Is Your Novel "Long Enough?"

Books of Varying Lengths

As you may know, I've recently released Sullivan's War: The Complete Adventure. It collects three novellas (called Sullivan's War: Books I, II and III) which were released individually but make up one story line. Those novellas, usually priced at $2.99 apiece, have been selling fairly well. But The Complete Adventure's sales have been fantastic, selling in twelve days nearly as many copies as Book I, even though Book I's price was reduced to 99 cents near the beginning of the month.

I had suspected that I would see an increase in sales once I released The Complete Adventure, and here's why: I'd read long ago that many readers prefer to read only novels. They do not particularly care for short stories, and novellas? What the hell is a novella? The unimpressive sales of my collection Short Stories seems to support this idea. Even though Short Stories has a good number of positive reviews and I promoted it as heavily (if not more heavily) than Sullivan's War: The Complete Adventure, I sold nearly 7 times as many copies of Sullivan's War as Short Stories during July. And remember, Sullivan's War: The Complete Adventure was only available for the last twelve days of the month.

Now, I'm one who has always been a champion for short stories. I write them, obviously, and I even wrote a blog post called "Why I Love Short Stories." Another post I wrote as a guest on ME Franco's blog is called "Short Fiction is Dead?" In it, I propose that the eBook revolution will see a reemergence of shorter fiction. One thought is that a short story or novella can be published without the concern of making sure a "book" is of a profitable length. Now that printing costs are not a factor, any length can be a profitable length, assuming the story is sufficiently attractive to readers. Well, the three Sullivan's War novellas have been profitable, as have a few of the short stories I released individually. But my experience these past two weeks with Sullivan's War: The Complete Adventure has convinced me that full-length novels are going to be even more profitable. And while profit should not be a writer's sole consideration, it is unavoidable if one wishes, as I do, to make a living at it.

So is your novel long enough? What is long enough? The dividing line between novels and novellas ranges from 40,000 words to 60,000 words or higher. Will readers be "unsatisfied" with a 40,000-word novel? Does the word novella scare some people away? And what can one reasonably charge for short stories, novellas, short novels, long novels? I've been publishing my fiction for less than a year, and I'm still trying to work all of this out. But the sales of Sullivan's War: The Complete Adventure have convinced me that, for now at least, I should probably not focus on writing short stories quite as much. Novels are what readers want, and I have about a dozen novels waiting to be written. I just hope I can make them long enough.

What do you consider to be a minimum length for a novel? If you prefer novels over novellas or short stories, why? I'd love to hear any thoughts on this topic; just leave a comment below.

Best,

Michael K. Rose

Edit: Please read the followup to this post here.

How To Be a Beta Reader

What is a Beta reader? This is a term that writers use for a person who reads through a manuscript before the final editing pass is made. This is invaluable, and writers such as myself who are fortunate to have a handful of helpful, reliable Beta readers know how important they are to the process. But, what does a Beta reader do during and after reading a manuscript? Here are four things that I, as an author, find the most helpful. Should you be asked to serve as a Beta reader for an author, this will, I hope, serve as a handy guide to follow.

1. What did you think? - This is probably the thing that your author wants to know above all else! What did you think? Did you like it? How would you rate it? If you liked it, you can even write up a sample review to help encourage the author.

2. Are there any major mistakes? - You know, things like objects and characters appearing and disappearing, plot holes you could drive a road train through, things like that. One common mistake writers make is losing track of who is speaking. If s/he he isn't using "Bob said" and "Jane said" after every line of dialogue (and s/he shouldn't be!) then a character will occasionally respond to him/herself. It happens. Are there any spots that were ridiculous or didn't make sense? Any stilted or stupid-sounding dialogue? Any unrealistic decisions made by the characters? Were any laws of physics broken? Does anything in the story contradict the internal consistency of the world the author has created? There are all the "big" questions that readers will use to gauge whether or not a book is "good" or "bad."

3. Are there many typos/grammatical errors? - Even in "traditionally-published" books, errors will slip through. It would take an unreasonable amount of time and several sets of eyes to catch everything. However, authors, being so close to the work, often read what they meant to type rather than what they actually did type. Small typos will most likely slip through. Even if the author is going to hire a professional editor, or his/her publisher has one on staff, they can miss things. The more eyes the better, and your author will be grateful for any errors you can point out. Another thing to look for are unusually-worded phrases. If you have to read a sentence a couple of times to understand what the author means then other readers will as well.

4. Which sections are strongest? Which are weakest? - Sometimes a writer can fall in love with a scene and blind him/herself to its problems. If a particular scene doesn't quite work for you, let the writer know, and tell him/her why. You can even offer an idea of how you think the scene can be salvaged. On the other hand, let the writer know which scenes you loved! This information can be useful if the writer is going to be posting an excerpt with which to "hook" readers.

If you have any other things you think Beta readers can look for, please post them in the comments below!