One of the all-time crime classics, cited by most noir aficionados when such lists come out, is James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. From its grabber opening line—They threw me off the hay truck about noon—it moves like a runaway train from lust to murder to retribution. It was turned into a movie twice: the superior John Garfield–Lana Turner version (also with Raymond Burr, making it a noir trifecta) and the lesserJack Nicholson–Jessica Lange re-do.
But did you know this book is a novella? It comes in at just under 35,000 words. There’s a power punch in a good novella (roughly 20k–40k words). The Old Man and the Sea is just north of 26k. But in the traditional publishing world, it is a rare bird, with the occasional breakout, e.g., The Bridges of Madison County.
Because of its trim size, a novella carries with it some buyer resistance. A publisher has to charge a price that justifies its print run. But a customer might think, yeesh, I’m not getting a “real” book here. Thus, only a “name” can really sell them. James Patterson proved that with his BookShots line.
I love the novella form. It’s a way to stretch my writing wings, as it were, without
overspending my time. But until the indie revolution, it was not a viable career move. Now it can be an additional arrow in the scrivener’s quiver. And not just for a little extra lettuce. I give away a novella as a reader magnet and it has grown my email list substantially.
So it will be interesting to see how Hachette, one of the Big 5, makes out with its latest move.
From their press release:
NEW YORK, NY (August 31, 2026) – Union Square & Co., an imprint of the Grand Central Publishing Group and the Hachette Book Group, announced the launch of Singularity, an ambitious new novella program that will publish 10-12 titles each year. Launching in September 2026, and helmed by Mika Kasuga, Editorial Director, Union Square, this curated line of paperbacks with French flaps addresses a rapidly evolving reading landscape, offering voracious readers bingeworthy stories designed to be devoured in a single sitting.
Singularity is a dynamic collection that showcases the power and versatility of the novella form. Built around the idea that compelling storytelling does not require length to achieve depth, this program brings together a diverse portfolio of shorter works that span a broad range of genres, styles, and cultural perspectives. These novellas are rich narratives in a concentrated, exhilarating format—accessible, sophisticated, bite-sized delights for a world flooded by distraction.
Emily Meehan, SVP & Publisher, Union Square says, “The Singularity program was born out of conversations Mika and I had about reduced attention spans and the desire for a more snack-sized reading experience that doesn’t compromise depth for length. We wanted to celebrate the novella as a format and use the program as yet another platform to showcase Union Square’s commitment to create books that resonate deeply with readers—especially ones looking for accessible, sophisticated stories in our ever more distracted, digital reality.”
The debut Fall 2026 slate features a dynamic mix of masterworks, cult favorites, and striking new voices:
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison (September 1, 2026): A definitive, scarily relevant new paperback edition of the multi-award-winning author’s post-apocalyptic masterpiece. This volume features a new foreword, exclusive archival photos, and historical essays by Ellison.
Zero Lives Remainingby Adam Cesare (September 1, 2026): A pulse-pounding, nostalgic “gamers versus ghosts” slasher from the Bram Stoker Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author of Clown in a Cornfield.
The Waiter by Kwan Ann Tan (November 3, 2026): A speculative interactive fiction debut that allows readers to chart their own pathways through a surreal future London, with 11 different endings and countless journeys towards them.
I’m intrigued by this. The late Harlan Ellison’s novella has been widely anthologized. Can it find a new audience at a Kindle price point of $11.99, and paperback at $16.77?
Will an “11 different endings” debut be a draw? (For younger readers, perhaps yes.)
What is the market these days for bloody slasher fiction? (Probably more than I realize.)
Personally, I prioritize full-length fiction, especially my Mike Romeo series (new one’s coming soon!) But as discussed in my last two posts, I have lots of high concept ideas that I’d love to develop. (For my tips on writing a novella, see here.)
Over to you now, folks. What are your thoughts on the novella form, price points, and potential market? Have you written them yourself?
