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Is selling Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories, novelettes and novellas a viable business?

Selling science fiction and fantasy short stories, novelette and novellas - viable business?
Hi everyone!
I have a question about short stories, novelettes and novellas: which of these formats works in the market for science fiction and fantasy stories? Can you create a profitable business writing 20,000 word (or less) science fiction novellets or do they necessarily have to be longer?
Thanks!
PD: A guide for those who don't know what I'm talking about:
Short story: over 1,000 words, usually less than 10,000.
Novelette: 7,500 to 19,000 words.
Novella: 10,000 to 40,000 words.

Is selling Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories, novelettes and novellas a viable business?

Embracing the Digital Age:

Is selling Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories, novelettes and novellas a viable business?

In traditional publishing?

No.

However...

Gone are the days when aspiring authors had to navigate the treacherous waters of traditional publishing. With the advent of digital platforms and self-publishing options, you now have the power to bypass the gatekeepers and connect directly with your audience. The internet has opened up a universe of opportunities for aspiring authors, giving you the freedom to bring your stories to life and share them with readers worldwide.

But in self-publishing? 

Is selling Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories, novelettes and novellas a viable business?

Yes, you can. I know you can, because this is exactly what I do. Writing 21k word shorts in the Fantasy genre is exactly what I do as my full-time job.

Aspiring writers can now bypass traditional gatekeepers and connect directly with readers who crave their unique storytelling style. Selling science fiction and fantasy short stories could provide an avenue to not only express your creativity but also generate income.

Note, that I say COULD. Science Fiction and Fantasy a extremely difficult genres to sell even in the full length novel format, and much more so in the short formats. I do NOT say that you WILL be able to make this your full time income. I only say that it IS possible and thus you COULD do do. I will point out however that MANY have tried and failed. Very few have succeed. While you CAN succeed, MOST WON'T. Unfortunately, that is just the harsh reality of the writing business, regardless of genre. 

And so I caution you to go into this level headed. Yes, dream big, set goals, aim high, have huge hopes, but also, stay grounded in reality here. By that I mean: DO NOT quit your day job, and rush blindly into this business. You will NEED that day job to support you for the first few (or several) years of your writing venture. That's just how the writing business is. It takes several years to get established and build your foundation (aka build your backlog) before you can expect to see an income start coming in.

There is NO get-rich-quick shortcuts to success when it comes to writing. Writing is always going to be a long slow road regardless of genre or format. And if you go into writing, knowing this from the start, then you set yourself up for better chances of success in the long run. Balancing creative fulfillment with the practicalities of running a business is a delicate dance that every aspiring author must navigate.

Now, with that out of the way, let's dive into the fascinating world of Science Fiction and Fantasy literature and uncover the hidden business potential it holds.

Finding Your Niche:

If you're a fan of Speculative Fiction, you may have wondered if your storytelling skills could translate into a viable income stream.

In the vast landscape of science fiction and fantasy, finding your niche is crucial. By exploring subgenres and understanding the market demand, you can carve out a unique space for your stories. Whether you're drawn to space opera adventures, magical realms, or dystopian futures, identifying your target audience will help you tailor your storytelling and marketing strategies accordingly.

My genres vary from one week to the next. Cozy Fantasy, Magical Realism, Cosmic Horror, Space Fantasy, Gothic Fantasy, Portal Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, SlipStream, and others of that nature are what I write. The above listed genres are not all I write. I also write Westerns, Drama, Sweet Romance, Inspirational and many more. There is no genre that I don’t write, other than Erotica and Steamy Romance (I do not write sex scenes at all, so have no interest in writing the two genres that focus on sex). As I am a LDS/Mormon, none of my books contain sex. Thus why I do not write Erotica or Steamy Romance.

Imagine getting paid for crafting captivating short stories that transport readers to otherworldly realms of wonder and adventure. 

First and foremost, recognize that the demand for captivating science fiction and fantasy stories remains strong. These genres have a loyal and dedicated fan base, eager to devour tales that transport them to distant galaxies, mythical realms, and epic adventures. By tapping into this demand, you have the opportunity to carve a niche for yourself as an author, captivating readers with your unique storytelling voice.

