# Novels are dead ...



## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

... because we all have an attention span prob

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/opinion/sunday/the-loneliness-of-the-long-distance-reader.html?_r=1


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

"Longstanding allies of the reader, professionals who have traditionally provided guidance for those picking up a book, are disappearing fast. The broad, inclusive conversation around interesting titles that such experts helped facilitate is likewise dissipating. Reading, always a solitary affair, is increasingly a lonely one."

What? Lets ignore goodreads, online discussion groups, review sites etc. I have way more input and output on books now than I ever had before. My TBR list is gigantic for that very reason, that never occured before


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Chad Winters said:


> "Longstanding allies of the reader, professionals who have traditionally provided guidance for those picking up a book, are disappearing fast. The broad, inclusive conversation around interesting titles that such experts helped facilitate is likewise dissipating. Reading, always a solitary affair, is increasingly a lonely one."
> 
> What? Lets ignore goodreads, online discussion groups, review sites etc. I have way more input and output on books now than I ever had before. My TBR list is gigantic for that very reason, that never occured before


I have spent the last several days putting my books on goodreads. I am through the paperbacks and classics but only up to the b's on kindle.
I do believe the TBR is at 500. I love the interaction too.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

That's a rather pretentious opinion piece to my mind.  The author appear to be lamenting the decline in reading the literary novel for the proper reasons and the proper way more than lamenting a decline in reading overall.


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## Robert Stanek (Nov 16, 2013)

I love how every few years someone prominently declares that books, novels, etc are dead. Largely, the decline in newspapers, trade journals, and such is leading to a decline in those providing professional and expert guidance for readers through these sources, but I think online sources are continuing to grow.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Codswallop.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

Chad Winters said:


> "Longstanding allies of the reader, professionals who have traditionally provided guidance for those picking up a book, are disappearing fast. The broad, inclusive conversation around interesting titles that such experts helped facilitate is likewise dissipating. Reading, always a solitary affair, is increasingly a lonely one."


Translation: "Hey. Remember when book reviewers got paid?"


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

To the extent we ever did need the "experts", it was only because it was do difficult to distribute information about what books might be good. We've always used word of mouth, no matter how much some may sneer at it. But if we were interested in reviews, we had articles in the paper. Now, we can get more reviews than we could possibly read. If the experts gave us more useful reviews, then people would be going to the experts. But if I can't tell a good book from a bad one without the help of the experts, then I'm probably such a Philistine that I couldn't even understand the book anyway. It's like restaurant reviews - an expert can point me to good restaurants, but so can a great many people. They are capable of recognizing good food when they eat it, and a great many people are capable of recognizing a good book when they read it - and they are capable to telling other people about it too.

There is this persistent idea that in the past, people used to only read great literature, but now people read garbage. It's an illusion created because the best books are remembered while other books, even if they were popular, aren't remembered over the long term. People read popular books now, and they read popular books then. It's not always clear at the time which books are the great books - calling a book literature does not mean it's going to be remembered as a great book.


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Mmmm... zombie novels... rising from the grave all covered in... mold? Eww.


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## Tony Rabig (Oct 11, 2010)

Maybe I skimmed it a bit quickly, but I don't recall seeing the criteria for "expert" in this piece.  Who gets to define that?

In my previous life as a student in library school, I had occasion to go through a decade of science fiction and fantasy reviews in magazines like Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus, etc.  Any librarian going strictly by those reviews would have missed a large number of Hugo and Nebula winners.  Were those reviewers experts?

I'll second James Everington here.  Codswallop.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Tony Rabig said:


> Maybe I skimmed it a bit quickly, but I don't recall seeing the criteria for "expert" in this piece. Who gets to define that?
> 
> In my previous life as a student in library school, I had occasion to go through a decade of science fiction and fantasy reviews in magazines like Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus, etc. Any librarian going strictly by those reviews would have missed a large number of Hugo and Nebula winners. Were those reviewers experts?
> 
> I'll second James Everington here. Codswallop.


Anyone with a snooty degree in literature who doesn't really enjoy books


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## TiffanyTurner (Jun 8, 2009)

I think it's just a lament that the gatekeeper is being redirected. Readers are discovering a power they didn't have before, access to more books. More books than anyone could possibly imagine. I really think the book is evolving and changing. Fiction is alive and well on the internet. As long as there are power to the servers, we will so live forever in our posts and so will books. 

Who is not to say that someone will be scrolling 100 years from now, and reading what we wrote about paperback books and traditional publishing. They will scratch their heads and say, "I wonder what that was like?" Then, they'll click to the next page of their solar powered ebook and continue their research project on the beginning of the digital age. 

Sounds like some growing pains going on here.   NY Times has been grumpy the last few days.