Last week we talked about creativity, and getting ideas through the “What if?” game. I’ve always subscribed to the notion that the best way to get a great idea is to come up with lots of ideas, and then toss out the weak ones. That leaves me with several good ideas to choose from. Now the question is which one should I choose to spend the next four or five months writing? (Your mileage may vary.)
When I first got going in this game, I determined to be like a movie studio. I’d have one project that was given the “green light.” That was my work-in-progress. But I would also have a few ideas “in development.” The question then became, which one should get the green light next?
I came up with a three-part test.
Passion
The first, and most important test, is passion. If I don’t feel emotionally connected to an idea or concept, I don’t want to pursue it. Because it is passion and heart that separates our work, not only from other writers, but also the scourge of AI-slop.
I have a list of questions and assign a score, from 1-10, for each.
Potential
Since I write to put bread on the table, I want to consider the potential for my project in the marketplace. My questions:
Again, score 1-10 for each.
Precision
Now, I write a logline for each project. A logline is Hollywood-speak for a sentence that captures both the essence and market potential of a project. For example:
A great white shark hunts for food in the waters of a New England town at the height of tourist season.
A teenager takes a time-traveling DeLorean into the past, where his young mother gets the hots for him, and where he must get his father to win her again or he’ll cease to exist.
Detective partners who dislike each other must bond in order to stop a serial killer who chooses victims based on the Seven Deadly Sins.
Score 1-10 for each logline on how well it captures market potential.
I add up the scores for each project, and the “winner” gets the green light.
This method gives me some objectivity, because it’s easy to just grab the next bright idea and start running with it. Again, I’m going to spend months with the project. I owe it to myself to think a little on it before I take the plunge.
One last note on the problem of AI-slop. When it comes to the writing itself, we all know it can be “handed off” to a bot. What that produces, at least as I see it, is heartless, soulless competence. It certainly does not produce the kind of writing that makes readers yearn for more books with your name on them.
Will a bot ever produce writing that does? Perhaps not! One writer puts it this way:
LLM-generated prose is, by virtue of the process that creates it, frozen verbal leftovers. An LLM is perfectly capable of imitating … compound sentences, especially the most basic, unsurprising constructions (“This is not that; it’s actually this.”). And because the vast majority of humans have no desire for anything better, LLMs appear to be good writers. But they’re not….The machines we’ve created can do only the bare minimum passably well because the same is true of us.
I choose to believe that the human element—honed by hard work, experience, honesty, and heart—will always produce a better book than a machine. [Note: Em dashes are mine!]
Now over to you. How do you choose which book to write next? If it’s the next in a series, how do you decide on plot and setting and new characters?
Writers are always there, seldom here.
More often than I care to admit, my wife will say something like, “Jim? Jim, are you listening to me?” And I’ll say, “That’s an odd way to start a conversation.”
But she’s right. After nearly 40 years as a working writer, I am in the “write mode” all the livelong day.
Even when I’m not writing. I was at a Starbucks once, sitting in a nice chair, looking out the window at the parking lot. By which I mean I was working, thinking about my novel-in-progress, picturing how a scene might go, then changing it and watching it again. My blank stare moved a fellow in the chair across from me to lean over and say, “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m a writer. Pray for me.” (Is what I should have said.)
And yet, that is the part of our brain that is most precious to us, the creating part, and we need to nourish and cherish it (which is another reason to avoid the atrophy caused by overuse of you-know-what, the thing that shall not be named).
What If? + Conflict
When my kids were young they loved a show called Ghostwriter. It was a program designed to encourage kids to read and think. Imagine that!
Anyway, one of the stars of the show was a young actor named Sheldon Turnipseed, who would do a little promo by looking at the camera and saying, “Exercise your head! Read!”
I liked that. Young, developing brains need regular exercise. Writers’ brains, too. That’s why I like to brainstorm with myself, even when it only produces a light shower.
Which is why I’m always thinking with the formula What if? + Conflict.
Try it.
Let’s say you’re driving down the street and see a billboard for some sort of sunscreen. A beautiful woman in a bikini and sunglasses is lounging under a hot sun as a bronzed Adonis applies the protective glop to one of her honey-colored legs.
