# The Novella



## iralangstein (Apr 23, 2012)

The Novella has, or is, making a comeback.  Perfect for our times?


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## flipside (Dec 7, 2011)

It went away in the past?


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## jbcohen (Jul 29, 2011)

Unfortunately I do not agree.  If I am going to put out the dollars to buy and the time to read I preferr to have a full length novel.  But that's just my humble opinion.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

I have no problems with novellas as long as 1) I'm aware of the fact upfront and 2) they're priced accordingly.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

It's often been said that the novella is the perfect length for horror fiction. I'm not sure I entirely agree. Short horror stories are more memorable. Novella length is probably best for supernatural fantasy rather than straight horror.

But then there's hardboiled noir fiction. Some of the biggest classics in that genre -- _Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice_ -- are novella length.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I tend to not value reading by the pound, although I mainly read novels. What I really can't stand are those doorstopper bricks that are much longer than they need to be.

If a shorter title (20K words) seems interesting to me I have no problem buying it. The same for short stories. I don't equate a good read by how many pages in a book.


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## brianjanuary (Oct 18, 2011)

I enjoy novellas, just because they're quick reads. _Goodbye, Columbus_, for example, is a classic. And novellas are perfect for Kindle.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

brianjanuary said:


> I enjoy novellas, just because they're quick reads. _Goodbye, Columbus_, for example, is a classic. And novellas are perfect for Kindle.


And see, I enjoy longer forms. And I don't see why novellas are perfect for Kindle? If anything, the Kindle is made for long books that would be heavy to carry and hold while reading. A long book and a short story weigh the same on my Kindle.

Betsy


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## Todd Trumpet (Sep 7, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> And I don't see why novellas are perfect for Kindle?


One reason: Because publishers - including authors - can afford to publish them again. Purely from a distribution perspective, it costs the same to publish a long eBook as a short eBook - nearly nothing. Back in The Paper Days, a novella would cost nearly as much to print and distribute as a longer book, but could only command a much smaller price tag (or, conversely, required a price tag that deterred consumers), making them a bigger risk, proportionally, to publishers.



> If anything, the Kindle is made for long books that would be heavy to carry and hold while reading.


Yes, but even more significantly:



> A long book and a short story weigh the same on my Kindle.


That's the point: The Kindle is great for _all _lengths of the written word - and _all _lengths are welcome!

Provided, of course, that:



Rick Gualtieri said:


> 1) I'm aware of the fact upfront and 2) they're priced accordingly.


The true genius of the Kindle is that, like the internet itself, it has made _everything_ so easily available to _everyone_.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I think it's going to catch on!

Todd


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Todd Trumpet said:


> The true genius of the Kindle is that, like the internet itself, it has made _everything_ so easily available to _everyone_.
> 
> I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I think it's going to catch on!
> 
> Todd


You might be right, Todd. LOL!


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## Steverino (Jan 5, 2011)

I think novellas and short novels got scarce for a half-century there.  Darn paper.  It's great that they are back -- I love reading them.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> And I don't see why novellas are perfect for Kindle? If anything, the Kindle is made for long books that would be heavy to carry and hold while reading. A long book and a short story weigh the same on my Kindle.


Long long ago, in the days before iPads and Snooki cellphones that play 1080p video, if you wanted to read a book, you went to a bookstore. Remember bookstores? Oh, lass, they were magical places! Shelf after shelf crammed tight with books, stretching on as far as the mind could fathom.

The thing was, though, that bookstores, for all their magic and their wonder and their big comfy chairs, weren't perfect places. There were some things that they didn't like to stock on their shelves, and some things they refused to stock on their shelves, and some things they didn't even have the _opportunity_ to stock upon their dusty shelves, because it wasn't being published, for this or that or some other foolish reason.

And one of the things they didn't like to stock - refused to stock outright, in many instances - was books without spines, or without their title and author on the spine. It was a draconian policy, it's true; arbitrary and mean-spirited, and it caused no amount of wailing and anguish and frustration for cookbook publishers and craft-book publishers and anyone else who thought that spiral bindings were a good idea.

