12,000 words long all on its own isn't that practical, so on paper it's usually collected together with other short works. With digital publishing, something can be written to its "natural length" rather than to a certain print-dictated page count.

I've seen that a lot with webcomics compared with print comics. Each chapter as long as the creator thinks tells the story best, vs each issue 24 (or was it 21?) pages...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

When I do remember to swipe open an e-book, it’s usually such a pain to dive back into the narrative and remember all the plot twists that it doesn’t stay open very long.

This, I think, is the real problem; it says something about the author's disconnect with digital devices, and not just the books on them. I'm not sure tailoring content to people with that disconnect is the answer.

[snipenekkid]

it's a way to sell stories normally reserved to being serialized or just published as shorts in an anthology or a rag like the SF mags such as Asimov's SF or, heck I am having a "brain cloud" but you get the idea. It's a way to not just exploit the dwindling 5-minutes between commercials attention span but also to monetize the stacks of these stories on slush piles everywhere so I like the idea as long as the price is reasonable but I ain't paying about $0.99 for them.

bugs me when the $/hour of reading starts to break the $0.25/hr price point. I hate to break it out like that but if it helps I have estimated that the large grocery store chains have set about a $5/lb price for people on a typical meal. So it's just me being a bit suspicious about motives everywhere anymore. Must be early onset CRS (as in can't remember *sheet*).

[Anthem]

If my screen was somewhere between 1.3-3.5 inches I wouldn't want to read anything longer than a page, either.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Anthem

If my screen was somewhere between 1.3-3.5 inches I wouldn't want to read anything longer than a page, either.

longer than a page? You're lucky to get at most 3 paragraphs! And only if you're not talking about some barroque classic where paragraphs seemingly go on for several pages...

kiddin'. It all depends on your settings for fonts and margins. I use no margins as that is a stupid emulation of a physical page for the display already provides a physical boundary and natural margins. And I put the font at 18-20 in a 3.7" portrait display so it's comfortable to read and yet handles almost a full page worth of the physical book...

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Anthem

If my screen was somewhere between 1.3-3.5 inches I wouldn't want to read anything longer than a page, either.

Between 2004 and 2009, I read hundreds of books on a 160x160 pixel PDA screen.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

This, I think, is the real problem; it says something about the author's disconnect with digital devices, and not just the books on them. I'm not sure tailoring content to people with that disconnect is the answer.

I think his main problem is using a tablet computer with a glossy screen to read on. I don't think I would be able to read for long on something like that.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I think his main problem is using a tablet computer with a glossy screen to read on. I don't think I would be able to read for long on something like that.

reflections don't get into play: the backlight overcomes those in well lit environments and under low or no lights, you get it down.

Never read though under plain sun light, but I'm guessing it's not the ideal device to bring to the beach. well, considering it would not be worthwhile to bring any e-reader to the beach, I think it's ok...

[AlbertaCowboy]

I wonder what Marshall McLuhan would have thought about this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshal_McLuhan

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Anthem

If my screen was somewhere between 1.3-3.5 inches I wouldn't want to read anything longer than a page, either.

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Between 2004 and 2009, I read hundreds of books on a 160x160 pixel PDA screen.

Mine was usually 240x320 pixels... and I read hundreds of novels on that, too.

"You get used to... what you want to get used to."

[J. Strnad]

So this author has trouble reading on a smartphone. Is this a surprise?

Maybe if she tried a Kindle or some other dedicated ereader, she'd have a better experience.

I wouldn't sit through all of Lawrence of Arabia on my iPod. Does that mean movies should be made shorter for smaller screens?

Yeesh.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

reflections don't get into play: the backlight overcomes those in well lit environments and under low or no lights, you get it down.

I hate staring into a flashlight while reading (which is what a backlit screen feels like over long periods).