Apply What if? + Conflict.
What if…he’s a hitman who is supposed to kill her? What can we do with that? He’s fallen in love with her, which brings up all sorts of conflict with those who hired him. His own life may be on the line now.
What if… she’s having an affair with him? Who is she married to? Maybe the most dangerous man in Las Vegas. Or, for a more literary take, an older man she has fallen out of love with.
What if… he is rubbing her not with sunscreen, but a substance from another planet that will turn her into a half woman-half squid monster with a thirst for blood?
Heck, I’d have fun with all of these. Coming up with good ideas shouldn’t be the issue. Deciding which ideas to develop should be. (I’ll tackle that subject next week.)
For now, try this:
For each of these, come up with an elevator pitch.
My formula for the pitch is:
Sentence 1 is character + vocation + current situation.
Sentence 2 starts with “When” and is what I call the Doorway of No Return––the thing that pushes the Lead into the main plot.
Sentence 3 begins with “Now” and the death (physical, professional, or psychological/spiritual) stakes.
Example:
Dorothy Gale is a farm girl who dreams of getting out of Kansas to a land far, far away, where she and her dog will be safe from the likes of town busybody Miss Gulch.
When a twister hits the farm, Dorothy is transported to a land of strange creatures and at least one wicked witch who wants to kill her.
Now, with the help of three unlikely friends, Dorothy must find a way to destroy the wicked witch so the great wizard will send her back home.
Play What if? + Conflict all the time. Soon your writer’s mind will do this on a sort of automatic pilot, and you will have the pleasure of hearing conversations start with, “Hello? Are you listening to me?”
What are your favorite ways to get creative? Do you ever “space out” thinking about your WIP?
(Note: Kay DiBianca is currently on hiatus)
Amazon Prime Air Drone Delivery Expands
From Amazon News:
Amazon’s Prime Air service is rapidly expanding and plans to reach nearly 500 cities and towns in the United States by the end of 2026—a sixfold increase from its current footprint—bringing ultrafast drone delivery to communities with tens of millions of customers across the country.
Amazon’s diverse operations: warehouses, delivery, and pharmacy services
8 ways Amazon is delivering orders faster, from drone delivery within hours to Same-Day Delivery of fresh groceries
From demand forecasting to specialized delivery vehicles, here’s how Amazon is bringing faster delivery speeds for a better shopping experience.
Prime Air offers the widest selection of items by drone, including millions of groceries, electronics, cosmetics, medications, and household products at everyday low prices, delivered in as fast as 30 minutes.
Prime Air drone delivery sites have the highest average delivery volumes in the U.S., with thousands of deliveries made daily. Prime Air drone delivery currently serves customers in cities across seven states, including Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, and Texas, with plans to launch in Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho, and New York soon.
“Customers already turn to Amazon for fast Same- and Next-Day Delivery, and Prime Air provides them an even speedier option when they need it, with deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes,” said David Carbon, vice president of Amazon Prime Air. “We’ve already delivered hundreds of thousands of packages to customers by drone this year, and by the end of 2026 we plan to reach customers in nearly 500 cities and towns. We’re pairing the convenience of ultrafast drone delivery with the low prices and selection customers love about Amazon.”
***
Don’t Panic Over Gen Z Readers (h/t Jane Friedman’s The Bottom Line)
From The Conversation:
A trove of recent articles bemoan the collapse in recreational reading among younger Americans, with COVID-related reading declines, artificial intelligence and social media often described as causes.
But as the authors of “How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books,” we think many claims about Gen Z’s reading behaviors miss the mark.
Some long-standing, influential studies aren’t designed to capture how Gen Z often reads: multimodally – bouncing between print, e-book and audiobook for the same book – and on web platforms such as Wattpad, Webtoon, Kindle Unlimited, DC Universe Infinite and Marvel Comics online.
