From Electric Lit:
What happens when “bigger is better” becomes an ethos for an entire society? From SUVs that will never see a dirt road to McMansions that could fit several families, American culture right now abounds with an excess of, well, excess. The normalization of this can distort priorities, creating a sense that something far larger than what we need is what we want. In arts and culture, the ramifications of this bigger-is-better ideal include the phenomenon of movies begetting franchises begetting expanded cinematic universes. But — more relevant to me personally — it also includes the trend towards bloated novels and multi-volume series, and its counterpart, the devaluation of the novella.
There are moments when being a lover of literary minimalism can feel like being part of a secret society. A particularly obscure secret society, and one that’s closer in tone to a bizarre eating club than, say, a revolutionary faction looking to burn it all down. Nonetheless, the novella (or short novel; I’ll be using the two interchangeably) can feel like an overlooked form: concise enough to be an exercise in restraint, and yet too short to be deemed commercially viable.
. . . .
It’s not that there’s no market for standalone novellas — at least, there seems to be one overseas. That’s why many celebrated recent works in translation are notably slimmer than their American counterparts. Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream, for instance, uses a concise length to its strength, sustaining a dreamlike and surreal tone over the course of its pages. The resulting work ended up winning The Morning News’s 2018 Tournament of Books, no small accomplishment. But it’s also difficult to imagine this work being originally published by an American author, given its length.
. . . .
The gulf in novellas being published overseas versus in the U.S. is noticeable if you’re looking for it. “When I was in Denmark and Iceland this summer, I saw so many slim novels and novellas from all over the world,” author Amber Sparks notes. It also raises the question of how many manuscripts are padded to reach a certain size—and whether a domestic publishing industry more amenable to novellas being novellas would lead to, ultimately, better works.
. . . .
“I feel like in this country, generally speaking, it’s almost impossible to publish a novella unless you’re, you know, Denis Johnson or something — someone who publishers
known will sell a book no matter what,” Sparks says.
Link to the rest at Electric Lit
Link to the rest at Electric Lit
Meanwhile, Hugh Howey is laughing his way to the bank… The other commenters nailed it. The only people who think Americans don’t read novellas are the same people who think an author’s readership doesn’t count unless they are reading hard copy, trad pubbed books.
Which is, of course, also where people get the fallacious notion that no one reads anymore. When in fact the internet has resulted in more people reading than ever before.
Good grief! What is this author talking about?
The novella is thriving.
A novella is technically 17,500 to 40,000 words. But I’m sure you could fudge it and go from 10,000 words to 50,000 words.
Romance is the biggest selling genre. If you look on Amazon, you’ll regularly find good-ranking books that are 100-200 pages.
On Amazon, figure about 250 words per page.
So 25,000 to 50,000 words. A novella.
There are novellas, novellas everywhere!
Indie readers love novellas.
Interesting post. I used to love big oversized novels. Now with the internet and so much to read out there. My reading attention has shortened. I look for quick reads and stories that are no more than 200 pages long. I believe this will be the new form to reading by even americans. James Patterson see’s the trend and is now writing short novels.
Shorter stories lets his staff put out more books a year.
He doesn’t charge any less, though. 😉
His short books (bookshots) are less than half the price of his novels in most cases. Often $4.99 paperbacks
I definitely look at word count when I’m shopping – I simply won’t buy books over 400 pages anymore. My preference is 150 – 350. That’s just me, but I’m thrilled that word count is shown, and I’m delighted to have so many choices. That’s the beauty of ebooks and indie publishing. Yay!
I wish that Amazon showed word count as a matter of course. I distrust the page counts that are shown and, even if correct for a paper version, they can mislead as to length. I was recently looking at two WIPs by the same author where they both chanced to run to almost exactly equal word counts but one ran to 300 and the other to 400 pages (these pages were in Word and the styles used were exactly the same for both).
