Amongst my Tweets today was one from 40 K saying they are looking for submissions of novelettes and novellas in the following areas:
- Sci-fi
- Mystery
- Thriller
- Horror
- Noir
- “Smart” romance
- Paranormal romance
- “Smart” chick-lit.
A couple of definitions to help you here:
Novelette (a term first used by Robert Schumann for a piece of music) – 7,500 to 17,500 words of prose fiction.
Novella – longer than a novelette at 17,500 to 40,000 words of prose. Some defintions give up to 70,000 words. Doesn’t have to be divided into chapters. Usually fewer but more complicated conflicts than a novel. Stephen King describes the novella as “an ill-defined and disreputable literary banana republic”!
And just for interst, a novel is prose fiction of 40,000 words of more, although usually word count is higher than this. The count depends on the genre to a large extent. Thrillers are often around 100,000 words, while a mystery or lit-chick might be 60,000 to 80,000.
There’s a detailed guide on how to submit a top-notch query to them here.
I also happened across an excellent blog here which has a breakdown of best-selling genres. Derek Canyon looked at genres of books selling 1000+ copies a month, and these are respectively romance 16%, paranormal 15%, thriller 12%, mystery 12%, fantasy 8%, science fiction 7%, young adult 5%, comedy 4%. Horror, crime, non-fiction and historical have 3% of this market each, while urban fantasy, occult, contemporary, dating, commercial and biography have 1% each. This is certainly something to take on board. He also found that authors with 3 books or more are the most likely to be making the big sales of each book. So get those books out there!
Great post!! I found it very helpful and motivational, as a current “starving author.” 😉 I linked to this post on my blog at: http://authorjess.blogspot.com/2011/08/7-tips-on-writing-bestselling-ebook.html
I’m shocked that horror isn’t more popular. Another poll confirmed this too. But I’m glad I’m one book away from “the big sales”.