Use Novella to sell book in progress?

[Theo]

Hey. I wrote a Novella that was a successful project. Well received and reviewed by a couple book blogs.

one book blog: https://zazaagatha.com/2018/02/09/rev...

link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

It gave me the confidence to tackle a bigger project. For the last 1.5 years I have been working on a book in the dark-ish drama comedy genre written in diary format. My writing style is like a dirty Fyodor Dostojevskij, although less talented of course.

1) Is it possible to sell an 80-page Novella?
2) Can it be used to showcase "talent" and thereby get funding for my existing project?
3) Is it best to just work on my existing book, get it done, because it's much easier to sell a book? I know publishing companies STRONGLY favour books.

best wishes
/Theo Gerken

[Keith]

We pretty much use word count 'in the industry' rather than page count, since the is highly variable based on lots of choices. The average words/page in published novels tends to run around 250, so 80 pages should be around 20K words.

1) It's possible to sell anything. That being said, only very rarely will conventional publishers consider anything less than novel length, particularly by debut authors. If you're self publishing, you could ask 99 cents or whatever. It's worth what people will pay for it, plain and simple.

2) About the only thing that really impresses agents/publishers is sales (generally at least 10K units). If you could prove many thousands of downloads that might also attract their attention, but lots of people download free things and never read them. And, for all practical purposes, until you become a regular best-selling author (e.g., Steven King), you will write everything on speculation and will only get an advance (if you get an advance) if the publisher accepts it.

3) Write what works for you and if querying doesn't work, consider self publishing. It's very hard for publishers to get the paying customer to pick up a novel in a book store, so expect it to be orders of magnitude harder if self publishing. But some people are successful, why not you?

[Theo]

Hey! Thx for the informative feedback. I guess that part of my problem is that I got all these mental issues, and I have a huge mental block when it comes to self-promotion. I do it for a while and then Gods just saps all energy from my body and it's like I become a zombie or something.

You have to be driven. You have to be consistent. I have some type of mild bipolar thing going on so my mood is never stable. I don't wake up the same person every morning, especially when it comes to motivation in particular. I'm just absolutely horrible at trying to sell myself. I feel like my route is spending a long time wiriting someting original and then letting someone else do the practical stuff. I can BARELY do my taxes every year, and that's done online here in Sweden and takes 5 minutes.

But I do understand what hard work is, I have mastered several skills in my life. That novella I ran through 5 waves of beta readers, about 8 each wave so 40 in total. I understand it's a lot of work to make something good. I sent my Novella in to KIndle Singles but got no response, they are cramped and I don't think they look at all submissions. But that would be perfect for me, something that sells itself, as long as the product is good.

I guess my best option is to finish this book. I do think there is a market for weird fiction written in a biography style, with an unreliable narrator. A little bit of Catcher in the Rye sprinkled with some Dice Clay.

I just need an idea of what my goals are so I know what's up.

[Keith]

Welcome to reality! Writing is the easy part. Editing is where masterpieces happen. But if no one ever reads it, did the tree in the empty forest make a sound when it fell? Querying is a disheartening process where you're lucky to get a 'no.' Really. Around a 50% response rate is common and no response means no. And big publishers won't take your submission without an agent. Smaller publishers will take direct submissions, but then you wind up in the 'slush pile' where some intern will be tasked to review from time to time. You got to appeal to that reader to have any chance to be considered by the publisher. It's not for the faint hearted.

But, as you correctly alluded, self publishing is all about rising above the noise. While, very occasionally, someone will write something that manages to catch fire, the odds are lottery like and it's not practical to rely on it. Self promotion is the only way to have a chance at success. And it's only a chance, as there are _so_ many people writing and self publishing that even an effective promotion campaign may not provide more profit than it cost. Oh, if you get a conventional publishing deal, you get to do all the same self promotion anyway! The publisher will typically put about the same marketing dollars as they do advance, and advances today are running $5K or even less.

But if you don't write a great story, none of that matters. And writing is about the only thing we, as authors, have control over. So write your material, get it polished and then decide what you want to do. Some people just write and get a handful of beta readers to look at it, then go write something else. No shame in that. But if you want people to read what you've written, and, further, pay for that privilege, and further still, pay enough you can write exclusively, then you have to climb that self promotion Everest, no getting around it.

Just to depress you further, 'success' typically means selling 25K copies in a year. And 90% of sales for 99% of books happen in the first year.

Write because you love it, not to make money. If you make money, it'll almost be by accident, even if you work your ass off.