Can a book be too long?

[juleswatson]

[quote=""Margaret""]As a reader, I get very frustrated when the end of a book leaves me hanging, unless it's especially well-written and does give me a satisfying finale for the most part.[/quote]

[quote=""Richard""]Write the story that needs to be written, find a spot somewhere between 90k and 120k words that seems a good ending, and leave em' begging for the sequel.[/quote]

I was also told that the nature of trilogies had changed. It used to be you COULD just write one big story and chop it up, a la Tolkien. Now, even if you split the overall story, publishers want you to ensure that each book has its own "stand alone" story arc that brings the reader to some satisfying conclusion in each volume - PLUS leaves the thread going on for the next books (yeah, easy) JK Rowling did have a contained story in each Potter book, plus the ongoing larger story. One reason I heard is that you can't guarantee that every book in a series will be in every shop. You don't want a reader picking up book 2 or 3 and not buying it because the shop does not have 1. Having them more independent means that sales can grow exponentially with each book, or something. Not sure I get that bit.
Anyway...of course longer stories can still be told, but maybe in a different way. As MLE said, technology is already driving things like this, like the serial novels people getting on their phones in Japan. All in all, there will always be exceptions to all these so-called rules, and the whole publishing business is changing rapidly anyway.

[Richard]

[quote=""juleswatson""]Having them more independent means that sales can grow exponentially with each book, or something. [/quote]

The exponential growth angle makes a lot of sense. People learn about books these days by a great variety of means, not the least of which is keyword searching. We find books by keyword at Amazon, the library, etc. If you have two books out, you've doubled the number of chances that someone will stumble upon at least one of your books. Then if they like it, there is a certain chance that they will look for more books by the same author. If you have two books out, and 50% of the people who read one book want to read another, then sales increase by 50% for each book. If you have three books out, and we apply the same rules, then the sales for book 1 are,

people who find #1 + 50% of people who find #2 + 50% of people who find #3 + 50% of the people who read #2 then #3 first + 50% of the people who read #3 then #2 first =

1 + .5 + .5 + .25 + .25 = 2.50

OK, I am pulling the numbers from a nether region here, but doing it to demonstrate the exponential progression: 1 book gets 1 reader, 2 books gets 1.5 readers per book = 3 readers, 3 books get 2.5 readers per book = 7.5 readers, etc.

And now to work. I did mention I'm an engineer, yes?

[Ludmilla]

[quote=""Divia""]For book freaks (everyone on this MB) its a little different because I think most people here read more than 20 books a year! That's huge, though I daresay we are in the minority.[/quote]

I daresay we are, although I've often questioned those statistics about the number of books read per year by the average reader. I think the average reader is an entirely different market from the average book buyer, and I would go so far as to claim that book buyers that frequent book discussion boards don't even accurately represent the average book buyer. If I went by what is average for reading freaks on book boards, I'd mistake the average reader for someone who:
*has read Gone with the Wind by the age of six
*can read War and Peace in a single day
*and whose multitasking abilities include doing conference calls, emails, preparing their debate board rebuttals, and listening to and downloading their favorite music, all while sitting on the toilet with a book in hand and shopping online at amazon for the sequel on a spare mobile device.
Apparently some can even afford European vacations, have room in their homes for thousands of books, and still only work part-time on a bookstore clerk's salary. I still haven't figured out how the economics of that work!

I'm exaggerating and being facetious, but my point is that most reading freaks I've met on book boards don't even come close to representing average (middle of the spectrum) readers let alone the average book buyer. I suspect publishers have some pretty good stats about their book buyers, but the surveys that make the news don't accurately represent the picture (IMO).

As for me, I will often choose a lighter book for my work week commute; the bigger books are fair game for weekend and holiday reading.

[diamondlil]

[quote=""Ludmilla""] If I went by what is average for reading freaks on book boards, I'd mistake the average reader for someone who:
*has read Gone with the Wind by the age of six
*can read War and Peace in a single day
*and whose multitasking abilities include doing conference calls, emails, preparing their debate board rebuttals, and listening to and downloading their favorite music, all while sitting on the toilet with a book in hand and shopping online at amazon for the sequel on a spare mobile device.
Apparently some can even afford European vacations, have room in their homes for thousands of books, and still only work part-time on a bookstore clerk's salary. I still haven't figured out how the economics of that work!

I'm exaggerating and being facetious, but my point is that most reading freaks I've met on book boards don't even come close to representing average (middle of the spectrum) readers let alone the average book buyer. I suspect publishers have some pretty good stats about their book buyers, but the surveys that make the news don't accurately represent the picture (IMO).

As for me, I will often choose a lighter book for my work week commute; the bigger books are fair game for weekend and holiday reading.[/quote]


I feel so inadequate!

[Margaret]

And now try to get teens to read those heavy books.

I suspect this is part of what publishers are thinking. The future of the publishing industry depends on the younger readers who will make up tomorrow's book-buying public. It may not be that easy, though, to extrapolate what a particular person or group of people will want to read in 5, 10 or 20 years based on what they're reading today. And look at the Harry Potter books - even the first one was not small, and some of the later ones were quite hefty. When I was a kid, books for young people were never that long.

[tsjmom]

Yes - Pillars of the Earth (*bleecchhhhh*)

[Misfit]

[quote=""tsjmom""]Yes - Pillars of the Earth (*bleecchhhhh*)[/quote]



Good point

[Francini]

I have noticed that the books of my favorite writers have are not as lengthy as they were 20 years ago. I think most publishers have a format they want everything to fit in and that includes cutting down on the number of pages.

Yet, there are books that should have been issues as two rathern than one book, i.e., Dark Fires by Rosemary Rogers. It covers 604 pages, but the story should have been split at Chapater 33, p. 317. Most of the rest of the book is Steven's story, while the first part was about Ginny. Then in Lost Love, Last Love are sections about the couple's rocky life that should have been put in Dark Fires. Even though there are things that could be improved, this series about Steven and Ginny Morgan are my favorites and I have re-read each several times something I seldom do with any other author's books.

[Misfit]

Whew, found the old thread. Lately I've read a few books from our *younger days* (at least mine ) and maybe it's just me but I'm getting a feeling that authors might have been allowed more leeway than they are now. I find my self skimming a lot of unneeded fluff, and wondering where in the heck was the editor and why did he let all that stuff get by?

Were books really supposed to be 700 pages long when 500 pages would do? Did we have a need for everything big back then? Big hair, big eyelashes, big eyeshadow (gad that blue and green )?

[Carla]

[quote=""Misfit""]Whew, found the old thread. Lately I've read a few books from our *younger days* (at least mine ) and maybe it's just me but I'm getting a feeling that authors might have been allowed more leeway than they are now. I find my self skimming a lot of unneeded fluff, and wondering where in the heck was the editor and why did he let all that stuff get by?

Were books really supposed to be 700 pages long when 500 pages would do? Did we have a need for everything big back then? Big hair, big eyelashes, big eyeshadow (gad that blue and green )?[/quote]

This is a really interesting comment, because I've recently been (re)reading some books published years ago (Daphne du Maurier, Rosemary Sutcliff, CS Forester, Monsarrat, Mary Stewart, Mary Renault, John Buchan, Dorothy L Sayers), and I'd been thinking the exact opposite - the older books seem to me to be much more economical than modern norms. They seem to get more story into a given number of pages, somehow. Maybe it's a self-selecting sample?