What the Hell Is a Book?

Joshua Fields Millburn

What is a book? Seriously, it’s a valid question, so please bracket your skepticism for a moment, and let’s think about it together.

During the first day of my writing class, I query my students: What is a book? I ask them to think about it for the next few weeks, and then we discuss the concept during our final class, four weeks later.

You see, “What is a book?” used to be a question with a relatively easy answer: a printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers. Traditionally, books of standard size were roughly 70,000 words, usually 200–300 pages.

But traditional books were a standard size because their publishers needed to charge a standard price. That is, roughly $25 allowed publishers to pay for marketing, advertising, printing, editing, formatting, distribution, shelving, executive bonuses, etc. And sometimes, after all the expenses were paid, they recouped enough money to pay a book’s author a few shillings. Sometimes.

These days, though, a book has the potential to be much different. We as writers and readers are no longer relegated by the requirements of old. No longer does a book need to be 70,000 words. Thus, many contemporary books are short—drastically shorter in some cases. My friend, New York Times bestselling author Julien Smith, wrote a short book called The Flinch, which is only about 10,000 words. The Flinch could have been much longer—in fact was much longer during its first draft—but Julien attenuated it by focusing on only the essential content, rewriting the final draft “one tweet at a time.” The result is a much more powerful book, a book that removed the fat, a book in which every page is spilling quotable lines (e.g., “The strength you gain by letting go is more important than any object you own.”)

Similarly, Shawn Mihalik’s beautiful novella, The Flute Player, is just 105 pages, and most of my books are condensed compared to books of old, averaging less than 30,000 words in most cases (my novel being the exception, but even it was radically attenuated from 950 pages to fewer than 300). I’ve learned that in a world of Twitter and Facebook and iEverything, our attention spans have become condensed, and thus we must work harder to produce meaningful work that is also condensed. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for 1,000-page books like Infinite Jest or The Instructions; it just means that we have more options, and that length can now be dictated by the content, not the need to fill a certain number of pages. If a book needs to be 1,000+ pages, that’s great. If it needs to be 40 pages, that’s great too.

Because book length is changing, the vehicles in which books are delivered are also different. Thus, our reading options are more diverse than ever before, and they are becoming more and more diverse every day. Accordingly, to serve the sundry needs of my readership, I make my books available in multiple formats: paperback, ebook via Kindle, and even audiobook via Audible and iTunes. Other people make their books available in other non-traditional formats as well: iBooks, Nook, Smashwords, PDF, blog posts, and even social media (e.g., Rick Moody’s “Some Contemporary Characters” is a wonderfully alive story that was published on Twitter, one tweet at a time).

As vehicles change, so does the price of books. The Flinch is free as a Kindle book. And most of my books are $5 or less on Kindle (a couple of them are just a buck), while their printed versions are priced higher to cover the printing costs. But none of my books are even close to $25, because I don’t have all the bloat of the middlemen syphoning the revenue into their pockets. Because my books are cheaper, I can reach more people, and because I believe in my books, I know that people who find value in them will recommend them to friends. Such referrals are my one true marketing strategy: that is, add value and people will share. This is why I’ve had several bestsellers, not marketing hype or advertising.

Amid all the change, bookstores are changing, too. We’ve all noticed the big chains going by the wayside over the past few years. If you’re anything like me, you were upset to see this change. Personally, I love bookstores—I love the smell, the look, the feel of books—and so do many other people. Ergo, I don’t think bookstores are going away anytime soon. But, like everything else, the bookstore experience is going to encounter radical changes in the years to come. Some bookstores will become more niche, more specialized, more boutique-y, while others will focus more on the customer experience, creating the atmosphere that gets readers in their doors. Almost all bookstores will become decentralized in the future, more local, which will appeal to folks in the community much more than the mega-stores (think farmer’s market vs. Walmart’s produce section).

Times are a-changin’. For that reason, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a writer. If you embrace the change, you will flourish. If you don’t, you can set up a tent in a Borders parking lot and wait for things to go back to the way they were. Good luck.