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## antonnaseton (Dec 10, 2013)

The reports of its death has been greatly exaggerated  The novel will survive no matter what. That doorstop novel (hello George RR Martin!) is going to be around for a long time yet.

That said, I hear that short stories and novellas are in now because people are busy. I know I gravitate towards them now because I like a quick read and to get a sense of accomplishment when I finish them!


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## Dave Dykema (May 18, 2009)

I'm somewhat surprised by this. I've always heard that short stories don't do too well (Stephen King not withstanding).


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Dave Dykema said:


> I'm somewhat surprised by this. I've always heard that short stories don't do too well (Stephen King not withstanding).


I admit I much prefer a longer novel. . . . that said I just gave up on one that was definitely a door stopper but was dull as dust. Should have been exciting, but just too much internal dialogue about things we already knew. I found myself saying, "get on with it already." But there are a lot of folks who don't have as much time to read regularly. With a full length novel, you pretty much have to be able to read at least a little bit every day so you don't lose the flow. For folks who haven't got that kind of time, or just don't want to make it, shorter works are preferable.

Interestingly, the Kindle is good for both. People who like short stuff, can carry around a ton of novellas or even short stories and always be able to find something they can read in a short amount of time. People who like longer stuff -- especially the _really_ long books that take up extra space and weigh a lot more, can still take their books with them to read on their lunch hour or whatever!

True story: I have a young friend who was moving from NYC to Tucson Arizona. She had limited luggage space and weight because she had to take, as her carry-on, her instrument -- she's an oboe/english horn player. She could tuck some things in the pouches and pockets of the gig bag, but there were limits. She was commenting that she was halfway through volume 4 or so of the Game of Thrones series and she had to leave the book in NY. Partly 'cause she was borrowing from a roommate, but mostly because she couldn't find any place to stuff it in her already crammed full bags! She has a kindle -- on which she mostly reads classics and other things she can get for free (starving musician and all that) -- so I sent her the full series as a gift when it was briefly on sale before Christmas. She was very excited.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I think short stories/novellas vs novels are a mixed bag - I've heard for years now that people want shorter reads because we don't have long attention spans any longer.  But then I've also read that we want books with other embedded content as well and that seems to be going over like a lead balloon.  I think there are some that like to read shorter works, some that like longer works and some that read it all.  AND then there are some authors who like to believe that readers want shorter fiction because they like to write shorter fiction.

Personally, I like a short story or novella as part of a novel sized collection but rarely as a stand-alone.  But then that's me.


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## EmilieHardie (Jan 2, 2014)

Wow, that whole article is basically whining about how they no longer have power. Doesn't matter how fancy the words or elegant the prose used to dress it up, immaturity is immaturity.

As to short stories and novellas vs novels, I don' think that it's an either or. Sometimes I'm in the mood for something short, sometimes I want to curl up and read for he whole afternoon.


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## RJ Kennett (Jul 31, 2013)

nomesque said:


> Mmmm... zombie novels... rising from the grave all covered in... mold? Eww.


Where's the "like" button?


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

I think all this really means is that those of us who prefer fast-paced 200 page novels to 800 page door-stoppers full of padding can now find them for sale again. Self-publishing allows authors to publish both, so everyone can be happy.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

Edward M. Grant said:


> I think all this really means is that those of us who prefer fast-paced 200 page novels to 800 page door-stoppers full of padding can now find them for sale again. Self-publishing allows authors to publish both, so everyone can be happy.


You're not allowed to be happy if your opinion differs from mine ......

Oh, sorry. Wrong part of the internet.  Of course we can all have different opinions on book length.


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## Robert Stanek (Nov 16, 2013)

Lately I've read "novels" of all sorts of lengths from very short at 165 pages to very long at 1000+ pages. Used to be they called the really short ones novelettes, the short ones novellas. Now they just seem to label everything a "novel".


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## LKWatts (May 5, 2011)

I seriously hope this is not the case. I've got plenty more books to write in my life and as the years progress my writing just gets faster and faster and faster


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## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

While I think it may be true that technology and societal changes have created shorter attention spans in younger generations, great entertainment is still great entertainment. Cream always rises to the top, no matter what form it takes!


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

I didn't read the article referred to because the quotation from it in the second post contains a ghost, and the ghost intones: "We who don't do this are an elite, and the elite is shrinking! Oh, woe!" It's typical NYT opinion-piece BS, intended to boost the egos of readers.

However, the novel may well appear to be dying. Smashwords keeps a count of the number of individual volumes it has distributed, and a total wordage for them all. Divide the total words by the number of volumes, and you have the average length, which is under 35,000 words. That's not a novel, that's not even a good novella. Some of the new writers in indieland think nothing of calling a very short short-story a "book". But none of this means the novel is dead, or even dying. All it means is that electronic publishing has brought forth a lot of "authors" in such a hurry to see their names up in lights, or to make a fast buck (!), that they published truncated items as "books", and that the total number of such people is so huge that even the much larger number of full-length novels being published today than before KDP may, because it is a smaller fraction of all publications, be mistaken by the unsophisticated for the last gasp of a moribund form. 

