Should "novelette" or "short story" be added to a title

[alhawke]

What do you think? I have a novelette I'm releasing that's only 60 pages. Should I add "novelette" so that I don't get nasty reviews saying he book was too short? It's mentioned in the blurb, but I'm considering adding it to the Amazon title ??

[Post-Crisis D]

I've seen arguments both ways on this.  I think it comes down to a matter of personal choice.

Wednesdays with Wizards
A Novelette

On the one hand, it makes things clear.

On the other hand, it sounds all fancy pants.

Of course, fancy pants aren't necessarily a bad thing which is where it comes back to personal choice.

[alhawke]

On the other hand, it sounds all fancy pants.

That'd definitely not be my intention. I'm trying to avert disappointment with readers expecting a novel.

Never thought of that. It could kind of sound like ___, A Novel

[PJ Post]

I'd say it comes down to branding. It's important to be consistent so your readers know what to expect, even with new stuff.

Do what's necessary (as best you can) to insure your fans have a positive experience. You can't worry about everyone else.

[elleoco]

The one short story I put out, I did add "Short Story" after the title and tried every way possible to make it clear that's what it was. And IMO it did no good. There are still a lot of reviews that say too short, that emphasize how short it is as if they were surprised and feel "shorted." It gave me the opinion that (a) many readers don't know what a short story is, and (b) they don't pay attention to anything they don't want or expect to see.

I'd still do it again, but I wouldn't expect it to have much effect.

The other sign of the same thing I see is readers describing a 60,000 novel as a short story. At least for the western historical romance I usually write evidently anything less than 90,000 words is short or even too short. Evidently that's just the way it is, and I've accepted that.

Maybe it's different in other genres.

Oh, and also -- I don't think most people know what a novelette is. Maybe they should be able to guess from the ette ending, but I wouldn't use that description and would go straight to novella, which readers do understand means shorter than a novel.

[APP]

Personally, I've added the word novelette to my books that fall within that range. I also mention it in my blurbs.

[Jeff Tanyard]

On the other hand, it sounds all fancy pants.

Oh, and also -- I don't think most people know what a novelette is.

I'd avoid the word "novelette" for both of these reasons.

In fact, that's what I did.  My short stories are technically novelettes, but I call them short stories for marketing purposes.

I put "a short story" on the cover but not in the title field of the product page.  I mention the word count in the blurb.

Not saying my way is the best way or anything, but that's what I do.

[alhawke]

Oh, and also -- I don't think most people know what a novelette is.

I'd avoid the word "novelette" for both of these reasons.
In fact, that's what I did.  My short stories are technically novelettes, but I call them short stories for marketing purposes.
I put "a short story" on the cover but not in the title field of the product page.  I mention the word count in the blurb.

That's a good idea, but I already have the cover made by a cover artist and, though "novelette" is written on it, it's super tiny and barely visible--unlike yours. Hmm... but you gave me another idea. Instead of the title or the cover, I could write on the first line of the summary section "A Short Story..."
I could even bold face it? For one reason or another, I didn't write taglines for these short stories. That certainly gives me a spot for it??

[Hopscotch]

Do what APP says.  Readers will appreciate the label.  Why worry further?

[Anarchist]

OP, just so you can see what other authors are doing...

Best Sellers in Two-Hour Short Reads

[alhawke]

OP, just so you can see what other authors are doing...

Best Sellers in Two-Hour Short Reads

Makes sense. Thanks for this.
Seems many authors also don't mention it at all. 

[Lorri Moulton]

I only use it with one book...and it's Victorian novelette.  It's much shorter than the other story in the series (and the ones that will follow), but I do not call them novels.

[Crystal]

Another vote for: people don't know what a novelette is. I'd use short story or novella, depending on the word count, if you really want to label.

[Post-Crisis D]

Do people know what a novella is anymore than a novelette?

Offhand, I can't remember which is shorter.  I think a novelette is shorter.  But both would tell me the book is shorter than a novel and if I wanted to know how much shorter, I'd look it up.

[alhawke]

A novelette is usually like 7k to 20k words vs a novella which is under 40k. But I'm sure that's not definitive and within debate. There's a lot of stuff we talk about as writers that the average reader really could care less about, which sounds like Crystal's point. I liked "novelette" because I'm so used to reading about novellas--from writing groups  I dunno... Haven't decided yet. But loving all the feedback. Thank you!

[djmills]

When I learnt publishing it was:
Short story < 7500
Novelette 750 - 17000 (but call it short story)
Novella 17500 - 40000
Short novel 40000 - 50000
Novel 50000 plus

Nowadays, anything goes, but I put short story on anything under 17000 words if sold individually, otherwise sell as a 5 story collection.

[Bill Hiatt]

The numbers vary somewhat depending on the source, but there seems to be general agreement about the order.

Flash Fiction: under 1000 words
Short Story: 1,000-7,500
Novelette: 7,501-17,500
Novella: 17,501-40,000
Novel: 40,000 and up (though a lot of sources say 50,000, just to be safe)

It's probably true that most readers don't really care about the fine lines. They just want to to avoid buying what they think is a novel only to find it's a short story. There actually seems to be more of a problem in nonfiction, where a lot of people don't allude to length in their description (though a customer could look on the product page and see easily enough what it was). For shorter nonfiction, I use a booklet label. When I first started out, I include labels like novelette in the title because I'd seen the practice among trad authors, but I think it's old-fashioned now.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I'm not a fan of even "a novel" unless there's a big risk of ambiguity in the title and it might be mistaken as non-fiction. We're already spoon-feeding readers with trigger warnings and caveats about content and genre in case some numpty feels offended and posts a poor review. Surely they can take responsibility for looking at the page count? At best, reference the length in the blurb perhaps.

[Bill Hiatt]

They should take responsibility for stuff like that. But I've seen bad reviews for short pieces because they were short. That's a little like giving an Italian restaurant a bad rating because it only serves Italian food. But I guess those readers didn't get the memo about looking at the page numbers listed right under their nose.