One advantage of selling short stories is the ability to create bite-sized adventures that cater to readers' preferences for quick, immersive experiences. In a fast-paced world, where time is a valuable commodity, short stories allow readers to indulge in imaginative escapes without committing to a lengthy novel. By honing your skills in crafting concise and impactful narratives, you can deliver captivating tales that leave readers yearning for more.

When I first started, I used to write novels, as well as novellas, and short stories. Over time, I found that I struggled to get stories long enough to be a novel, and found that the bulk of my stories just naturally ended around 21k ords, so I eventually switched to writing predominantly novellas, just because 9 times out of 10 my stories would end in the 17k to 35k word range, with the bulk ending right on 21k. So, the 21k word story ended up being my personal comfort zone.

Note, I do not write serial format. Every story I write is a fully standalone story.

There is, however, a “connecting series” going on. By this I mean, all of my stories take place in the same solar system/world/universe. There are five inhabited planets. There have been over 75 different main characters (one per story) over the course of all the stories. So, it’s technically a series, in that it’s one world. But it’s also not a “standard” series because I literally grab any random person from that world, in any region/city of that world and just tell their story. Thus, things like the planet, cultures, governments, etc show up in many stories, but the characters are different in each story.

My bestselling stories are however, stories which follow the life of one particular character (a merchant who travels all over all regions of all 5 planets), simply because readers liked this character. And again, his stories are all standalone, not numbered, do not continue, and readers can read them in any order.

The thing is, I’m a world builder who is obsessed with endlessly expanding my world, and every time I add a new region, culture, holiday, whatever, I flesh out that additional detail by writing a story about it. And, I never went into this striving to make an income from it.

Is it possible to turn your creativity into a sustainable business model that allows you to pursue your passion full-time?

For me personally, yes, it is a viable business.

HOWEVER… I also have an insanely massive backlog (138 novels, 423 novellas, and 2,000+ short stories) which I have accumulated over a period of publishing to Amazon since 2010 (now 13 years), and I did NOT see even $100 a month income until after I had crossed the two hundred title threshold in 2016 (6 years into doing this).

I do not market. No ads. No newsletter. No social media. Nothing.

While I do put effort into editing and cover art, neither are professional, typos make it through often, and my covers are on par with what you’d expect from TSR vintage 1st ed D&D.

I sell on average around 2k copies a month, but rarely do I sell over 5 ebook editions per month. I usually sell 100 to 300 hardcovers per month, and 1,500 to 1,800 paperbacks per month. I’ve NEVER had a month of my ebook sales reaching ten copies sold that month.

The “also boughts” under my books are predominantly TTRPGs, especially GURPS, 2nd ed AD&D, 2nd AD&D SpellJammer, and 2nd AD&D RavenLoft, so it is apparent that my readers are largely tabletop gamers who play AD&D.

With the rise of digital platforms and self-publishing options, the opportunities for aspiring authors have expanded significantly. However, it's important to consider factors such as genre trends, reader expectations, and effective promotion to stand out from the crowd.

In today's digital landscape, authors have the advantage of leveraging various platforms to reach their target readership directly. I do not use Kindle Unlimited/KU, so I’m on Amazon, DriveThruRPG, LuLu, GumRoad, RoyalRoad, FictionPress. ScribbleHub, DeviantArt, and others. 

My current writing schedule is I publish a new story of around 21k words, about every 10 days, publishing around 40 stories a year.

I do not do bundles, collections, or anthologies. Every book is just ONE story.

I set my prices so that I earn $2 per sale, regardless of word count. (Which means most of my print editions are $24+ for only 40 pages of 9x6 book… yes, you have to price INSANELY high to earn $2 per sale on print editions, but yes, readers DO pay $24 for only 40 pages… 21k words in a 9x6 paperback is exactly 40 printed pages, btw, so MOST of my books are exactly forty pages long). This also means that NONE of my ebooks are under $2.99.