But it wasn't just "Fifty Years of Fun Fruitcakes: Baking With the Ladies of Beaver Lodge" that was unfairly censored by those all-knowing bookstores. Poetry chapbooks fell victim to the spine standard all the time. So did prose chapbooks... which tend to be - what were we talking about, again? Oh yes, short stories and novellas. When your book(let) is 5mm thick, as often as not you don't print anything on the spine, if there even is one. And thus the big bookstores refused to carry it, and the little bookstores were extremely reluctant to.

Ah, but kiddo, that was all five years ago! Nowadays folks read on these handheld computer thingies, and books don't _have_ spines at all, whether they're a thousand pages long or just twenty. Nowadays, why, a writer can let their yarn be as long as it needs to be, with little worry about whether it's unpublishable and unsalable just because of its length! No more gluing on a superfluous character and an extra half a plot just to (literally) bulk out your book a bit. And lo and behold, readers can actually buy and read individual pieces of shorter fiction nowadays, because it's actually being published and made available for sale. No more scouring anthologies or questionable magazines amid honest protestations of "I just read it for the short fiction!"

We lives in wondrous and amazing times for the short-fiction writer and reader, lass. Wondrous and amazing times.


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## Neil Ostroff (Mar 25, 2011)

I think cheap, quick eread's are the new thing. People want a full story that they can read entirely on a two hour plane trip.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

Now that the Kindle has made writing them viable, I think it is a sign of the times.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I didn't really like novellas before getting a Kindle and I haven't changed that opinion after. For me I still read the same books, just a different format. Not sure why there would be any change in those habits just because of that format. 

But I am with Betsy, e readers are perfect for long novels. I have a bookshelf full of Stephen King hard covers. Paperbacks on those would have way to small of print for me. But I only look at them now, reading will be done on the Kindle. 
I read 4 of the Outlander novels and those are pretty long too. But I hadn't actually seen them until I searched one out at the book store. Yikes those are heavy clunkers. Way better on the kindle. No tired arms, sore wrists and peeved off cat. 

I can see that putting out novellas in e format is more practical than it is in paper. I rarely read novellas, but those that I do read would still work in paper. Anything that is much shorter is more like short story for me and those would have to be in one volume, like King's stories in one book. 

Only thing right now I don't like is the masses of novellas and short stories and such mixed in with regular length books in the store. Its not always mentioned that it is a short work and the file size doesn't work always either. Gets tiresome having to read reviews to see if a reader mentions short. The page count estimation from Amazon at least helps some, but its not on all works. 

So it would help if authors and publishers would mention if it is a short story or a novella, some page count like that. 

As long as they are well marked, everyone can find what they looking for.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I really don't care for many stand-alone novella length stories because they don't take me a day to read in many cases and I'm back to looking for something else.  Now a novella within a group or as an anchor to a series of short stories I'm fine with.  I want to feel like a single book will take me a couple few days to read.  I just read the first three books in Keith Laumer's 'Worlds of the Imperium' series as a single book and putting three together to make a book 7800 locations long was nice.  Each individually are just an evening's read ...


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Speaking of Stephen King, some of my favorite works of his are novellas: _Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption_, _The Body_, _The Breathing Method_, and the last story in _Full Dark, No Stars _ (sorry the actual name of the story slips my mind, but it's the one about Beadie for those of you who may have read it.) I've never really thought much about the length of stories, as long as the writer does a reasonable job creating memorable characters and tying up the plot threads in a satisfying way. Although I do like door-stopper novels if it's a story and world I can get lost in and never want to end, I do get annoyed if a novel is padded with a bunch of filler (i.e. anything that doesn't advance plot or character development). A novel can be a thousand pages long and be the best thing I've ever read--as long as there's nothing extraneous. I put novels and novellas down when there's too much extraneous stuff and never pick them back up.