The novel is not only alive but flourishing.

BTW, no decade passed since I was a teenager without some distinguished editor or publisher, and usually several, confiding in me that "the novel is dead". They're dead, and the novel soldiers on.


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## Kessie Carroll (Jan 15, 2014)

Haha, that article gave me a good chortle. As long as people need entertainment, there will be stories, even ...heavens!... Long stories.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

Robert Stanek said:


> Lately I've read "novels" of all sorts of lengths from very short at 165 pages to very long at 1000+ pages. Used to be they called the really short ones novelettes, the short ones novellas. Now they just seem to label everything a "novel".


Most Kindle-only stories are pretty short, as evidenced by these folks with 18 titles published a few months apart. I'll bet Amazon could clean up that mess by offering promotion incentives for those authors who are willing to collect their <40k stuff into anthologies. Otherwise it would be nice to see the short stories auto-sorted and labeled so.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Mel Odious said:


> Most Kindle-only stories are pretty short, as evidenced by these folks with 18 titles published a few months apart. I'll bet Amazon could clean up that mess by offering promotion incentives for those authors who are willing to collect their <40k stuff into anthologies. Otherwise it would be nice to see the short stories auto-sorted and labeled so.


 Most of the books I get (all self published) range anywhere from 100-382 pages. And I have picked up over 2000 books. Did you know that there are book descriptions for every book sold at Amazon? I don't mean the blurbs either but if you keep scrolling down, every e-book has how many kbs it is. Also if you see episode in the title then the book is probably short.
Here is what I just discovered.
A 58 page book is roughly 196Kb
A 390 page book is roughly 508Kb
An 1188 page book is roughly 2300 kb.
Note this is for Text only books. Illustrated books will have higher counts. 
I hope this helps in your book search. And enjoy reading.


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Mel Odious said:


> Most Kindle-only stories are pretty short, as evidenced by these folks with 18 titles published a few months apart. I'll bet Amazon could clean up that mess by offering promotion incentives for those authors who are willing to collect their <40k stuff into anthologies. Otherwise it would be nice to see the short stories auto-sorted and labeled so.


We are still stuck in pre-ebook times in some areas. Book classifications are one problem - BISAC (the standard US book classification) doesn't have any way to specify a book's size. And maybe book size shouldn't be in with the genre classifications, but its own separate 'size classification', with word-count standards set. As a writer _and_ a reader, I'd love that.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> Most of the books I get (all self published) range anywhere from 100-382 pages. And I have picked up over 2000 books. Did you know that there are book descriptions for every book sold at Amazon? I don't mean the blurbs either but if you keep scrolling down, every e-book has how many kbs it is. Also if you see episode in the title then the book is probably short.
> Here is what I just discovered.
> A 58 page book is roughly 196Kb
> A 390 page book is roughly 508Kb
> ...


In the past year or so Amazon also added an estimated page count to the book description. They appear to be estimating using a pretty wordy page.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Mel Odious said:


> In the past year or so Amazon also added an estimated page count to the book description. They appear to be estimating using a pretty wordy page.


The 3 examples I used were all actually counted and had real page numbers and books I had read. That is why I gave byte counts along with the page counts.

Though you leave me curious, how can you tell a kindle only book? If you are getting freebies, most of them are available at other sites too.

I have also seen cases where Amazon puts a low page count on a 300 page book.

Now since I am in a generous mood, if you will tell me the genre you like and how long you like your novels, I will gladly help you find good authors.
Also little secret: to find books go to ereaderiq.com, they generally do not have short books.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> The 3 examples I used were all actually counted and had real page numbers and books I had read. That is why I gave byte counts along with the page counts.
> 
> Though you leave me curious, how can you tell a kindle only book? If you are getting freebies, most of them are available at other sites too.
> 
> ...


I should rephrase "Kindle-only" to "e-book-only" ... and further qualify that by saying that if it's very short and not Jonathan Swift, it's probably not produced in skinny pulp .

And since you admit being in a generous mood this morning I would love to take you up on your very kind book-hunt offer. Anything long must be all-enveloping for me and sort of like a mid-career John Irving genre/quality-wise. Thank you for the tip on ereaderiq!


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Mel Odious said:


> I should rephrase "Kindle-only" to "e-book-only" ... and further qualify that by saying that if it's very short and not Jonathan Swift, it's probably not produced in skinny pulp .
> 
> And since you admit being in a generous mood this morning I would love to take you up on your very kind book-hunt offer. Anything long must be all-enveloping for me and sort of like a mid-career John Irving genre/quality-wise. Thank you for the tip on ereaderiq!


