Book length

To my knowledge, the forum doesn't have a specific section designated for Novellas. However, I'm sure that there are open threads that cover most questions that you might have.
I'm sure that there are plenty of folks here that can help you with your agent question. I am not one of them, sorry.

It is unlikely an agent would take on a novella.

I'd look into epubs...opportunities here can be pretty good depending on the genre.

There's a very limited market for novellas and not much money in them.

Depending on your genre, you can look into some small/electronic publishers who'll pick it up.

Yeah, I don't know of anyone who actually buys or sells novellas. The Great Gatsby is the only one I've ever read. Of course it's a classic. You could try making the story longer.

jpoelma13 said:

The Great Gatsby is the only one I've ever read.

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The Great Gatsby is a novel.

You could try making the story longer.

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I believe that stories end with how many words it took to write them. To add fluff to meet a marketing standard might be harming the work. Now, if you could find a way to break down and expand the story in a way that is both entertaining and doesn't work away from the original concept and comes out better; be my guest. Otherwise, might want to move onto the next story and plan for it to be longer.

As a marketing strategy, some authors will release free novellas or short stories that relate to their current novel: "If you enjoyed this novel, you might want to read the short prequel, available for free at the author's website."

But I don't know if you'd want to write an entire novel, just so you can do something with your novella. You might hang onto it, write a few more, and release them as an anthology.

WillSauger said:

The Great Gatsby is a novel.

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Yup. A short novel, but not as short as the OP's.

And I agree that padding for the sake of the word count is never, ever a good idea. If you can expand on it, great; of course, a complex story can be told in a novella, but with only 30,000 words I do think that there must be a lot of potential in there to lengthen it.

Lots of ebook publishers and self-publishers are selling stories that aren't much longer than a letter home to momma.

Look carefully at the ebook market. You'll often see 5000 wd shorts and 70,000 word novels marketed together on the same online page, with nothing to distinguish them, including price. Instead of word or page count, some sellers only display file size, which is a poor indicator of actual length.

Ebooks have created a greater market for novella's these days. I've purchased one or two myself where I wouldn't have in paperback format.

I'm going to have to disagree that there's a very limited market and not much money in novellas. There is a huge market for novellas in certain genres. I write nothing but novellas (30k - 40k), and based on my last quarterly royalty check I'd say the money can be damn good. That one check paid my rent and car payment for the next three months.

To the OP, what is your genre? There are some very good epublishers out there that accept unagented novellas. Be sure to look through the Bewares & Background section here on AW before submitting to make sure any epublishers you might consider are legit and are treating their authors well.

Clive Barker's Hellbound Heart is 30K. Spawned 9 films and counting. And before that, he became famous for his short story collections. He only started writing dark fantasy doorstoppers after Hellbound Heart. But that was a) the eighties, and b) the UK.
Today, a novella length, unless it's to do with Bridges and Madison Counties, is unlikely to snag an agent in itself. But there are, as Beachgirl has pointed out, quite a few place which take novellas and pay real moneys in return.

And while she most likely meant romance publishers, there are also opportunities for the horror and speculative writer, and these include:
· 40K books novelettes
· Necro novellas
· http://momentumbooks.com.au/submissions/ 15K and up
· http://www.severedpress.com/index.php/online-store/ebook-store novellas
· http://bloodboundbooks.net/bloodboundbooks/?page_id=26 novelettes
· http://www.crowdedquarantine.co.uk/site#!__site/submissions-and-royalties novellas
· http://khpbooks.com/submissions/ 30K-50K and up 1-4 weeks
· http://www.darkprintspress.com.au/submissions_novellas.html 15K and up
· http://masque-books.com/submissions.html 30K and up
· Ravenous Shadows

Whatever your genre, your best bet is, at this moment in time, probably Carina UK - they're are only starting, so are on the lookout for authors, want all genres with or without romance, accept all formats, including novellas, are an arm of an epub giant, their parent company is Harlequin, and... what, you want more?

Go get them. After you've published a novella or three with people like that, it should be quite easier to get agents interested in you or publishers to take your novel pitch seriously.

That's a really good list, dondomat--thanks for posting!

My pleasure.
I don't deal with romance though, I suppose there should be, possibly, even more opportunities there.

"The Alchemist" is a novella, one of the best selling stories ever. Jim Harrison writes them, publishes them in packs of three. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Harrison