Thanks for that info, Mike. I mis-typed and mentioned word count instead of page count, and now I’m with you, wishing for the word count! As mentioned, I do use the page count and it is better than nothing… Although I’m always surprised when I get to the 70% point, just as an example, and the story ends, only to have a lot of sales information, the first chapter of the next book, author information, and so on. I always wonder if that stuff is included in the page count. I’m too lazy to try to figure it out, though.
I always have a sneaking suspicion that a novella isn’t a novella, but a serial and once I drop $3.99 it will only be a single chapter of a 50 chapter novel. Having been burned by this trap before short page counts always make me rethink a purchase unless it is an author I already trust.
There. Fixed it for you.
Believe me, if novellas were selling like hotcakes this same media tool would be screaming – “why aren’t stupid Americans buying novels anymore.”
Lost attention span due to reading on screens.
I read more on screens than I ever have on paper. Attention span is controlled by interest in what you are doing/reading. If everyone considered cat videos to be boring then there wouldn’t be any market in selling ads where cat video watchers would see them.
MYMV
By the way:
“I feel like in this country, generally speaking, it’s almost impossible to publish a novella unless you’re, you know, Denis Johnson or something — someone who publishers known will sell a book no matter what,” Sparks says.
—-
That led me to wonder, “Who the heck is Denis Johnson” and why is he supposed to be a surefire seller?
Well, here he is:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Johnson
Not quite King or Patterson or even Angelou.
Surefire seller? Maybe. But not in the numbers the Manhattan Mafia demands.
These folk definitely live in a whole ‘nother world. Cube shaped, unless I miss my guess.
Absolutely. Farrar has one of his novellas up for 9.99
https://www.amazon.com/Train-Dreams-Novella-Denis-Johnson-ebook/dp/B004YD699A/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8
Exactly.
Like everywhere else, consumers judge merit on value versus price.
Folks loved RIDING THE BULLET…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riding_the_Bullet
…and that was despite a less than ideal experience.
Yet another ridiculous article. When you are trying to sell items to the Public but the public doesn’t want to buy them, it seems to me to be very stupid and pointless to try to claim in some way that it is the public’s fault. In this case these fools attack American society for supposedly having a bigger is better mentality, and Americans as being shallow and stupid. Great way to get customers. And totally false. The rational approach is to find out why. If people feel they are not getting good value for money, then either give it to them or if you can’t stay out of the market and stop whinging.
Pushing blame on others is the only way they can’t admit that they themselves are wrong. Ignore them and let them pass by without notice.
MYMV and you not be fooled.
We could put all the Game Of Thrones books between two covers and call it fluff. Or, we could cut them all up into twenty books, call them novellas, and be like nuanced Europeans.
As Game of Thrones has a soap operas structure, it is indeed arbitrary where the narrative is divided. Something more structured like Lord Of The Rings though suffers from the publishers arbitrary division of the one novel into three books. I think it was Charles Stross who blogged about having to cut up his magnum opus into a trilogy again under publisher mandate . In the process insert unnecessary exposition and an entire unnecessary climax at the end of the first book, just to give the book an ending. Which of course it would not have needed if it had been published as part of a single novel as intended.
The first three books had story arcs that wrapped up in book. Its only the last two that didn’t, which isn’t surprising considering they were actually written originally as one novel.
Something more structured like Lord Of The Rings though suffers from the publishers arbitrary division of the one novel into three books.
Here’s a test we can all do safely at home. Stack the three LOR on top of each other. Anyone want that all between two covers?
Well, my answer to your question is that I’ve bought it twice!
There’s the 1968 paperback version, 1077 pages (but they left out the appendices and there are no pull out maps) and the India paper hardback version (nothing left out).
How well have the wheels held up?
They’ve survived remarkably well, though the India paper version has spent most of its life in its slip case. The paperback is fine despite being 50 years old. Mind you, it is the British version and in my experience old British paperbacks were pretty good quality. A lot of the American ones I own are in a much worse state with pages falling out. I’m not sure if this is a general thing or just a feature of the mass market SF paperbacks that ended up in UK shops (using inferior glue, maybe). Funnily enough the Ace doubles have held up pretty well despite all of them having been pre-read before they crossed the Atlantic.
