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Literary magazine Open Pen is to branch out into book publishing for the first time with a series of short books called "novelettes".
Written by Open Pen authors, the magazine will publish four novelettes a year, starting with One Thing, a "working class tale of regret, loss, and the hope of redemption" and the first book by Xanthi Barker, and followed by Shitstorm by Fernando Sdrigotti, which follows the "perfect social media shitstorm" created after a doctor accidentally kills a protected lion. Sdrigotti's first book in English, Dysfunctional Males, was published in February 2017 with La Casita Grande Editores, USA.
Novelettes by other Open Pen authors Mazin Saleem, Holly Watson, Mazin Saleem, and Tadhg Muller are currently in the works.
The titles, which will be around 15,000 words each and priced at £4.99, will be available to purchase from bookshops and online.
Editor Sean Preston told The Bookseller that as well as promoting and nurturing emerging writers, the project is also exploiting an "untapped market" for short form paperbacks.
"This sort of fiction, at this sort of wordcount, is a natural fit for us," said Preston. "So often we get short stories that are just too long for the magazine, and yet feel like they could be expanded a bit more. I think there’s a lot of stories to be told that this length could really do justice."
Discussing the type of work the magazine will be publishing as novelettes, Preston said: "The fiction we look for will be similar to the fiction we publish in Open Pen. We’re looking for fiction that reflects either reflects every day life for the sort of people we really hear from in fiction, or fiction that is willing to take a risk, whether that be in its style, or in its message. As always, humour is a big part of what we appreciate in short stories."
Open Pen is a free short fiction magazine founded by Preston in 2011.
Earlier this year, The Bookseller reported that short story anthologies are enjoying a boom in sales, rising by almost 50% in value, to reach their highest level in seven years.
Trade figures suggested much of the genre’s popularity could be down to blockbusters such as Tom Hanks’ debut collection, Uncommon Type: Some Stories (William Heinemann), while others have credited writers such as Eley Williams and "Cat Person" author Kristen Roupenian as bringing the form into a “new light”.
Distribution for Open Pen novelettes is by Turnaround.