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

Personally, I love novellas and shorter works. There's so much to read, so I like to add in shorter works when I'm reading a longer one. It's a nice break of pace, and ebooks really are great for all lengths of works.


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## Picky Cat Editing (Dec 26, 2011)

I've always liked short stories and novellas, and am thrilled that the eBook revolution has allowed that format to grow again. Of course, I love full-length novels too, but sometimes it's nice to have a great read that doesn't take a week to get through. My wife, on the other hand, isn't into the shorter works at all... so it kind of chaps her that I write shorts and novellas   Guess I'll have to write an actual novel one of these days just to make her happy  

Incidentally, I agree that price really isn't an option as long as you know what you're getting. I used to go by file size but learned that fancy fonts and images will boost that number so it's a poor measuring stick. Fortunately, I do see more short story writers including word counts these days, which is a great trend that will hopefully grow.


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## iralangstein (Apr 23, 2012)

Happy to see so many responses to my post.  I think quality trumps quantity here,
in that the value of a story is its essence and not it's length.  So for me,
I rarely compare a story's length to its price.  Good discussion.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I have enjoyed many novellas, but almost without exception as parts of collections (often with short stories by the same author, or themed collections by multiple authors). However, I have read at least a couple stand-alone novellas on my Kindle, and have no problem with that as long as (a) it's clearly marketed as a novella and (b) is priced accordingly (e.g. I'm not likely to spend over $2.00 for it).


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

I like novellas. I have a limited about of free time to read. But it doesn't really matter whether or not we like them, e-readers have made the novella viable again.

From Wikipedia:



> Famous English language novellas include John W. Campbell's Who Goes There?, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, George Orwell's Animal Farm, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Isaac Asimov's Nightfall, Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.
> 
> French examples of the novella include Voltaire's Candide.


Those look like some worthy works to me.


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## gspeer (Nov 10, 2010)

Can someone define what makes a book/story a "novella" instead of a "novel"?

I'm actually serious about the question. Specifically, I think outside the world of writers, "novella" means almost nothing to the reading public. A book buyer (whether ebook or paper) may be more likely to think of "novels" and "short novels."

Within the publishing industry, I suppose there are word count targets some publisher(s) has(have) defined as "novella," but I don't know those specs either.

I never really thought about this until I picked up a fun little "how to" on novel writing a couple of days ago where the author makes the case for thinking "novel" and "short novel" instead of novella -- specifically because he sees "novella" as a made-up term with uncalled for stigma attached to it.

I'd be interesting in hearing a good explanation/discussion of "novella."

Thanks.

Gary


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

There isn't a universally agreed upon definition on the cutoff between a novel and a novella, but here is the criteria the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America uses.

Novel over 40,000 words 
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words 
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words 
Short story under 7,500 words

Novella is no more a made up word than any other word. I think many readers are unfamiliar with the word, but it is a useful distinction. When I buy a book, the length of it is one factor in deciding how muhc I am willing to pay. Their unfamiliarity with the term may have less to do with the term itself than with the novella falling out of favor in recent decades. To me, the term "short novel" implies a book that is novel length, but on the shorter end of the novel range. I would call a 50,000 word book a short novel, but I wouldn't call a 25,000 word book a short novel.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I am just a reader and I know what a novella is. A short novel to me is like 200 pages, that is still a book. A novella is much shorter.

I do see a trend now in the Kindle store of passing on novella length stuff as short novels. That is why I hope amazon puts on their estimated page count on all books eventually. 

I just want stuff properly marked. I think word count varies a bit by genre, but as a reader, I don't really care about word count, I want pages.  Heck, I am tuned in to locations now with my Kindle.  . I can tell by those if a book is average length or really long or on the shorter side. 

I don't really know what a novella would look like in the book store, do they print those single or are they usually packaged as a collection or anthology? I read so few novellas that I wouldn't know. Those I do read are from known authors and usually to set up a series or such. 

