I'm closing in on the final polishes of my manuscript, an urban fantasy called REAPER (after three major edits and two thorough thrashings by beta readers). It is at an awkward work count that falls just short of "typical" novel length, but runs a bit long for most novellas: 47,000 words. I truly feel that expansion for the sake of word count is a mistake, so at 47,000 words it shall stay.
The problem is that most agents will not take on a novella. If there is one out there that you know of, please name drop. Knowing that self-publishing is not the route for me, I'm looking into small press/independent publishing. I've done a good amount of research, but one can never have too much information and I'm not going to make the mistake of rushing into delivering my work to someone I don't have faith in.
Have you any experience with small press? Any horror stories? Or better yet, one that you would recommend?
I appreciate any and all advice in this regard. Thanks!
There's Nouvella. I think they're more in the mainstream/literary camp, but they are a small press that exclusively publishes novellas. Their business model is interesting and the books themselves are awful cute, and do indeed fit into back pockets. In any event, it couldn't hurt you to check them out.
I know a guy that writes for Darkfuse. They seem to publish shorter novels sometimes. https://www.darkfuse.com/
It looks like their guidelines state novellas up to 35K and novels over 50K, so that still might not help you.
Most small presses will take on "awkward" word counts, from what I've seen. And there are dozens of them looking for horror/urban fantasty. Most are ebook first, print later. My zombie series is published with MuseItUp Publishing...they're really nice if a bit sloooooow to respond. Musa is super nice, and they take a wide range of genres. On the bigger side of things, Carina and Samhain both do a lot of romance, but are looking to branch out into other genres. They both take novellas.
Over on Twitter, if you search for the #MSWL hashtag, tons of small presses and agents posted about their wish lists this week....you may find a few there.
Whatever you do find, check them out on Preditors and Editors to look for any red flags. Not all the small presses are on there yet, but some are.
Good luck!
Here's a database of small presses that accept novellas, from Poets & Writers. You'd still have to sort through and see which ones would accept that length, but a lot of them are listed anyway.
http://www.pw.org/small_presses?genre=Fiction&subgenre=All&perpage=6&booktype=Novella&format=All
Do a search on duotrope.com. It costs money now to be a member, but you can do a free trial. Search under your genre and word count and check out the books that the publishers are putting out to see if any look good. Decide based on that. Maybe read some of the books that look interesting.
Also, when it comes to genre fiction, anything about 40,000 words is considered a novel. Literary fiction is higher. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count#In_fiction
If I were you, I would query agents and refer to your book as a 47,000 word urban fantasy novel. Check out the Ask the Agent column on this site because I think she may have answered someone's question about word count. If not, perhaps ask her yourself.
Could cuts help?
