Is longer better? A study by interactive publisher Flipsnack has reported that bestselling books have become thicker by 25% from 320 pages in 1999 to 400 pages in 2014.
The study included over 2,500 books that have landed on New York Times bestseller and notable books lists, as well as Google’s annual survey of the most discussed books over the last 15 years. The Flipsnack study showed a fairly steady growth that has added an average of 80 pages to the surveyed books.
Representative of London-based content and marketing agency Verve Search James Finlayson who conducted the study said that this change may be attributed to the emergence of online bookstores and digital books.
“When you pick up a large book in a shop, you can sometimes be intimidated, whereas on Amazon the size of a book is just a footnote that you don’t really pay all that much attention to,” he said. “I always hold off buying really big books until I’m going on holiday, because I don’t want to lug them around in my bag. But if you have a big book on a Kindle, that’s not a consideration,” he added.
Flipsnack further revealed that book review ratings of those surveyed between 1999 and 2014 have improved by 4.4%. Long reads are also more likely to make the cut at the Man Booker Prize shortlist. The average book length for the for the annual contemporary fiction award this year was 457 pages.
Read more about the study here.