Conventional wisdom in the publishing industry says that books either too long or too short won't sell to the general reader. Thanks to factors like dwindling attention spans, less leisure time, and price hikes across paperbacks and hardcovers, short texts—novellas, standalone short stories, poetry collections, plays, and experimental cross-genre works—are finally getting their due. On a wider scale, Annie Ernaux's Nobel Prize last fall was "a big win for the slim volume," per author Alexandra Kleeman, a sentiment that McNally Jackson assistant manager Jack Kyono heard repeated throughout awards season. One of Kyono's colleagues even speculated that 2023 could be "'the year of the slim volume,'" he said. Though he isn't entirely convinced, he has noticed a trend of imprints releasing dedicated series of novellas or standalone stories and essays. |
