Books, Novellas and Novellettes

[Dr. Drib]

I believe your spelling of novelette [novellette] is spelled wrong.

PM myself or another Moderator if you would like title of the thread corrected.



Don
(Moderator)

[paul1403]

Originally Posted by tecweston

As someone who is just a reader and not a writer, word counts really don't mean anything to me. Could those numbers be translated to page counts?

I remember reading somewhere... it may have been an author's blog or something, maybe John Birmingham or John Scalzi... that the rule of thumb is 200 words per printed page.

If so, that would make
Short Story - up to 37.5 pages
Novellette - 37.5 to 87.5 pages
Novella - 87.5 to 200 pages
Novel - over 200 pages

So, your approximations were pretty close

Of course, I've never actually counted the words on a printed page, so I have no idea how close to real life this rule of thumb is

Paul
Canberra, Australia

[tompe]

Originally Posted by paul1403

I remember reading somewhere... it may have been an author's blog or something, maybe John Birmingham or John Scalzi... that the rule of thumb is 200 words per printed page.

If so, that would make
Short Story - up to 37.5 pages
Novellette - 37.5 to 87.5 pages
Novella - 87.5 to 200 pages
Novel - over 200 pages

And I think that in a novelette you usually can do thinks that are much harder to do in a short story. I fell when reading the Hugo nominations that you usually get different kind of works. Novellas are more like a short novels. But a novelette can be something that is different both from a short novel and a short story.

[emellaich]

I really prefer full length novels, and I've noticed some trends lately. There are independent authors that I think are selling bargain books because they are bypassing the publisher ($0.99 to $3.99). However, when I purchase them I find out they are really short novels. It's not easy to tell ahead of time because the size is padded with a couple of sample chapters from additional books.

One author whose work I really like uses this approach. If you price it 'by the word' its not really much of a bargain.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It is a legacy of the magazine days when an issue would feature a fix quota of short stories, articles, and novelletes, and either a novella or a serialized novel.

Here's a slightly different take:
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/wordcount.html

When it comes to fiction ebooks the whole word count thing is becoming irrelevant and we're seeing a breakdown of the categories into (mostly) short-stories and novels, with bigger novels (100K+) no longer scaring anybody.

(And, of course, with ebooks page count is meaningless to start with).

...which is why word count is MORE relevant than ever, really. (and should definitely be disclosed on any ebook's info page, same as page count for bound books)

EDIT: Oh, and http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/what-is-a-word/ for a decent definition of 'word' and how to count them. Had to find it in the Talk page of Wikipedia's word count article because, for some reason, no attempt at a definition was included. :P

[RDaneel54]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

...which is why word count is MORE relevant than ever, really. (and should definitely be disclosed on any ebook's info page, same as page count for bound books)

EDIT: Oh, and http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/what-is-a-word/ for a decent definition of 'word' and how to count them. Had to find it in the Talk page of Wikipedia's word count article because, for some reason, no attempt at a definition was included. :P

Good info. There is only so much space on a page, hopefully it is filled with relevance.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

...which is why word count is MORE relevant than ever, really. (and should definitely be disclosed on any ebook's info page, same as page count for bound books)

More relevant? Why?
Quantity over quantity?
You buy books by the word? Padding and excess verbiage doesn't bother you?

Oh-kay...
(shrug)

I can see labeling an ebook as a short story or novelette, but for novels, I can also see a 70K shorty being a better buy than a 200K epic.
The only meaningful break I see is between short-form (story/novelette) and long-form and as long as the author is honest about it I don't care which it is. The number? Just a number...

I just think that stories should be allowed to reach their natural length. If it only needs 50K, well, that's what it took.

[Abtacha]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

More relevant? Why?
Quantity over quantity?
You buy books by the word? Padding and excess verbiage doesn't bother you?

Oh-kay...
(shrug)

I can see labeling an ebook as a short story or novelette, but for novels, I can also see a 70K shorty being a better buy than a 200K epic.
The only meaningful break I see is between short-form (story/novelette) and long-form and as long as the author is honest about it I don't care which it is. The number? Just a number...