I own the omnibus paperback edition of the Lord of the Rings (the movie tie-in version). If you’re curious, it’s small print (~10 or 11 pt), with tight leading. Book is slightly larger than 5 x 8 (a trade paperback). Over a thousand pages. I don’t crack the spines on my books, but I do notice the cover’s lamination is peeling at the edges. Fortunately I’ve since bought the omnibus on Kindle, so it’s all good.
I don’t remember what the physical limit is for pages as far as printing press capabilities, I think it’s 1,200 pages. Brandon Sanderson is said to have hit the very upper limit with his hardcover edition of the Wheel of Time finale.
But, you’ll notice that publishers have excellent typesetters who can get books with 400k+ words to fit neatly between the covers (the LoR omnibus is over 480k words). Tricks with layout, leading and font sizes can squeeze a lot of words into an acceptably-sized book. An individual GoT book is slightly more than 6×9 and over 1,000 pages. So yeah, it will be broken up. I’ve never read Stross, but I’ve heard of him long enough to think he should have anticipated the need to structure his stories with an eye to breaking them up. This may be an own goal on his part, or the failure of an editor (I hear that when you’re big enough, tradpub quits editing you).
I have an older hardcover edition of TOM JONES and its about 4 inches thick. About as wide as my slipcover set of LOTR+THE HOBBIT. It held up fine for a full read and a couple decades since. But I’m not likely to reread it. 😉
They joined had higher quality standards in the olden days.
Today’s paperback clocks in at 1000 pages. I doubt it would last one read.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Jones-Foundling-Wesleyan-Fielding/dp/0819560480/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
I’ve had thinner books break up on me.
I’ve seen the crappy binding you speak of. For the higher standards it looks like you have to go with the likes of the Folio Society or Easton Press or Subterranean Press these days (funnily enough, just like in the old days). One of them has an edition of “Dune” that I’ll treat myself to one fine day.
The novella has been primarily tied to the magazine fiction and anthology markets for the last century and both have been in decline for the past couple of decades as fiction magazines have faded and tradpub has been phasing out multi-author anthologies, especially in mass market paperback.
Early in the paperback originals era, until the 60’s, there was a bit of a market for novella-length books but even then it was more common to see them bundled with short stories or other novellas to meet the “baseline” book width.
Not a new phenomenon.
Are these folks just now noticng?
Yep. The formula at Analog was , from memory , serialise one third of a novel, one novella, a couple of short stories, some editorial and a letters column.
The novellas and short stories would be collected by their respective authors into compilations. If the authors were wise the stories would all be set in the same fictional world to give the readers some investment.
With the end of magazines as the gateway into science fiction I think this model has died and the sf novella with it.
…in tradpub.
Indies aren’t so constrained.
And smart hybrids aren’t either.
Lois Bujold, for one, has been doing novella length stories as standalones at $3.99. She has a six volume series of fantasies and this Vorkosigan release;
https://www.amazon.com/Flowers-Vashnoi-Vorkosigan-Saga-ebook/dp/B07D4M7N3L/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1544748204&sr=1-1&keywords=vashnoi
Give it time and novellas will be back as more authors realize ebooks don’t have word count straitjackets.
Anyone here remember ACE Doubles?
I might still have a couple of them in boxes somewhere. 😉
MYMV
Here.
I had to search far and wide before ABEbooks to find several memorable ones.
DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis carries Ace Doubles, and is very order-friendly if you don’t live in the Cities.
“Are these folks just now noticng?”
The piece is contrasting the American market with other markets, where novellas do just fine. Your answer is at best only half the answer. While it may explain the American situation, it doesn’t address the other half of the question.
Are you sure it doesn’t?
Did you notice my first statement?
“In tradpub”?
People can’t buy what isn’t for sale and the rent-seeking gatekeepers are the main reason skinny books don’t show up on retail shelves. That the ebook market doesn’t shy away from any length from short-shorts to meganovels should be ample proof that the issue isn’t America, but tradpub.
