Novella publishers?

[marthajones]

Does anyone here know of any presses that still publish novellas?  (As a stand-alone book, I mean.)  I know of a couple of university presses, but can't think of any mainstream publishers which are still open to this nearly-extinct format. 

Clearly, economic concerns make such books impractical; still, it saddens me.  I wonder who would publish "Of Mice and Men" or "Animal Farm" or "A Prisoner of Zenda" or "The Time Machine" if those books were written today.

This might be one benefit of digital books.  Extremely short and extremely long books may be less of a problem when they're not hampered by printing costs. 

What do you folks think?

[Andrew Gifford]

Check out the Dust Books catalog:

International Directory of Little Magazines & Small Presses 2009-2010 (International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses)

That's the latest edition, which comes out in a couple of weeks.  Wait to see if the price goes down at the end of the month, or see if you can snag it from your local bookstore.

Fulton's catalog is a wonderful resource for small presses and magazines that are still doing new and unique things.  But be prepared to comb through it searching for the right type of folks...

I think the novella is far from extinct... The terminology has changed somewhat, though.  "Novella" is, yes, a dirty word for the mainstream publishers.  So now publicity folks just call it a novel.  The old traditional length of a novel (300+ pages) is artificial to begin with.  There is no true definition, as far as the marketing department is concerned. 

Nor should the writer care.  As we move more and more into a new era of publishing, a 100 or 200 page novel is no problem.

[marthajones]

Thanks!  Great tip.

It's interesting...looking at my bookshelf it seems like the "ideal" (from a publisher's point of view) length for a mainstream book changes from decade to decade.  For instance, it's amazing how short most of the ones from the 70s are!

I agree with you that authors shouldn't worry about it too much -- obviously it's the story which dictates whether the tale is best told with 25,000 words or 80,000 words or...well, Infinite Jest -- but from a business point of view it's hard not to think about it. 

[Andrew Gifford]

The thing about publishing, and those changing trends, is that you're dealing with an insular industry that has desperately been trying to make money for 200 years.  There's an awful lot of monkey-see, monkey-do.

You'll find required book lengths to, increasingly, be a myth even from the business point of view.  Especially at the small press level. 

(That said, I wouldn't dip below 100-120 pages.)

Remember the term "short novel" when writing your pitch.  That's the current language.