I read a blog post today, A Short Story About Verbosity, about writing a tech book. The publisher had asked the writer to go for at least 600 pages. I was reminded of a joke I used to make back when I was teaching C and C++. I would plop down the 272-page The C Programming Language on the desk and say "This is an exhaustive description of C". Then I'd let the ~980-page "The C++ Programming Language" fall with a sickening thud and say "This is the bare minimum you need to understand C++". (Don't worry, I didn't leave them with that: there are shortcuts into C++, and I did my best to point them out.)
Many times you can't really avoid verbosity in a tech book. In the best case, this is because the subject is extensive. In the worst case, it's because the subject is humongous.
I still hope to be able to take my programming book from plans to reality one day. Whatever it becomes, it won't be thick. I'd be surprised if it's more than 300 pages. If I can't say what I want to say in less pages than that, maybe I shouldn't bother. That might mean that no publisher will be interested, but there are other ways.
