Books will get shorter, but not for the reason you think

I suspect that in the coming years, the length of books (particularly non-fiction) will become noticeably shorter. Not all books, of course, but many of them.

This isn’t due to diminishing concentration or attention spans (which aren’t actually diminishing), but due to better ways of learning.

In a recent podcast by Guy Kawasaki on his Remarkable People show, he interviewed AI expert Terry Sejnowski and they got into the topic of what an author is really trying to do. They lead with the story of Kodak and how they invented the digital camera but didn’t do anything with it because they were in the “chemical” business instead of the “capturing memories” business. Here’s what they had to say:

If they had repositioned their brains, they would’ve figured out “We preserve memories, it’s better to do it digitally than chemically.” So now as an author, and you’re also an author, I think, what is my business? Is it chemicals? Is it writing books, or is it the dissemination of information?

And if I zoom out, and I say it’s dissemination of information, why am I writing books? Why don’t I train an LLM to distribute my knowledge instead of forcing people to read a book? So do you think there are going to be authors in the long run? Because a book is not that efficient a way to pass information.

I read quite a few books and I don’t plan to slow down, but they’re correct that books are not really a very efficient way to pass information. With tools like Anki, Readwise, Blinkist and Shortform, not to mention YouTube and AI tools, books can often be a little long-winded.

Further, many books are far too long for bad reasons (often just to “feel substantial”), and I appreciate books that get the point in a more efficient manner.

For example, one book I plan to read soon is “Smart Brevity“, which covers this very topic, and I’ll likely have more thoughts in this area when I finish that one. True to the name, the book is only 3 hours on audible, so it indeed seems like it will get to the point.

Do you think the typical book will get shorter in the coming years?