I just think that stories should be allowed to reach their natural length. If it only needs 50K, well, that's what it took.

I obviously can't speak for JD Gumby, but for me at least the length of a novel does indeed influence how much I'm willing to pay for it.
If for example there where two novels priced 8€, both in the same genre, both written (roughly) equally well, with about the same customer ratings, and so on...
Then yes, I'll most likely buy the 200k words one over the 80k one, simply because I'll get more time out of the longer one.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

More relevant? Why?
Quantity over quantity?
You buy books by the word? Padding and excess verbiage doesn't bother you?

Oh-kay...
(shrug)

I can see labeling an ebook as a short story or novelette, but for novels, I can also see a 70K shorty being a better buy than a 200K epic.

I like seeing the word count because I'm far more likely to want to buy and read a 70,000 word book than a 200,000 word epic. Wanting to see the word count doesn't only work in "the more, the better" way but also vice versa!

That said, some people do want "more words" for their buck; some people only like to read epics; some people prefer short novels; and some people happily buy and read any books of length but would prefer to know in advance what they're in for.

If you're wanting a light read for the next couple of evenings, it's easy enough to pick out a slim paper book from the shelf instead of the brick sitting next to it - not that easy to do with ebooks, especially those not yet bought.

Surely, having word count on the ebook page in shops won't bother those who don't need the information, while it might actually be handy to others?

[fjtorres]

Historically the cult of the word count has led to padding of Novellas, novels getting butchered, trilogies that aren't, novels that just... stop...
In the magazine era, when writers were paid by the word and editors needed to showhorn content in the available print space it was a necessary evil. In ebooks?
Not needed.

Some legacy categorization isn't worth maintaining.

[QuantumIguana]

There's no "cult". People just want to know how long the works are before they buy them.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

More relevant? Why?
Quantity over quantity?
You buy books by the word? Padding and excess verbiage doesn't bother you?

Oh-kay...
(shrug)

You're assuming that the verbiage is excess padding. I'm worried that the author may have written one 600-page book ("The Rutabagas") and is selling that as three separate 200-page books to maximize his revenue. ("Soil and Water: Book I of the Rutabagas trilogy").

I just think that stories should be allowed to reach their natural length. If it only needs 50K, well, that's what it took.

Agreed. But if it took 150K, I don't want to have to buy 3 50K books.

[bill_mchale]

I have to admit to being a bit of a fan of novellas in Science Fiction...

The way I see it, a short story is a story I read in a single sitting (Say reading time of less than 90 minutes for me (your reading time may vary)). Novellas Probably are read in two or three reasonable reading sessions (again at about 90 minutes each). Anything longer than that I see as a novel.

Ultimately, the most important distinction though is focus. In a short story, you can look at one thing; character, action or plot. In a novella you have enough time to touch on both plot and character, but sub-plots essentially will not exist. Novels can open up a lot more.

As for Novellettes? I don't see much unique about them. The shorter ones work like short stories, the longer ones like novellas.

In any case, in Science Fiction, some of the best works I have read were novellas.

--
Bill

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by tecweston

As someone who is just a reader and not a writer, word counts really don't mean anything to me. Could those numbers be translated to page counts?

I've never really heard of a novelette (except mentioned in a Belle & Sebastian song), but the way I've always thought it went was, a short story is up to 50 pages or so, a novella is 50-150 pages, and a novel is anything over that. Is that about right?

I think you are about right. An estimate I've heard somewhere is that there are about 250 words to a page, so if you do the math

40,000 words/250=160

and so on.
Its also a good way of figuring out pages in a Kindle book.

[stonetools]

As the world moves over to ebooks, such categories as short story, novelette, novella,and novel may disappear.

It looks like there may be just two lengths of ebook - the single ( pretty much anything up to 70 pages (17,500 words) and priced 99-3.99 and the "novel/nonfiction book ", which could be priced up to 14.99.