Please join us in welcoming Shona Husk to the blog today to discuss novellas and e-publishing.

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Novellas and e-publishing

When I started writing it was for fun, gradually my focus shifted and I wanted to be published and see my name on the cover of a book. I’d written two novels (that now sit in a box at the back of a cupboard) before I had an epiphany. That epiphany was brought on by losing my job in the GFC, but I realized two things:

1—it was taking me a year to write a novel and that I would have to write lots of them to get to a publishable standard. I needed to compress my timeline and get better faster. I didn’t know when I was going to get another job but I wanted to get the most out of the time I had.

2—I had started reading a lot of novellas partly because I had two young children and they were a quick and easy read, partly because I had started thinking about epublishing and was reading to see what they were buying.

The obvious conclusion was why didn’t I write a novella?

So I did. I switched from writing eighty thousand word novels to twenty thousand word novellas. I selected a couple of epublishers that I’d like to write for and then challenged myself to write a new novella every two weeks (first draft), keeping in mind their guidelines. Without a day job this was doable and it gave me the chance to play with lots of characters and lots of different conflicts in a short amount of time.

While novellas and novels are different they are also the same. Both need great character and plot. The difference is in a novella there are no subplots and secondary characters to get tangled in. I wrote and edited and started submitting and in 2010 my first novella was published. ‘An Elemental Tail’ was closely followed by ‘Boyfriend in a Bottle’ and ‘How to Breathe Fire’.

I did go back to writing novels but I applied everything I’d learned about story writing and from my editors and used it. My next novel ‘The Goblin King’ sold to Sourcebooks. While I’ve made the jump from digital first publishing to print I still write novellas for Ellora’s Cave, Samhain and Carina Press.

I like e-publishing because it is faster to go from acquisition to publication, but also because not every idea I have is a novel. I like being able to try out something different. I sold to Ellora’s Cave because I dared myself to write erotic romance (reading it and writing it are very different things). By writing for a few different publishers I can place stories that range from smoking hot to romantic elements, but all my stories are paranormal or fantasy and all have a HEA.

While the path I took isn’t for everyone, it was perfect for me. The only thing I do recommend is read books from the publisher you are targeting…and if anyone asks why you have so many books on your ereader you can call it research 😉

Many thanks to Shona Husk for stopping by today to share her e-publishing story with us. She’s got a few titles out in e-bookstores everywhere so make sure you grab yourself a copy and enjoy! Curious to see her backlist? Check it out here.

Happy reading!