Bob's Thoughts: Novellas Are Going To Increase In Popularity

Bob's Hot Take: within a decade novellas are going to be a far, far larger part of the market than they are currently.

Fight me.

I suppose though that I could take a few moments and try and back up where this thought is coming from. Especially since I can't seem to find any sort of empirical evidence in my quick four minutes of google searching. It may be out there, but right now I'm opting to strike while the muse is hot, rather than spending more time trying to track down survey results that may not even exist. So come along as I make huge generalizations based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence!

3 Reasons Why I Think Novellas Are Going To Become More And More Popular

1. Attention Spans, And The War to Snag Them

Life is crazy busy for me. And I know I am not alone in that. I love to read, but I struggle more and more with finding the time to read as much as I want. For the past couple of years I have made a concerted effort to find more novella length works to read, because they are a much better fit for my life. And I know I am not alone in that, if the weekly recommendation requests I see for novellas on Fantasy and Horror forums/groups are any sort of indication. Folks who take part in yearly reading challenges, which are also growing in popularity, as the year nears its end are frequently looking for shorter works so they can hit their goal. Everywhere I look I see more people requesting novella length works. And as more folks step in to fill that demand, I think it will lead to an increased acceptance of the format, as there are more excellent recommendations running around.

And look, attention spans are just shorter these days, thanks to a billion reasons, like social media. I think over time marketing to younger generations will in some cases be easier with novellas. They will seem more approachable, more easily digestible.

2. More And More Self Publishers Will Be Putting Them Out (And Already Are)

I say this as an author who:

• My primary and most popular works are a series of novellas. Yes, I pair two together in each book and publish them that way so at first blush they look like novels, but at the end of the day my series is just a bunch of novellas. And you know how many reviews I get cursing me for the fact they are novellas? A small handful. A very small handful. So small that it has never dismayed me, or caused me to consider doing them any other way.

• One of the authors I share a table with the most, Richard Fierce, primarily writes novellas. And he outsells the shit out of me.

• The other author I share a table with the most, Ben Meeks, his top seller at the moment is his sci-fi Litrpg novella series.

Look, novellas sometimes just make a lot of sense. And there are some really sound publishing reasons to use them. A novella is shorter, which means less time to write. It means faster and cheaper turnaround for editing. It means lower print costs. Can you charge as much for them as a novel? Usually not. But it means that your time to market is much quicker, and it makes it that much quicker before you start making money. Money you can use to put out that next novella.

It also more quickly leads to a deeper back catalog. The deeper the (quality) back catalog, the more money an author will make (typically). And most authors will have heard the marketing tip of 'your best marketing tool is your next book.' Well, if you are more rapidly able to get works out...come on, it's a no brainer.

3. More And More Traditional Publishers Will Be Putting Them Out

Do you think the folks in power haven't noticed the intense popularity of Murderbot? Of The Singing Hills Cycle? Of Junkyard Cats? Success breeds imitation, and as some of these bigger name novella series keep rolling out, more Trad Publishers will follow suit. They will grossly overcharge for them, because fuck us readers, but it will start to shift the tide a bit.

Taking a look at Murderbot, the first novella in that series has over 50k reviews on Amazon. Martha Wells other well regarded and popular series, the Books of the Raksura, it's book one "The Cloud Roads: Volume One of the Books of the Raksura" has 3200 reviews on Amazon. You think this hasn't caused at least one or two decision makers at Macmillon to start thinking about the viability of novellas? You're fooling yourself.

This will take time, because if Trad Publishing had their way we'd probably all be reading off stone tablets for as rapidly as they like to embrace technology. But give it time, and you will see a shift.

Reality Check

Reality Check - They Ain't Novels, And Never Will Be As Popular As Them

Most folks prefer novels. That's just the way of it. I never see a day where novellas make up a majority of publishing. If they make up 5% now (doubtful), my thought is that we might eventually get to a point where it hits 15% market share. Maybe. I can say that some folks are going to get very rich doing this. Not all, not most, but some. Maybe I'll even be one of them.

But if you set out to just write novellas, and only novellas, you are going to have a harder path to success than other more traditional novelists. Of the series I referenced up above, Martha Wells' (Murderbot) and Faith Hunter (Junkyard Cats) were already established novelists before they started putting out novellas. Stephen King puts out some well regarded novellas (Shawshank Redemption, amirite?!), but he gets to do that mostly because he is known as a novelist.

I love novellas, and will put out many more over my career, I can promise you that. But I will also be putting out novel length works as makes sense for me. They are easier sells, and I can try to slot them in with trad publishers if I desire (like I am doing with Capital of Nightmares which comes out from Falstaff Dread in 2025!).

Reality Check Two - Audiobooks

Novellas are shorter than novels. Obviously. But that means that they will be less appealing to audiobook readers, as they don't like to spend credits on shorter works. So individual novellas likely won't make much money on audio, at least not until they reach a length they are able to be bundled. Source: myself and my current struggle with my audiobooks selling.

Who Benefits?

Who Will Benefit The Most From Increased Novella Popularity?

Genre Fiction authors. Novellas already makes up a larger percentage of the market in Romance than other genres, especially on the more erotica side of things. But I really think we will see a boom in Fantasy and Horror for novellas. Especially horror. I am a firm believer that horror works best in shorter form, either short story or novella (Bob's second hot take: all of King's best work are his short story and novella collections). I think Military Sci-Fi is another logical genre that could do well with a novella model. I also have zero doubt that we will see some small niche genres develop around the novella series model. Anything Cozy could probably do well for example, but imagine some sort of genre that develops around exploring planets, where each planet is its own novella. Is that a thing? It should be a thing, I'd read it. I can't wait to see what weird shit indie authors come up with.

Also, a larger percentage of genre fiction readers weigh plot as more important over character development (in my experience). It's absolutely not a zero sum game. But many novellas tend to be heavier on plot than character development, which will really appeal to a certain slice of readers. Literary Fiction, the weight of importance is typically flipped, which makes novellas a harder sell for the typical Literary Fiction reader (I would guess).

How Will This Benefit The Reader?

It's going to compound the best part of indie publishing: the creativity. Traditional publishers try to find the works they think will appeal to the broadest number of people. Some ideas are amazing, but don't warrant an entire novel length work, or they don't have super broad appeal, so Trad won't' touch them (*cough meth wizard cough cough*). These super niche, amazingly creative ideas will start to hit the market more often, and readers will get to bask in how original they are.

How Will This Benefit Bob: A Blatant Plug

Because this is what it's all about. Got this far? Like novellas? Check out my series about a redneck wizard with a crippling meth addiction solving backwoods occult mysteries. As of this moment it is twelve novellas split into six books.