I just looked at the last novella I bought, its a new release by Courtney Milan and she says the length is a third of a full novel and 32500 words. So I guess that is a novella length.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Friendly reminder:  as this thread is in the book Corner, authors should please refrain from mentioning your books or that you've written novellas or anything of the sort as it will be construed as self-promotion and deleted. 

On topic:  I mostly read longer stuff, but do like a short thing now and then to cleanse the palate.  I do want to know that what I'm picking up is short though . . . so I pay attention to locations or pages or just how many dots it shows on the home page.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

If you've ever read A Christmas Carol, you've read a novella. At 28,944 words, it's solidly in the novella category. Animal Farm was only 112 pages.


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## gspeer (Nov 10, 2010)

Thanks to those of you who enlightened me. I appreciate getting the input, although I personally think "short novel" is pretty much the same as "novella" in practical terms. Certainly a work of literature that has had the literary and cultural impact of "Animal Farm" is thought of by everyone who knows it as a "novel" and not really a "novella," though it would fit that category length-wise.

Very interesting, thanks. (And I've copied down that word count info on novel-novella, etc. Useful!)

Gary


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

There used to be a Wikipedia page (now long deleted, alas) about 'length of a book' or something like that, which quoted someone moderately respectable - maybe Jane Smiley? - as giving a slightly more nuanced definition of novella and novelette than simply word count. 

It was something to the effect that a novella is - or should be - defined structurally, not by word count alone; that it was simpler in terms of plots and (particularly) subplots than a novel, and, perhaps most importantly, ends "on the brink of change", or something like that. A novelette, by contrast, was - or should be, again, according to whomever - defined structurally; something with more plot development than a short story, but which still has no chapters and is meant to be read in one sitting.

I'm a little hazy on the details, but that's how I remember it, anyway. I do like the idea that it's more than mere wordiness which defines the form, but I remember thinking the whole thing sounded rather subjective and likely to generate lots of arguments and disagreements and exceptions to the rules.

I also honestly question the real-world utility of having all these labels; the SFWA definitions exist pretty much just to create categories for an award, after all. When you can have flash fiction, short fiction, novelettes, novellas, short novels, novels, epic novels, plus collections, anthologies, serials, and epistolary forms of all of the above, I can't help if anyone other than manufacturers of headache medicine benefit...


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Well never having read either Animal Farm or A Christmas Carol, I can only go by the page count and based on that, those would be novellas to me.  . Not that there is anything wrong with that.


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## A. S. Warwick (Jan 14, 2011)

As mentioned, many of the classic 'novels' of the past are in fact novellas.

The huge stonking novels of today are way to big for my tastes - I much prefer novella length books.


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## iralangstein (Apr 23, 2012)

In a word where "trilogies" and "series" seem to rule, the stand alone novella
is a unique and, I might add, a more valuable, spontaneous addition...


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## William Woodall (Jun 8, 2009)

I don't particularly care about the length of what I'm reading, at least not when it comes to the enjoyment aspect of the thing.

But, there are other considerations, too.  The main one is time.  It takes longer to read a novel than it does to read a short story, and for that reason I'm getting more for my money.  So it's not that I'd mind buying shorter work, but I'd expect to pay less for it.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I guess I'm weighing how much an hour's worth of literary pleasure is worth, and then I judge how much I'm willing to pay for a book based on how long it would take me to read it.  That may not be an entirely logical attitude, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who subconsciously holds it.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

No doubts here that the Kindle platform has raised the novella from the dead.  Many novels clearly should have been novellas, but the market pressure to deliver heft at the bookstore decided otherwise.  I'll gladly spend a few hours with several pounds of great lit in my hammock on a summer Sunday, but I'd rather spend my flight to NY with something short and sweet on my Kindle.


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## henryandhenrybooks (Sep 6, 2011)

I enjoy novellas. I believe they definitely have there place.  In the fast paced world with people's attention spans shrinking,
it seems they'd be very popular.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

I enjoy shorter length works as well as the longer ones. It's nothing to do with how much time I have available or my attention span, it's more that many stories I've read seem to be padded out to fit an arbitrary length that the publishers want instead of what would be more natural for the story. The author should be free of artificial constraints on story length (as long as they use good judgement and avoid the bloat that we sometimes see).