So, YES, you CAN make this your full-time income, BUT it takes years of WEEKLY uploads and a gruelling 8 to 12+ hours daily writing grind to do it.

It’s not easy.

It’s not quick.

The hours are more per day/week than you’d work at a 9-5 job, for pay that is VERY much below minimum wage.

So, for me, it became a full-time income, simply because I’m just obsessed with writing LOTS of little stories about my world as I worldbuild.

The lure of sharing your fantastical worlds with a hungry audience while earning a living from your writing is an appealing proposition, but, it's also a very difficult one to find success in.

The thing is, I never set out to make money. I was just writing for the fun of writing, and uploading what I wrote to Amazon on the off chance someone would find it and read it. So, absolutely no marketing went into this either. However, after 6 years of this, I have more then two hundred titles, and with a new release each week, a few people would buy the new release, like it, come back, and weirdly… buy the ENTIRE backlog … yes ALL two hundred+ books in a single order… and this kept happening, and, then those same people would come back and buy the new release each week after… and slowly it snowballed, eventually reaching the point it did today.

BUT… those first 6 years, saw little to no sales most months. I would go weeks, even months between even one sale.

Had I been in this for the money, I would have given up a few months in.

Had I set out to make writing a career, I never would have spent 3 years, let alone 6 years writing without pay.

The ONLY reason I succeeded in this, is BECAUSE I was writing for the passionate love of writing. I love world building. I love writing little stories about the world I built. And I was going to write those stories if I got paid for it or not.

BECAUSE I had no goal of making money, BECAUSE I was writing for the love of what I wrote, I could obsessively write enough stories over enough years, without burn out, without it being a grind, that eventually (6 years and 200+ titles later) I had a backlog big enough that the sales did start to become an income.

So, I say, YES, you CAN make writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy shorts your full time income, I know you can, because I have done exactly this.

BUT… I also say that it’s not easy, the money will take years before it starts to be significant, you’ll need to spend years amassing a mega huge backlog, AND most importantly, you simply need to be so in love with writing the shorts, that you can happily and willingly write them for several years, releasing new ones WEEKLY without pay, for probably 5 or more years BEFORE you start to see it become a viable income option.

I suppose it would depend on your genre, but what personal experience has taught me is that nothing sells your first book better than one hundred plus other books in your backlog.

I don't use social media or marketing, so, the only way readers find my books is just random organic search results on Amazon. Keeping in mind, I never went into this trying to sell books or make money. I was just writing as a hobby and slapping books up, so I wasn't trying to get sales.

I started uploading books to Amazon KDP in 2010, and because I am just obsessed with writing, I was uploading a new book about every ten days, taking off November and December.

I was getting 2 sales here, ten sales there, months with no sales, and then in 2014, I crossed one hundred books uploaded to Amazon and suddenly I started seeing more sales. Instead of 2 sales one month, ten sales the next month, it became two sales today, ten sales tomorrow... it was night and day, going from 10 sales monthly to ten sales daily and it just snowballed from there... until in 2016... it jumped again, when I crossed two hundred titles uploaded, and then boom, it went from ten sales today, twelve sales tomorrow, to a hundred sales today, another hundred sales tomorrow.

What happened?

Well, I write a series, sort of. (Not a serial, so its not one long story with to be continued parts that have to be read in 1, 2, 3, order.). Each story is fully standalone, can be read in any order, and always features the same main character. It was done the way Star Trek OTS did it, where every story follows the same set of characters, but it's always its own story, not connecting to any other story in the set. Each story is fairly short, 10k to 35k words, so not long enough to be novels, mostly 20k word range, so mostly short stories, thus why it's easy to be publishing a new one every ten days.

So, what happened was, in 2010, I had only around 30 books published, so not hardly big enough to classify as a backlog at all and with only thirty titles, not enough to attract the attention of collectors (readers who collect full sets... if you ask them MOST collectors say they refuse to buy anything from an author with fewer than one hundred titles about a single character... collectors want 100+ books about a single same character so they can collect everything about him, thus why they call themselves collectors. ).