It wasn’t that long ago that skinny pbooks sold just fine. The change came with the foreign multinationals in the 80’s; place the blame where it belongs. Instead of blaming consumers, why not focus on the creators of the situation? The priesthood of the word count.
Just gotta say that I’ve been very grateful to people with SUVs who’ve helped me out when I was stuck in the snow or who’ve rescued my elderly parents when they were trapped by snow during a power outage. No dirt road needed for an SUV to come in very handy.
SUVs make me think of that joke about the black box on planes — the black box always survives, so try and be next to it if your plane crashes 😀 The way I figure it, the people doing the rescues, like the ones for you and your folks, are often either in a pick-up truck or an SUV. If nothing else, SUVs make it easy to be a good Samaritan.
There you go! 😉
The biggest reason for the SUV becoming so popular is the CARB fuel economy regulations. They killed the station wagon as it was classified as a car and could not comply with the milage requirements.
SUVs are classified as trucks, which have different requirements, and so people who have a need to move lots of people and ‘stuff’ moved from station wagons to SUVs
now the SUV that is modified with huge wheels, lifted a foot, and still never sees any dirt, that’s a different story. That’s people wasting money to pretend to be something they aren’t.
But there’s nothing wrong with people opting to drive SUVs who aren’t at all interested in their off-road capability
As for SUVs and pickups being far more likely to be Good Samaritans, part of that is that they are more likely to be people who have to deal with practical problems (even if it’s ‘move 10 kids and their gear to the game’) than people who drive tiny econobox cars.
Also, part of the reason is the inflation of book prices over the past few decades. It’s a lot easier to convince people to drop eight bucks on four hundred pages than two hundred.
Yes; my immediate thought was “more bang for my buck.” This mindset has even carried over to ebooks, where I scroll down and check the estimated number of pages.
I’ve certainly encountered long books that were just a chore to read, but also short books that were over too quickly.
My sweet spot is probably around 350 pages — enough to give me depth into the characters/world, but not so large that I’m wondering when it will end.
I stopped into a Barnes and Noble this afternoon, (Don’t ask.) Several novels displayed on the “Look At Me” tables were over 1000 pages.
I know I shouldn’t pre-judge, but all I could think was, “Fluff”.
Dan
The problem comes when you have a 400 page book with 200 pages of story. There is only so much detailed description of the inn the adventurers are passing through, or unnecessary grinding they have to accomplish before I find reading becomes a chore. Once I started assuming the padding is the default I stopped experimenting with new fantasy.
I’m naturally drawn to bigger books on the shelf, and I definitely check the audiobook length. There is definitely perceived value for my dollar at work for me. That’s anecdotal, obviously.
If you look at reviews of Novella length works in the Kindle store, there are inevitably complaints about the length of the work, even if it’s presented as a Novella and priced accordingly.
That said, if you are going to offer up a Novella, make sure you make it *really* clear that is what it is, and don’t think you can charge $4.99 for it.
Two or three novellas equals one novel. So do your audio book novellas as collections, and continue to release novellas as individual ebooks.
It takes so long to pick something to read that maybe getting a big chunk to read is important.
Novellas in a universe already known make sense.
Short stories do that, too: give an interesting whiff of something – and then disappear – unless they’re part of a bigger story. Like hors d’oeuvres, they leave you hungry. Or you eat too many, and never get a proper meal. Or you need to add alcohol.
This piece seems to be very much tied to traditional publishing and – despite references to Tor and genre – to a rather restricted view of what constitutes literature. What it doesn’t do is bear any relation to my fiction reading where novellas form a regular part of my both what I read and what the authors I like are writing.
The idea that shorter works are non American seems odd to me because I’ve spent most of my life reading USA novellas – mostly SF – and over the last few years have seen the form flourish in e-book format.
I’m guessing this is a trad-pub whine because novella can be found on Amazon. Trad-pub on the other hand doesn’t think they can make enough money on them to bother.
Welcome to the internet where you can love any size story you like.
MYMV and you not get trapped by muddled thinking. 😉