Can anyone point out a shorter work that was expanded into a novel and worked better as a novel? Not a rhetorical question, I'd be interested. I can't think of one. I can think of _Flowers for Algernon_ that was a great short work, and was much less successful as a longer work (to me).

I regret the loss of the market for short stories (no, I'm not an author). The Sherlock Holmes stories were mostly short stories. And they were perfect in that form.

Is there a real difference between a 300-page novel and a 300-page collection of two or three (or a dozen) _related_ shorter works by the same author? I'll pose a question for those that don't like to read shorter works: Does it make a difference if it's a novel or a collection of shorter works all featuring the same characters, such as Nero Wolfe, Lord Darcy, Sherlock Holmes, Glencannon, Gil the Arm, etc? Is it that you don't like shorter works, or is it that you want to spend more time in the same world with the same characters? Certainly the Nero Wolfe, Sherlock Holmes, and similar collections would allow you to do that.

It may be that we are/were imprinted as young readers. I started reading back in the early 1950s, when novels I read were maybe 150-250 pages long. That was normal to me. The current trend of 400+ novels just looks like bloatware, in the main. Yes, there are exceptions. Not everything fits into convenient categories.

Just some thoughts.

Mike


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I just don't like shorter stuff. To me there is a huge difference between one full book at 300 pages and 3 or 4 stories together at 300 pages. They are still short stories. I do like to spend time with the characters and stories. I do that all the time reading series. But they are still all full sized books in the series. 

I have always read mostly books that are to me regular length. I say that not as a put down, but just how I classify them. To me there is nothing bloated or excessively long. They are just regular sized to me.  . I think the only time I have seem some "bloating" was when I was reading the Outlander series. Those were like 20000 locations on my Kindle so I think they are 800+ pages each. My eyes did glaze over several times when descriptions of flora and fauna went on a bit too long.  

I pretty much read mostly adult stuff, even as a kid and whatever was in my parents bookshelf and family members. Most of that wasn't on the shorter side. I think Karl May might have been shorter works, I just can't remember. I did start on those I believe. That isn't to say I didn't read shorter novels, but I just prefer longer ones. Just a matter of preference. 

I do still read something shorter from time to time. To me shorter is like 200 pages. I am also known to read some novellas, if they are on the longer side and from specific authors setting up a series and such. As in one third of a regular sized novel. 

But the majority of what I read and always have read, are thicker books. Kindle reading has not changed that. I still read the same books. Probably on average between 320 and 450 pages. I think most books fall into that I read. But I do better with locations as not all books have pages listed on my Kindle. I can see the locations and know right away how long its going to be. 

I think there is plenty for everyone though. There is lots and lots of shorter stuff popping up. To me its a little annoying as I have to read every single description sometimes to make sure its a fill size book, but for those looking for them, they are there.


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## Kathelm (Sep 27, 2010)

I'm glad novellas are back.  Free time is at a premium these days, and I'd rather spend it with a lot of short things than a few long ones.  I'm the same with video games.  I have a long list, and I'd like to see the bottom someday.


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## Meb Bryant (Jun 27, 2011)

Before the ebook evolution, when I had to travel to a book store or library to satiate my literary fever, I only read full-length novels. Now, with the availability of any book at a reasonable price, I am reading short stories, novellas, and novels.

A literary buffet...


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## Alpha72 (May 9, 2012)

I'd say so, especially since ebooks don't translate well to physical pages. I think people are just looking for good stories and strong writing rather than a specific length.


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## smallblondehippy (Jan 20, 2012)

I think it's all about variety and choice. Before I got my Kindle, I'd read novels and that would pretty much be it. But now I've started reading shorts and novellas. If we've got one thing to thank ereaders for, it's that we're no longer at the mercy of the big 6 publishers, and what they get into bookshops. 

Long live the ereader!


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