The case for writing a short book

There is a persistent belief that a serious book has to be long. It comes from publishing, where length once had to justify a hardback price.

None of that applies to a digital book. Nobody is weighing it. The only thing length does is change the odds that somebody reaches the end, and those odds get worse with every chapter you add out of obligation.

A short book also survives contact with reality sooner. You publish in three months instead of eighteen, you find out which chapters people actually quote back to you, and the second edition is better for it.

The test is simple: cut every chapter you included because a book like this usually has one. What remains is the book.