Here is one author for you.
http://www.amazon.com/Elisa-Lorello/e/B0041TN02Q/ref=pd_sim_b_bl_15


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> Here is one author for you.
> http://www.amazon.com/Elisa-Lorello/e/B0041TN02Q/ref=pd_sim_b_bl_15


Thank you, cinisajoy!

Best,
sureis


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Mel,
That is actually easy.  Just go to one of your favorite author's books and scroll down to customers also bought.  This should make your reading much more pleasant.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Here's a good site to find authors similar to the ones you know you like:  www.literature-map.com


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Here's a good site to find authors similar to the ones you know you like: www.literature-map.com


Impressive, Ann. Beyond finding similar authors it is educational to look at how tightly some names group using the graphic explorer on that site. Pick an author in the center of a narrow-focus author's cluster and sometimes you will find that author has a much wider range of similar authors.

For instance, Kurt Vonnegut patterns like 00 buckshot ... John Irving (at the center of Vonnegut's cluster) patterns like no. 4 birdshot. Hunter S. Thompson (on Irving's fringe) patterns like cannon shot.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I have no idea what any of that means. 

I just know that, on the rare occasions when I've been looking for a new author, it's come in handy.  I've also used it once or twice when I came across a new author myself and I wasn't sure if I'd really like the book.  By plugging in the name I could see how closely it tracked to names I already knew.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Mel Odious said:


> Impressive, Ann. Beyond finding similar authors it is educational to look at how tightly some names group using the graphic explorer on that site. Pick an author in the center of a narrow-focus author's cluster and sometimes you will find that author has a much wider range of similar authors.
> 
> For instance, Kurt Vonnegut patterns like 00 buckshot ... John Irving (at the center of Vonnegut's cluster) patterns like no. 4 birdshot. Hunter S. Thompson (on Irving's fringe) patterns like cannon shot.


I think he is saying there is are several authors for KV, many, many authors for JI and HST is very few.

If I read him correctly.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> I think he is saying there is are several authors for KV, many, many authors for JI and HST is very few.
> 
> If I read him correctly.


You are correct, cinisajoy. I did skew the results on Hunter S. Thompson by a few singed hairs, but in the end there is no doubt about his cannon-blast pattern:

(Hunter S. Thompson, shot from a cannon: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2139349)


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Mel Odious said:


> You are correct, cinisajoy. I did skew the results on Hunter S. Thompson by a few singed hairs, but in the end there is no doubt about his cannon-blast pattern:
> 
> (Hunter S. Thompson, shot from a cannon: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2139349)


I actually cheated I went and asked my husband about scatter patterns of 00 buck and number 4 bird.


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## JamesHutchings (Feb 27, 2011)

Since short stories are more marginal than ever before (and even short novels), and there is clearly more discussion of novels than ever before, it's hard to see how this could be less accurate.


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## Lia Cooper (Jan 28, 2014)

Because there must only be 100 truly _great_ novels written every year, and those must be properly disseminated to the masses.

total elitist rubbish


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## adanlerma (Jan 16, 2012)

rjkennett said:


> Where's the "like" button?
> 
> quoting:
> Quote from: nomesque on January 09, 2014, 05:47:18 PM
> Mmmm... zombie novels... rising from the grave all covered in... mold? Eww.


had seen nomesque's post and was gonna quote it, then saw rj already had, so quoted (kinda) both 

anyway, read the posts and there's so many good points, but basically, for me, i'm glad (as some others have pointed out) for kindles and digital and all that, 'cause i like all page lengths, from flash fiction to shorts to novellas to novels

but, i can only read for short time periods; so ironically, a long short story that doesn't have section breaks is harder for me to follow, than a full length novel with short chapters

so it's kinda ironic that what was originally done to fit into newspapers on a regular basis, ala dickens' long works done in installments, might also work in an age with a device for works of "almost" unlimited size, yet still works best, because of the times, in that same old long-chopped-up-by-short-chapters format; at least for me, interesting ;-)


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

adanlerma said:


> so it's kinda ironic that what was originally done to fit into newspapers on a regular basis, ala dickens' long works done in installments, might also work in an age with a device for works of "almost" unlimited size, yet still works best, because of the times, in that same old long-chopped-up-by-short-chapters format; at least for me, interesting ;-)


I've enjoyed watching the industry cycle back, in many ways, to the 'old days'. These electronic reading devices and apps are doing all sorts of strange and beautiful things to the world of books. I'm loving it!


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## No One Here (Jan 17, 2014)

If novels are dying because of short attention spans I'm wondering why I sell more copies of my 95,000-word novel than I do of my short-story or my novella collections.  When buying, I always buy novels.


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