In fact, according to our 2025 data, a growing proportion of Gen Z – 66% – is identifying as readers, up 14 percentage points from 2022. In the previous 12 months, 65% of Gen Z read at least one print book, up from 59% in 2022. These findings roughly correspond with those of the Pew Research Center for the general population across all ages.
In other words, Gen Z shows us that reading isn’t dying. It’s changing….
Identifying as a reader used to mean sitting alone with a book. That is less true for Gen Z than any previous generation. Gen Zers are more likely to experience reading as a social activity.
The growing popularity of silent reading parties, where groups of people come together to read quietly and independently, suggests that Gen Zers enjoy finding community around books, even as they immerse themselves in a largely solitary act. We also note how some young people are bridging the distance between story worlds and real life by participating in literary cosplaying, in which readers dress up as characters from their favorite books and gather at conventions or themed events. Then there’s “book excerpt aesthetics” – a social media trend in which readers post memorable passages and quotations from books.
Unionizing at Hachette (From PW)
Last month, around 600 Hachette Book Group workers joined the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, forming the largest trade publishing union in history.
***
In each union’s public statements, employees expressed strikingly similar reasons for organizing: inadequate pay, large workloads, and limited potential for advancement. They all cited, in their own words, what HBG organizer Julia DeVarti, an associate editor at Little, Brown, called publishing’s “passion tax”—workers’ tendency to “be exploited for working in an industry we love.”Oftentimes, the impact of the passion tax is most visible in corporate publishing, according to NewsGuild president Jon Schleuss. Entry-level employees come in because they love books and might “initially give up decent pay and decent benefits, because they can then say, ‘I’m working at one of the Big Five publishing companies.’ ” Many times, he adds, these sacrifices become permanent fixtures of employment.
***
An organizing committee member at Dark Horse, who spoke with PW on the condition of anonymity, says they and others who were hired during the pandemic spearheaded the union drive for similar reasons. In August 2024, Dark Horse ordered employees near its Portland, Ore., offices to start coming in two days per week, after being fully remote since the start of the pandemic. In addition to the added transportation costs, a wage freeze implemented in December 2024 and rising insurance premiums worsened workers’ quality of life, according to the organizer, even after raises resumed this January.
The specter of AI has also heightened workers’ sense of uncertainty. The NewsGuild has so far won AI protections in 90 different contracts across the journalism and publishing sector, Schleuss says. The model clause he shared with PW prohibits employers from replacing employees with AI or using automation to decrease salaries.
In many cases, these are preventative guarantees. University of Chicago Press, for example, prohibits its authors and peer reviewers from using AI and is not using AI tools internally, according to senior promotions manager and organizer Adrienne Meyers. Still, she says, she wants to “make sure that doesn’t change if a management position changes, or if the university puts pressure on us.”
***
When the HWC went public, Hachette distributed anti-union infographics around its Manhattan offices. The posters, which the HWC shared on its social media, framed unions as “third parties” intruding on the manager-worker relationship.
A Hachette spokesperson explained to PW at the time that the publisher meant to “encourage workers to consider all the facts to make an informed decision” in their union election.
Roughly half of all internet traffic, from what I’ve been able to gather, comes from bots. Let that sink in. An overwhelming army of non-human scrapers and crawlers are clicking, copying, analyzing, and spitting out information that humans use to find stuff. Which means that the old days of buying ad space and sitting back to await the results are kaput.
Think about it. You pay $1000 for an ad, and half the responses are not sentient human beings looking for your product. You’ve just tossed $500 into the dumpster, and the dumpster is on fire.
Five years ago, someone searching for a good book to read might head over to Amazon and put in a search term like “Action packed thriller” and see a bunch of cover thumbnails. Then they could browse, like in a bookstore. That made keyword selection in KDP so important. Maybe it still is, but increasingly readers will go straight to Google or an LLM for a search. So how do we optimize for the bots? Like being in love, it’s complicated, and life is complicated enough as it is. Thus, I have not done a deep dive on this, but if you want to you can start with this post from Thomas Umstattd’s AuthorMedia podcast.
