Novella disproportionately easy to write

[Richard]

I just finished first-round editing of a novella, set in the back-story of my novel series, about 15 years in the future. I found it much easier to write and edit a 20 k-word novella than to write 20k of a longer novel. There's less to hold in your mind when looking for inconsistencies, and it's easier to remember all your characters. It'll be interesting to see how it goes in the market. If I price it at $0.99 will it outsell my $3.99 novels by enough to make up for reduced royalties? We shall see.

[[deleted user]]

There are a lot of writers, even the mainstream authors, releasing these novella style prequels for free as a marketing gimmick to advertise the launch of their actual book.

[Richard]

Yeah, I thought of that. I have a constitutional aversion to giving away my work, but I may do the same after a while.

[[deleted user]]

Can entirely understand why you would have that aversion :).

[Richard]

It's not totally rational, to be fair. I'm not dependent on writing to pay the bills, so I don't need to ride such a high horse. It's pride, I suppose.

[Christina]

I have one such novella. It does not move. Not for sale, not for free. No real idea why when the series is doing just fine.

[Richard]

Readers, eh? We'll never understand them.

[Jamie]

Longer works are exponentially more work to plot, edit, revise, proofread.