- Wondering if you should publish a short book,
or if you should beef up your itty bitty book
and make it bigger?
If you're trying to figure out whether a short
or a long book is better, then this video is for you.
(upbeat music)
Hey, there I'm Julie the Book Broad from Book Launchers,
we're your professional self-publishing services team,
helping you write, publish, and promote a non-fiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on your readers.
And done right, will help you grow your brand,
build your business and make you money.
(cha-ching)
The best part, you get to keep all rights and royalties.
Matt O'Grady posted a question
wondering what my thoughts are
on writing and publishing a short book,
like a 40 to 60 page book.
He says, because you're right, books are big projects.
So, here's the thing.
This is a really hard question to answer
without knowing a whole lot more information.
Short books have a place in the world.
I read dozens of short books every week.
♪ Hallelujah ♪
They're called children's books.
(laughing)
Check this out, right now we're bingeing on
National Geographic kids books.
Did you know, Jupiter has 79 known moons?
And Neptune is our solar system's windiest world
with winds whipping clouds of frozen methane
across ice giant planet at like 1200 miles per hour.
(Julie laughing)
Okay, it's a short book and I've learned a lot from it.
And I've laughed pretty hard at books like,
there's a crack in your butt.
(Julie laughing)
But as I hold these books in my hand,
which I'm not because we didn't get them
out of my son's shelf.
(canned laughter)
But as I have some fun with this,
the real question is what is your goal for your book?
If you tell me you want to use your book for credibility,
to gain influence, to land speaking gigs, and get on media,
then a short book is not gonna do that for you.
If your answer is that you want to use it
for lead generation and to give to potential clients
to explain what you do, then yes,
a short book could be exactly what you need.
But here's the thing to know,
a short book done well isn't that much less work
than a bigger book.
If you have a book that is 20,000 words long,
you still have to hire editors, a cover designer,
get the interior designed.
These things are gonna be faster and cheaper
because it's a smaller book,
but you still have to do them to make a book great.
You're also still going to have to
set up the distribution, unless you're just giving it away
or selling it on your website.
Ultimately, it's faster to produce a short book,
but it's not substantially easier
if you care about doing it well.
So, how long should your book be?
Again, there isn't a firm answer on this.
This is one of my favorite books of all time.
"The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.
It's 25,000 words, that's it.
But they got really creative with the interior layout
to make sure it was big enough to have a spine
that you can put the title on.
This book right here, by Vishen Lakhani, is 80,000 words.
It's a big meaty book.
I mean, look at it compared to Steven Pressfield's book.
It looks like a book you'd expect a keynote speaker to have.
It looks like the book of an expert.
This one is by one of our clients, Jill Phillips.
"Lamlash Street" is 38,000 words long.
It's about 145 pages.
It's a powerful story.
And it's just as long as it needed to be to tell the story.
My rule of thumb for our clients comes down to this,
one, what is your goal for the book?
And will that book size achieve the goal?
Again, if the goal is media,
or speaking, or even high paid consulting,
ask yourself if a short book will get that done.
Most of the time, it won't.
Two, what do most of the books in your category look like?
Are they big like Vishen's book?
Or are they somewhere in the middle?
You don't have to be exactly the same,
but it's nice to be expected
when you're trying to build trust and attract readers.
If your ideal reader is used to reading giant books,
then cool, maybe you want to have a giant book.
These days, most readers appreciate
being able to get the gold without having to dedicate
days and days to reading your book.
So it doesn't have to be 80,000 words long.
Three, ideally get the book to at least 35,000 words
so we can get a nice size spine for your title
without having to fill the book
with a lot of white space or get too creative.
Four, how many words do you need to achieve the hook
or the outcome you desire for your reader?
It's never a good idea to just add filler
to make a book be a certain size.
Short books ultimately make great eBooks.
eBooks make great introductions to your work,
starters for a series,
or lead generators for your business or newsletter.
They still need a powerful hook.
You know that thing about what's in it for the reader.
And they still should be edited and designed
so that you're showcased in the best possible light.
But the real question to ask is
will a short book help my reader
and accomplish my own objective in being an author?
So what do you think about short books?
Let's chat about it in the comments below.
And right before you do,
please smash that thumbs up button, go and try it,
it feels so good.
And when you comment the day of video is released,
you'll be entered to win some sweet #noboringbooks swag,
like this fabulous mug where coffee, tea,
and hot chocolate are all verified to taste better.
Or our oh-so-soft journal
for writing down all your fabulous book ideas.
And if you ask a question, I just might shoot an answer
to that question like I did for Matt.
We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday.
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Well, you're a delight to hang out with.
Would you like to keep hanging out?
Great. Okay.
This video right here
is the latest and greatest from the channel.
And this one right here is all about
developing your copywriting skills to grow your platform.
If you do write a short book,
it's probably for lead generation,
and you're gonna need this video.
So go ahead, choose your adventure.
I'll put the coffee on and see you there.
(upbeat music)