I am planning on writing novella series for a living as a full-time writer. But I am not sure it would be enough for an income to survive on. And I also believe it depends on what most readers prefer to read. I prefer shorts, but I can work harder to make a decent novel-length book for self-publishing. However, I am still an amateur trying to get into the writing business. What do you think?
Start small imo. If it grows into a novel then let it be a novel. You may find it useful to have several novella complete and have a picture of what would the be required to step up to longer projects. Plus, giving people shorter stories will make them more accessible and from any fan base you can start to write full-length novels. This is all assuming you want content out there in the public for commercial aims.
If you go full Novel, you can can self pub each chapter every month, and that will be a serial for a series approach. Some are starting to take previously pubbed novels and then selling them by the chapter to gain an audience. It keeps the author more prolific in the market, and it gives the potential reader a chance to approach your novel in a way that is more bite size, though the full novel should be cheaper, than the incremental 99cent chapter approach. I suppose you could do this with a Novella, but it will be shorter by about 25000-30000 words of that of a Novel (min. 800000 words). I agree with @badgerjelly that shorter works are more approachable to new readers, than novels and longer works in this day and age. Seems Series are far more popular than stand alone novels these days, though I am not too sure why. Might be that most like long running shows, and there fore like long running stories in written format too. IDK, people are weird.
I think it depends on a lot of factors. Such as what your genre is, what is popular in your genre, and what is popular on the site you plan to publish on. Romance is generally shorter reads. There is even a category on Amazon called "under two hour read" or something like that. Erotica is also another one that has a lot of success with novella and even shorter lengths. How much experience do you have with creating finished products? I started out with the intention of doing full length but have realized that that is a very hard undertaking while I'm still learning the business of self publishing and for the first time in my life, actually finishing pieces (haha). Speed is also a serious factor to consider if trying to make money to live on with self publishing. If you can get a novella a month that would be ideal because of the algorithm on Amazon (they drop books off the search results after 30 days). However, if no one reads novellas in your targeted audience it might not work out so well. My current plan is a series of ~45k word books. I wrote a 75k novel and am now overwhelmed by the editing process. Also, it's taking me a lot longer than I anticipated. Since this is my first time actually completing works, I want to take a step back and have novellas for my first series. It will also be a cheaper thing for me to publish (editing costs, buying a cheaper cover, etc), faster, and overall I think a better introduction into self publishing for me personally. I understand it's going to take me a while to see some significant turn around. No one can tell you what you'll make. It could be nothing, it could be 100,000. Most of it depends on how good at marketing you are. Don't rely on it making any money until you actually make it.
Depends on how you define "survive." Most traditionally published authors need day jobs, too. At least the ones I'm familiar with.
if your self publishing i'd suggest two novella length books to use as tasters, and then a series of novels, with the odd novella thrown in if you feel like it Why two I hear you ask... unless its the dog, which is possible Because you want one to be perma free on all platforms to give a barrier free entry to your work, and a second to give away as an incentive for those signing up to your mailing list (with the second you can either make it list exclusive or you can out it for sale and just give it to the list free) In terms of income there isnt that much difference between a novel and a novella... novellas tend to be $2.99 which is the floor for 70% royalty on amazon, making your royalty $2.09 whilst novels are generally either 3.99 or 4.99 giving a royalty of $2.70 or $3.50... What makes the income (allegedly I'm not quite there yet) is series read through - ie one advert sells book 1 and then people buy the rest because they love your writing.
I'm not so familiar with those genres in this regard but sci-fi/fantasy is a pretty popular. You will need to do research to know what is successful. I assumed you were talking about self publishing in my last post. If that's true then you need to follow the charts on Amazon in your genres and keep track of what sells. Read what sells and understand what each book has in common. Fans of certain genres go into a book expecting certain things and if you don't deliver, it will likely struggle to be popular. Read what doesn't do so well and understand what they failed to do. Best Seller Lists: Fantasy & Science Fiction: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/zgbs/books/25 Horror: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Horror/zgbs/digital-text/157060011 I also suggest downloading an extension to your browser that let's you see the books rank in several categories. It's very helpful: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ds-amazon-quick-view/jkompbllimaoekaogchhkmkdogpkhojg?hl=en Knowing their overall ranks on Amazon will help you determine if that genre has enough success for you to feel confident making money. It will also help you determine what book lengths are successful and what to charge. You will also start to notice trends. Certain topics come in and out of fashion and writing to those trends is what you'll want to do. Research, writing, publishing, and marketing are each their own job.