Understanding the market demand, competition, and readers' preferences are crucial elements in determining the potential for success.

Building an Engaged Readership:

Backlog method of marketing is targeting the type of reader known as collectors, so, in order for backlog method to work, you MUST have at MINIMUM one hundred standalone, not to be continued titles, about one main character, for them to obsessively collectors every book about him.

Well, I didn't know this was a thing, I wasn't trying to build a backlog and I wasn't trying to attract collectors, I was just a screaming fangirl of this guy I created and I couldn't stop writing lots of stories about him. But, I found out it was a thing, when I crossed a hundred titles about this one guy and suddenly I just started getting sales.

It turns out, collectors will actively seek out author central pages, which feature a list of more than one hundred titles. And they will buy one to see if they like it, then, if they do like it, they will return every week to buy 2 or 3 or 10 or 12 more books all at once, and they keep returning every week until they collect all one hundred titles, AND if you keep going past those hundred titles, they keep coming back to buy each new release.

Weirdly there is a group of mega collectors who won't start buying books until the series has two hundred titles...and so, when you cross two hundred titles, these collectors jump in and start buying, thus doubling how many copies you sell each day.

But then... It's now thirteen years later... I now have 423 titles in that series and this results in I get 400+ sales a week, even if each title only sells one copy.

Oddly, nearly every title in the series has a bottom feeding sales rank of 4million to 6million... which means each title sells fewer than ten copies per month, BUT because I have 400+ titles, each selling 10 copies, that is me selling four thousand copies per month, even though each book has mega shitty low sales rank.

So, I sell way more books per month than the average self publisher, but it's only a few copies per title per month, so each title has super low sales rank, but, because I have so many titles it adds up fast.

Even if every title only sells 1 copy per month, that would still be me selling 423 copies each month. I have it set so I make around $2 per sale, so it's around $840 a month income even if each book only sells one copy per month.

While the road to becoming a successful science fiction and fantasy author is not without its challenges, the rewards can be substantial.

• If each title sells 2 copies per month, that's 846 copies each month. That's around $2k a month income.
• If each title sells just 5 copies per month, that's 2,015 copies sold per month. That's around $4k a month income.
• If each title sells only ten copies a month, that's around 4k copies sold or around $8k a month income.

And so without social media or marketing, writing became my income without me trying to make it my income. But it didn't happen overnight, and it took me six full years of uploading a new short novella every week, before the income started coming in.

You'll likely get their faster if you market though.

As you embark on this exciting business venture, building an engaged readership becomes paramount. Social media platforms, book blogs, and online communities dedicated to science fiction and fantasy offer endless opportunities to connect with fellow enthusiasts. Engage with your readers, share sneak peeks, and foster a sense of community around your stories. The more you interact with your audience, the more loyal fans you'll attract, leading to increased visibility and potential sales.

But again this is all just my personal experience and so, what works for me, may or may not work for you.

Strategic Marketing:

Like I said, I did NOT market and I succeeded, but it took a VERY long time to go the no marketing road. So, if you want success faster, I would suggest you consider doing marketing. Through strategic marketing, building an engaged audience, and delivering captivating stories, you can carve out a niche for yourself.

While creating captivating stories is at the heart of your business, strategic marketing is the fuel that propels it forward. Embrace digital marketing techniques, such as social media promotions, email newsletters, and collaborations with influencers or book bloggers. Be creative in showcasing your work, leveraging eye-catching book covers, compelling blurbs, and enticing excerpts to capture the attention of potential readers.

To embark on this exciting journey, it's important to establish a professional approach to your craft. Treat your writing as a business endeavor, even as you nurture your creative side. Set writing goals, create a consistent writing routine, and dedicate time to sharpen your skills through continuous learning. This combination of discipline and passion will elevate your craft and enable you to produce high-quality stories that resonate with readers.

