Novel excerpts

From Guidevines

Novel excerpts may be published as if they were short stories with slightly open ends in some literary periodicals. As litfic is often not tightly plotted, this works, and provides both an extra market and exposure for a writer.

More often "novel excerpts" refer to those opening segments of novels, ranging from a few thousand words to three chapters, used by online retailers to provide the browsing substitute for the possible buyer. This is especially true of e-publishers with direct sales, but the Amazon.com "Look Inside" feature provides the same sort of sample taste. We are often told that our manuscript's opening is the means to hook an editor's eye. It becomes just as important when the first few pages may be all a reader can see to get an idea if our style or mood is what they want to spend money on.