High on the wish list for many of our clients are books that can be read in 2-3 hours, tops. With Twitter conversations and other online articles talking about this very thing, it seems our clients aren’t alone. This is definitely a trend authors and publishers, both traditional and online, should pay attention to.

With the average Canadian working nearly 40 hours per week and our neighbours to the south even longer,  there isn’t a lot of time left over for things like reading — especially a traditional 300-page business book that could take hours and hours to finish. So if authors and publishers want to get non-fiction works into the hands of consumers, it could be strategic to significantly prune those longer books.

Quicker to write and get out to market, this easily digestible style of book could compete with magazines and online publications, allowing consumers a quick and timely read, but still with substance. However, these shorter-format books need to feel sizeable enough, both in terms of experience and takeaway, to justify the price.

The challenge will be to find that sweet spot: the point where price, value, and length all come together to create a book that flies off the shelves and opens an entirely new niche market.

What’s your take? Is short and sweet a better model for non-fiction?

Literary agent Nathan Bradford recently shared some intriguing ideas about the state of publishing. In his words:

In essence, it’s the best of times and the worst of times. If you’re an enterprising author there is a world of opportunity out there. Never before have we had a book publishing world where truly anyone could publish and potentially find their readers. Before there was a fundamental obstacle: distribution. That’s going away. Anyone can publish. It’s a massive, groundbreaking shift! I suspect soon there will be even more opportunities for collectives and online communities to boost sales, build brands, and become real players in publishing. Out of chaos comes order.

Note that last sentence. It’s true that chaos appears to reign in the halls of traditional publishing these days. The old order is being shaken to its very core. But equally true is that after this period of turmoil, a new order will emerge. It always does. It’s just that none of us are 100% clear yet on what that order might look like.

In the meantime, the future of publishing is being vigorously discussed, debated, and shaped at events such as TOC and BookCamp, in online communities such as Twitter, and on blogs all over the web.

And I agree with Nathan. It’s never been a better time to be an author. With the industry in flux, there are a wealth of opportunities for those with the acumen to recognize them and the moxie to do something about them.