I would rather spend my time doing what I do best, writing the next book. Because, in the end, that is still the #1 marketing tool.
Why? Because of trust.
There are only two ways to grow a business. The first way is to find new customers through marketing and advertising. The second way is to sell more to satisfied customers.
The first way is expensive and, now, increasingly difficult.
The second way works if—and only if—your product delivers the goods.
For a novelist, the goods are stories that readers love. If they love one of your books, and that gets them to read another one, and they love that, too, you’ve made a fan. Which is why an email list is crucial. This lets you keep in communication with happy customers. Writers do this via emails/newsletters, which avoid the fog and noise of the internet space. The care and nurture of your list is a subject beyond the scope of this post. But if I may offer two bits of advice:
These days, people are looking, across the board, for people they can trust because they have been hosed so often.
This, I think, is what’s behind the recent news of a Big 5 publisher pulling a book because of suspected AI use. The pub knows that most readers want a human being to be the sole author, and don’t want their reputation for providing that to be compromised. I’m not going to delve into the various uses of AI tools. I’ve stated that my “red line” is at the actual text that appears on the page. This is not, however, an opinion shared by all. One bestselling (and controversial) author openly states:
“Artificial Intelligence was used in both the research and composition of this book. I have asked the AI to mimic my writing style so you, the reader, will not be able to tell what was written by me and what was generated by the AI. I am also not going to tell you or make any indication of what was written by me and what was generated by the AI. It was I, the writer, who decided what words were put on the pages of this book, so despite the contributions of the AI, I still consider every word of this book to be mine. And I don’t care if you don’t.”
You know what? I have to give kudos to this fellow for being open about it. I don’t agree with his practice, but at least he isn’t trying to hide it. That’s far better passing off AI-generated text as one’s own words, which is what these scandals are all about.
In an episode of Downton Abbey, when it becomes clear that the old ways of life are on the way out, Carson the butler muses, “The nature of life is not permanence, but flux.”
Hoo boy. We’re in flux right now, on steroids.
What hasn’t changed—and never will—is the value of trust. Whatever you do, however you do it, don’t violate that trust in your work.
Comments welcome.
Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter (1950)
Gregory Peck is one of my favorite actors. Most know him for his immortal portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. But he turned in many brilliant performances over his long career, sometimes unappreciated because his acting was subtle and low key. (If you want to sample Peck’s acting chops, two of my favorite performances are in The Gunfighter and The Big Country.)
Once, Peck was standing in line with a friend, waiting for a table in a crowded Los Angeles restaurant. They’d been waiting for some time, the diners seemed to be taking their time eating, and new tables weren’t opening up. Peck’s impatient friend said, “Why don’t you tell the maitre d’ who you are?” Peck said, “No. If you have to tell them who you are, then you aren’t.”
Reminds me of the old saying: “Be who you is, ‘cause if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t.”
Which brings me to you, fellow writer. There are three “selves” we spin like plates.
First is the self presented in the writing. The major aspect of this is voice, often talked about but rarely defined. (Someone wrote a book about it). Voice is at the center of the whole AI debate. If you use AI’s words, you ain’t you who is.
By the way, you may have read that Anthropic’s Claude is now adding “watermarks” to generated text (and text that has been edited with it). That invisible coding stays with the output when it’s copied and pasted into a document. This has teed off a large number of Claude users who’ve canceled their accounts. But other models will probably follow suit. The way to avoid this detection is to write your own words. Shocker!
The second self is your public profile and social media presence. Choose wisely how you go about it. I try to follow Ben Franklin’s admonition: “Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation” (and, I would add, ranting and raving. That never brings in new fans, but it does alienate a segment of your current and potential readership. Up to you whether you want more readers or fewer).
Also be wise about how much time you spend on social media as a marketing tool. Don’t make the mistake of thinking social media is a great way to sell books. It never has been. Recently, a trad-pubbed author dropped $10,000 on a “TikTok influencer campaign.” Result? Three (3) sales. “It just doesn’t convert,” says the author. “Views are not sales. People watch a 40-second video about your book the same way they watch a video about a raccoon eating grapes: entertained, moved even, and then they keep scrolling.”
