I call it “the rise of the non-book.”<\/p>\n
I’m talking about the increasing number of extremely short Kindle
\ne-books being published and sold on Amazon.<\/p>\n
My FB friend TJ describes Kindle as a place “where anyone can
\nstring 10,000 words together, make a cover, call it a book, and
\npresent it to the world.”<\/p>\n
Back in the day, when I wrote my first book in 1981, you had to
\nwrite an actual book to become a “real” author.<\/p>\n
For a 200-page trade paperback or hardcover book, that meant
\nwriting, on average, about 80,000 words.<\/p>\n
Not a monumental task, but quite a bit of work.<\/p>\n
Among my 93 published books (plus two more under contract and
\nbeing written by me even as you read this email), most are around
\n200 pages.<\/p>\n
Yes, a few are only around 100 pages. And I have written half a
\ndozen published children’s books which are even shorter.<\/p>\n
However, these short ones balance out with several adult
\nnonfiction titles that are over 300 pages … and one that is a
\nwhopping 800 pages — “The Advertising Manager’s Handbook,”
\npublished by Prentice-Hall.<\/p>\n
But today, as TJ points out, you can write a short document —
\njust 10,000 words, 5,000 words, or even less — slap a nice cover
\non it, create a Kindle e-book, and sell it online.<\/p>\n
When people see it on Amazon, most don’t realize it is a
\nglorified report or article — and they mistake it for the author
\nhaving written a real full-length book.<\/p>\n
To self-promoters who want to inflate their guru status,
\npublishing a series of short pieces as individual Kindle e-books
\nis a quick and easy way to make yourself look like a more
\nprolific book author than you really are.<\/p>\n
But for actual book authors, like me, it devalues your work and
\nproduction — because to the untrained eye, it looks like everyone
\nhas written as many books as you have.<\/p>\n
This is why I am a fan of paperbound books over Kindle e-books,
\nand of books sold by mainstream publishing houses vs.
\nself-published.<\/p>\n
Having a paperbound book with a major publisher doesn’t guarantee
\nquality.<\/p>\n
But at least the book has been vetted at several levels beyond
\nthe author himself — including the literary agent, publishing
\nhouse editorial committee (they make the decision whether to buy
\nand publish your book), book editor, copy editor, and
\nproofreader.<\/p>\n
I know many of you today are self-publishing and Kindle fanatics.<\/p>\n
But to borrow phrasing from “Make Mine Marvel” Stan Lee, “Make
\nmine McGraw-Hill (or Macmillan, or Morrow.)”<\/p>\n
You get the idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I call it “the rise of the non-book.” I’m talking about the increasing number of extremely short Kindle e-books being published and sold on Amazon. My FB friend TJ describes Kindle as a place “where anyone can string 10,000 words together, make a cover, call it a book, and present it to the world.” Back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1249,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/1249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}