Books: how short is too short?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Anon writes:

How short is too short for a book? To make it more concrete, I have a book idea, and am thinking it'd end up being around 50,000 words. I know that's quite short for a philosophy book, but short books are always better! Moreover, I can say what I want to say in that many words. (Why not do journal articles? I have. I'd like to do an elaborated defense of some things I've written on, as well as bring in new, related material.) Should I consider adding more material to make it longer, or should I try to swing it as a short book?

There were some very good replies to Anon's concept, such as this one by Harry:

Some publishers want book manuscripts of very specific lengths, say 90,000 to 110,000 words. So such publishers will generally not be interested in a short book. But there are now series devoted to short books, like Springerbriefs, published by Springer, of course. Some of the books in the collection are quite good. If you were already an accomplished author, then many publishers would publish whatever Bullshit you have (I hope this joke is not lost everyone).

Amanda's comment is also helpful: "Routledge has a series for short books. Some other publishers too. So you can make it work. You just have to find the right spot...". As someone who has written two books--a long one and also (presently in progress) a shorter one--allow me to add a few additional thoughts.

One important thing to be aware of is that presses typically have different word-limits for different types of book projects. As Harry notes, some publishers require a standard book to be between 90-110K words. Unless you already a famous author, chances are the press will not even consider a manuscript outside of this length. Something similar goes for shorter books. For example, Routledge's short book series ('Routledge Focus') will only publish books between 20-50K words. Again, maybe they would make exceptions for an especially famous author--but, aside from that, my experience is that these limits are firm. Consequently, I would suggest trying to publish a book only if you have project that fits into roughly those kinds of lengths.

Writing a short (20-50K word) book has a number of benefits, but also at least one potential drawback. One obvious benefit is that writing a short book is easier than a longer book. A second related benefit is that the sunk costs may be far smaller. If you spend a few years writing a 110K word book and it doesn't work out, then that is a huge amount of time and energy spent on a single project. In contrast, one may be able to write up a 20K book fairly quickly and see what happens. A third benefit is that turnaround times with referees may be far quicker. The only real down-side with short books, I think, is that there may be fewer presses that publish short books (I know Routledge, Springer, and Palgrave all have short-book series, but am not sure about other presses). 

But these are just a few of my thoughts. What are yours?

Comments

[A Philosopher]

I would think hard about whether you really can say what you *need* to say in 50k words. I just finished reading a short 50k word book, and a common complaint was that it gave short shrift while discussing competing views. So one downside is that 50k words might force you into uncharitable summaries of your opponents---which looks bad.