The last self is who you are in private, with friends and family. This is the place to “let your hair down” (obviously just an analogy for some of us). You get your support here, your solace, and sometimes a needed kick in the pants. But it’s all done “behind closed doors,” which is a good place to keep it. Guard your writing time, but don’t hoard it. Be present with people, knowing that your writer mind will always have a little wander in it. Many a time Mrs. B has said something like, “Jim? Jim, are you listening to me?” And I’ve thought, That’s an odd way to start a conversation.
If I may paraphrase Polonius: “To thine own selves be true, give each due consideration, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be a phony baloney to the reading public.”
What about you? Have you given much thought to your own three “selves”? Any other advice or warnings to offer?
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Ian Fleming enjoyed a writer’s dream life. He owned an estate he called Goldeneye on the northern coastline of Jamaica, with a house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was here that he wrote all his James Bond novels. (Goldeneye was named for a secret operation Fleming planned for British Naval Intelligence during WWII.)
A meme recently circulated that describes his writing routine (click to enlarge):
More details can be found here.
This daily schedule of producing 2,000 words a day enabled Fleming to finish a first draft of his novels within approximately six weeks. After that, he would spend a week going through and correcting the errors as well as rewriting passages. Then the manuscript was sent off to his publisher.
Fleming said, “I find that unless I stick to a routine, if I just wait for genius to arrive from the skies, it just doesn’t arrive. I just get on with the work.”
Back in 1988, when I decided I had to follow my inner compulsion to write, and began devouring books and articles in Writer’s Digest, the first lesson I took to heart was to set myself a quota of words. Not time, because it is quite possible to sit in front of a computer for a couple of hours without getting many words done at all. I started aiming for 1,000 words a day. Later I modified that because, let’s face it, not all days are the same, and life has a way of intruding upon you, unbidden.
So I settled on 6,000 words a week, taking Sunday off to rest and recharge (essential, IMO). I kept track of my words on a spreadsheet (still do). That way, if I missed a day for some reason, I’d do a little more on the other days. If I got to the end of the week short of my goal, I forgot about it and started fresh the next week.
As I look back on the books I’ve managed to write, I can honestly say it was made possible only because of the quota system. Like Fleming, I couldn’t wait for “genius” or “the muse” to arrive. Indeed, I came up with ways to “goose the muse.”
My writing routine was not as time-clocky as Fleming’s, but has remained roughly the same.
I wake up early, while it’s still dark, and make the coffee. I spend an hour or so getting the motor running. I used to do that by reading a book or newspaper, but I regret to say the smartphone era has crowded in with emails and scrolling.
Anyway, I then get some writing done. If I can knock off 250 words (a Nifty 250) or even 350, it makes meeting my quota so much easier.
My wife awakens and we spend time together sipping brew, doing some devotional reading together, planning the day to come. The hours between 7 and 11 a.m. are my sweet spot. I write on my main WIP, first by doing a light edit on yesterday’s output, then charging ahead until I’ve hit my quota. If I’m going good, I keep on going. Or I do some development on other projects. I keep everything in Scrivener.
Around 11 I do some exercise and strength training (I need to up these) and have lunch. While I munch, I watch half an hour or so of an old movie (have you discovered Tubi yet?) and then take care of business matters.
I love to work in a power nap. When I had a law office I got real good at putting my feet up on my desk and nodding off for 20 minutes. The afternoon is open time for anything that needs to be taken care of, and is the best time for me to get some reading done. I have a big TBR pile, and usually am in one fiction and one nonfiction book, with several others in various stages of ingestion.
From 4–5 I might get some more words in.
From then on it’s wife time, meaning dinner, games, and watching a movie or show (we’re currently going through Person of Interest again). On occasion we’ll go out to dinner with friends, after I take out a home loan.
Then bed, and then the whole thing starts over again.
And that, for what it’s worth, is my writing routine. What’s yours?
