Way to go

[Paul Gr]

Was looking at the best sellers on Amazon com and saw that the top five best sellers were all 50 to 60 pages long, which means they are novellas.
Or even novella-ettes, micro novellas, etc.
The author's name of all five books is (insert first name here) Koontz, as I recall.
I know that this has been discussed before, but it really does seem that novellas are the way to go.
Keep in mind that it was 4 am UK time 21/11/2019 when I looked, and things might have changed since then.

[notthatamanda]

I used to read Koontz back in the 80s. Wickapedia puts his net worth at 145 million.  It is interesting that he published the six books all on the same day, doing it himself (well himself ish, most likely, not with a trade publisher anyway) and doing only ebooks and audible.  He's 74 and has enough money to do whatever pleases him.  An author's success with this novella strategy would probably depend on how big a fan base they were starting with.

[Simon Haynes]

I agree it's about the size of the fan base, not the length of the novel (or novella.) You or I could put a novella up and get crickets, but if JK Rowling did it, it would be number one for weeks.

So, it's what you might call an outlier, and therefore not something I'd base my strategy on.

[LilyBLily]

If you are a household name, you can sell anything.

The problem I see with novellas is that they don't give as absorbing an experience as a novel does. This can leave the reader unsatisfied and leave the author unhappy with not having the space to really develop the story. Lose/lose. OTOH, if it's an erotic novella, a short read might be just what is wanted. That's the only area in which we keep hearing that novellas do well.

[123mlh]

I believe that's a combination of name recognition and also Amazon advertising power. Aren't those shorts published by some Amazon imprint?

[Bill Hiatt]

I believe that's a combination of name recognition and also Amazon advertising power. Aren't those shorts published by some Amazon imprint?

The last data we had on that from Data Guy showed Amazon Imprints expanding in market share, and from the number of ads I've seen, I can't imagine that's less true today.

I checked, and Koontz has some titles in Amazon Original Stories. They were released in mid-November, and one of them is currently #1 in the US Amazon store, as well as #8 on Amazon charts. They're selling at $1.99, have audio versions, and many reviews.

So if you're a household name and publish with an Amazon imprint, you can make a killing on novellas. I doubt that's a precedent that should influence our strategies, however.

Oh, by the way, the six books are a series.

[Jake]

I just went and downloaded all six books. They're in kindle unlimited under "read and listen for free." I won't read the books but I will listen to the audiobooks. That's why these are bestsellers. It's a massively popular author launching a new series in KU in both ebook AND audio format at the same time. Also, these aren't just single novellas, it's a series that was rapidly released. If you're a KU subscriber you can read or listen to one and then immediately move on to the next. It's probably one huge story that was split into chunks.