As with any business venture, effective marketing is crucial to building your brand and reaching your target audience. Utilize the power of digital platforms and social media to showcase your work, engage with readers, and connect with fellow writers and enthusiasts. Establish a strong online presence through a professional author website or blog, where you can share insights, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and updates on your latest projects. Engaging with readers through newsletters, author interviews, and collaborations will foster a loyal fan base and expand your reach within the science fiction and fantasy community.

Collaboration and Networking:

The science fiction and fantasy community is vibrant and supportive, filled with like-minded individuals who share your passion. Collaborating with fellow authors, participating in anthology projects, and attending conventions or online events can expand your network and open doors to exciting opportunities. By forging meaningful connections within the community, you'll not only gain valuable insights but also enhance your visibility among readers and industry professionals.

Embracing Your Entrepreneurial Spirit:

As you embark on this journey, remember that turning your love for science fiction and fantasy into a profitable business venture requires an entrepreneurial spirit. Be prepared to invest time and effort into honing your craft, developing your brand, and continually evolving as an author. Embrace challenges as opportunities for growth and adapt to the ever-changing publishing landscape.

Consider exploring various publishing avenues to maximize your potential earnings and exposure. Self-publishing platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) offer an accessible route to bring your stories to readers worldwide. Embrace the freedom and control that self-publishing affords, allowing you to set your own pricing, release schedules, and marketing strategies. Additionally, consider submitting your stories to reputable science fiction and fantasy anthologies or magazines to gain exposure and build credibility within the industry.

While selling science fiction and fantasy short stories can be a viable business venture, it's important to manage your expectations and be prepared for challenges along the way. The publishing industry is highly competitive, and success may not come overnight. Stay committed to your craft, continually refine your writing skills, and remain open to feedback and constructive criticism. Persistence and a growth mindset are key attributes that will carry you through the inevitable ups and downs of the journey.

So, my fellow dreamers, if you've ever wondered if you could turn your love for science fiction and fantasy into a profitable business venture, the answer is a resounding "Yes!" The digital age has paved the way for authors to transform their passion into a sustainable career. By unleashing your creativity, embracing the digital landscape, finding your niche, building an engaged readership, and strategically marketing your work, you can embark on a thrilling and rewarding journey. So, let your imagination soar and take that first step toward turning your dreams into reality. The universe awaits your stories.

By embracing technology, honing your writing craft, and staying connected to your audience, you can increase your chances of success. So, if you've ever wondered if selling science fiction and fantasy short stories could be a viable business venture, now is the time to explore the possibilities and unleash your storytelling potential.

In conclusion, exploring the potential of selling science fiction and fantasy short stories can be a thrilling and rewarding opportunity. As you embark on this venture, combine your authoritative approach with a friendly and approachable demeanor. Remember to nurture your creativity, develop a professional mindset, and leverage effective marketing strategies to reach your target audience. With dedication, perseverance, and a love for storytelling, you have the power to turn your passion into a profitable business venture. So, take the leap, embrace the unknown, and let your imagination soar as you embark on this remarkable journey as a science fiction and fantasy author.

Anyways, hope this helps. Good luck with your project!

Is selling Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories, novelettes and novellas a viable business?

So, I was over on Reddit, you like I often am, and found this question. And answered it, like I do. However, the answer I initially gave was a simple generic answer. If you want to read my original answer unaltered, simply click on Reddit's embed feature links which Reddit provides for webmasters to be able to post their answers on their websites, while linking back to the original thread on Reddit (if you didn't know Reddit offered and encouraged the use of this feature, look for it in the "share" features underneath every post, comment, and reply on Reddit).

I am answering random questions today about writing, self-publishing, character creation, and world building, over on Reddit and decided to take my answers from there and expand upon them even further over here. So that's what this page is. Me rambling on about various aspects of world building techniques I use when writing the Quaraun series. The questions I am answering are embedded here. Clicking the link in the embedded question will take you to the original Reddit page where you can see the original answer along with other people's answers. If you wish to comment, you can do so on the Reddit page where a place to do so is provided.

In any case, as with all of my Reddit answers found on my site here, my original post on Reddit is much shorter then the article here.