Why the book might be getting shorter

Interesting analysis of how Kindle Singles, and other short ebooks might be the future:

The greatest aspect of Kindle Singles is, of course, their short length. The first one I read was a Single about media and I remember thinking how a typical business book editor would have asked the author to turn this 30-page gem into a bloated 300-page mess. It happens all the time and it’s a function of both physical shelf presence and perceived value. In the ebook world there’s suddenly no physical bookshelf an individual title has to have a spine presence on. Now we just need to stop equating “shorter” with “cheaper”…more on that in a moment.

And, indeed there is. I’d actually be prepared to pay as much for a short book as a long one, as long as the density of information was right. Attention is at a premium, and books that respect that are valuable to me.