A short book is not an inferior long book. Consider the length a limitation, not a restriction. A short book is a clear, concise approach that contains a single claim, one focused piece of evidence, and the willingness to stop at the 22,000 word length, rather than risking submission at the 60,000 word length in hopes of achieving shelf space.
Most of the work is subtraction. The writer has to choose which of your five good ideas is the book idea, and which four are chapters in someone else’s book. That decision needs to be made before any drafting, but it can be made in collaboration with you, to save some money.
Short books tend to be read in a single or a couple of sittings, so readers hear the voice of the author, uninterrupted. There are no gaps for the reader to forget or lose track of the voice. Any inconsistency of register would land hard. A chapter that suddenly shifts to a more formal register, or a joke that appears out of thin air from a different book, would be apparent more at 20,000 words than at 80,000.
Asking a model for 25,000 words on one idea results in twenty uninventive examples of that idea. Short books exhibit this defect the most. The reader gets the feeling the argument comes to an end around chapter four, where there are only nine chapters to encapsulate and hide it in.
To start, we need our back-cover claim written in an interesting and true sentence. Everything else becomes a note. We set about 6-10 chapters to be read in one sitting and then pick two voice openings. We’ll pick from their “voice openings” when starting the first chapter. Each of these is a complete and finished chapter. Of course, there is an additional step: writing the unfinished chapter. These chapters are also entirely completed. Some of the chapters are interesting and some of them are uninteresting. Because of this, we have to pick the interesting chapters to publish. If a chapter is uninteresting, it gets filed away for now.
Since the manuscript is relatively small, the writer drafts it end to end before doing any revisions. The first draft is supposed to be messy. The second pass is for structural edits. The third pass focuses on sentence structure. After a draft of the manuscript is completed, stepping away for a day and reading it cold helps remove blind-spot repetition.
One rate, whatever the format: $10 per 100 words. You are paying for the writer’s time and judgement, so the price scales with the words rather than with a package tier.
| Typical short book | Words | Writing | Fee (1%) | You pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short book | 20,000 | $2,000 | $20 | $2,020 |
| Standard book | 45,000 | $4,500 | $45 | $4,545 |
| Full-length book | 70,000 | $7,000 | $70 | $7,070 |
The writer receives 100% of the writing price. Our 1% fee is added on top of it, and 0.5% is donated to tree planting. Full pricing breakdown.
We match the brief to a writer who has already worked in that subject area. If you have worked with an Articled writer before and want them again, name them and we will check their availability first.
Up to 3 days. The writer has to read around the subject before writing it, so we quote honestly rather than promising an hour. If your deadline is tighter, say so in the brief and we will tell you before you pay whether we can meet it.
Yes, as far as the length is concerned. Twenty thousand words comes to about one hundred pages, and that’s a full-fledged book on a shelf. Print houses usually won’t even print books with text that falls below about 12,000 words, because they won’t be able to give it a readable spine. That’s the practical limit.
You keep them. Any writing, planning, or notes that a writer sets aside always comes back as a labeled notes file. The writer also succinctly reasons why this writing didn’t fit. Several clients have taken these files and created the next published short book or a series of articles.
Completely. Copyright transfers to you on delivery, with no attribution requirement and no licence back to us. Nothing written for you is resold, repurposed or republished.
Reviews from completed, paid orders in this category.
That’s the review. The next night she asked for it again, then corrected me when I misread a line. Obviously, she has memorized it. The page has a certain rhythm that seems to help people memorize things.
Two chapters about my mother that I had written as accusations turned into scenes. The writer didn’t cut anything. The writer just stopped explaining what I was supposed to feel and let the dialogue do its job. I have rewritten the rest of the book that way.
Each of the nine sessions across the five weeks brought the same line of questioning about the shop in 1987. I had to keep telling her there was nothing to say. Chapter four is the part of my memoir my daughter cried over.
We do not ask you to take the no-AI promise on trust. Each draft is run through these platforms and the reports are attached to your delivery email.
Originality.aiAI detection + plagiarism
GPTZeroAI detection
TurnitinAI detection + similarity
CopyleaksAI detection + plagiarism
Winston AIAI detection
ZeroGPTAI detection
SaplingAI detection
Content at ScaleAI detection
Send the brief, get a human draft back within 3 days. No account, no subscription, no AI.
$10 per 100 words · all of it to the writer · 0.5% to trees