Five reasons why you should write short books

This week, I interviewed Ryan Reger on my podcast. He was also gracious enough to spend time with our Members Club where he answered questions related to their online businesses and platforms.

Ryan is the author of several books, including his signature title "Streams of Income." I recently purchased a copy and read it cover-to-cover in two sittings. It's a short book of about 86 pages, but the content is inspiring, actionable, and helpful.

As I read the book, I was reminded of something I have been thinking about lately. I'm convinced that we're about to see major growth in the "short book segment" of the non-fiction world. In fact, I'm already planning to produce several short books of my own related to online platform development and related concepts.

At present, I have authored about 30 books. My most recent book, "Dwell On These Things" is 224 pages, which is a very common page count. Some of my upcoming books will be much shorter. Definitely less than 100 pages because I'm convinced there's at least 5 major benefits of writing short books.

1. Your readers are more likely to finish them. It has been said that most readers never make it past the first 20% of a book's content. Based on how many books I have purchased and never finished, I suspect that's true. But short books are less intimidating to read, and I think readers are more likely to finish them.

2. You can produce more of them and sell them at a lower price. If you're convinced that a book can only be valuable if it's lengthy, you probably won't create much content, and when you do, you'll probably charge a higher price for it. But if you begin writing a few short books, I think you'll churn out more of them and you'll feel greater liberty to make them extremely affordable since they won't represent a lengthy time commitment.

3. Your readers are more likely to take action on the content because they won't feel swamped. When we feel overwhelmed with information, or we can't process which information is critical and which is supplementary, we're likely to drift toward inaction and paralyzation. But if a message is crystal clear and succinct, I think we'll be more likely to act on it.

4. Entrepreneurs and action-takers appreciate content that doesn't waste their time. People who take action are busy. They are looking for helpful content, but they don't want to have to wade through "page-filler" to find it. If you show your readers that you respect their time, I think they will very likely reward you by utilizing more of your content and recommending your work to others.

5. You can quickly establish your authority in multiple niches. I'm interested in blogging, podcasting, web-development, membership communities, writing, video creation, marketing, personal finance, entrepreneurship, leadership, and many other subjects. I guess I could try to write one book to cover all of those subjects, but wouldn't it be wiser to create multiple short books that succinctly and effectively cover one particular subject? In doing so, I can gradually establish credibility and authority in multiple subject areas and potentially serve a wider audience of readers.

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So if you've been holding off on writing a book because you envision the process taking a very long time, or you're convinced that writing a book needs to be a multi-year process of writing, editing, and revising, let me encourage you to rethink that notion. Short books have value, and I'm convinced that we're about to see a surge in their popularity. Maybe you should jump on that train and see if you can write a book from start to finish this month instead of telling yourself that it would take a year or more to complete. I'm jumping on that train, and I can't wait to unveil some of the books I'm working on right now.

-John