# 5,000 to 10,000 word short stories - your thoughts?



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

What do you think about them?

Has anyone found they sell well at 99 cents?

Anyone had any luck with them or should short stories be longer like 15,000 to 20,000?


----------



## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Depends on genre. Romance is going to sell better than literary fiction.

The most difficult part is finding places to promo them. BKnights is probably the best at the moment. Hoping that doesn't change!

Hope that helps!

Rue


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

ruecole said:


> Depends on genre. Romance is going to sell better than literary fiction.
> 
> The most difficult part is finding places to promo them. BKnights is probably the best at the moment. Hoping that doesn't change!
> 
> ...


But do people pay 99 cents for 5,000 to 10,000 short stories?

And is that the normal amount of words for a short story?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

kalel said:


> But do people pay 99 cents for 5,000 to 10,000 short stories?
> 
> And is that the normal amount of words for a short story?


According to duotrope.com, a short story is between 1,000 and 7,500 words. Under 1k is flash fiction.


----------



## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

kalel said:


> But do people pay 99 cents for 5,000 to 10,000 short stories?


I mostly sell mine at $1.99. They've sold anywhere from six to six hundred copies, depending on the story.


----------



## loriann (Jun 20, 2014)

I wrote a 5,000 word essay, which is kind of a tribute to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (and my grandmother), did one BKnights promo and sold a bunch while it was briefly in top 10 kindle short read memoir at .99. Of course now it's sunk like a stone without more promos. I'll have to check. Maybe it's limping along. I also got a review. on it. That was good.


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

Edward M. Grant said:


> I mostly sell mine at $1.99. They've sold anywhere from six to six hundred copies, depending on the story.


Curious, have you found it better to not mention that it's a short story? and are your refunds high on the short stories?


----------



## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

kalel said:


> Curious, have you found it better to not mention that it's a short story? and are your refunds high on the short stories?


I always mention it's a short story. Returns have averaged 1-2% on the SF stories.


----------



## Brendan Mackey (Feb 8, 2014)

I have three short stories in the 5-11K range I sell for .99 cents. They're part of a detective series. I call the short stories (A Calvin Recker Mystery Short Story) whereas the novel is (A Calvin Recker Mystery Novel Book 1). I haven't had any complaints or returns. The sales are modest, but since it's part of a series, I can experiment with them or make them free for a period of time without all the pressure of "HOW SHOULD I PROPERLY MARKET MY NOVEL". Mysteries are a natural for short stories since it's just a single case with a quick solution.


----------



## dirtiestdevil (Aug 20, 2014)

5k erotica sells for $2.99.

Anything else (fictional)... probably .99 cents.


----------



## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

kalel said:


> But do people pay 99 cents for 5,000 to 10,000 short stories?
> 
> And is that the normal amount of words for a short story?


If you have enough of them, and maybe other novels/novellas in the same series, yes, they will sell. Sell well? Not really, just a few here and there. But for me, it's worth it because it's getting my name out there and hopefully will lead to more sales of other kinds. And I plan to put them together into a collection eventually, too. I expect the shortest you could sell that way would be around 3,500 words and up.


----------



## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

Brendan Mackey said:


> I have three short stories in the 5-11K range I sell for .99 cents. They're part of a detective series. I call the short stories (A Calvin Recker Mystery Short Story) whereas the novel is (A Calvin Recker Mystery Novel Book 1). I haven't had any complaints or returns. The sales are modest, but since it's part of a series, I can experiment with them or make them free for a period of time without all the pressure of "HOW SHOULD I PROPERLY MARKET MY NOVEL". Mysteries are a natural for short stories since it's just a single case with a quick solution.


Yes, that's exactly what I do, too. I love the freedom of having them available as freebies, promos, whatever. And I only really promote them when I have them for free.


----------



## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I have a bunch of short fiction for sale. I sell short stories between 2500 and 7500 words for 99 cents and novelettes of more than 7500 words for 2.99. And yes, people buy them at those prices. In fact, genre and theme play a bigger role with regard to sales than wordcount and price. I get some returns, but no more than others.

In general, when selling short fiction, it's important to clearly label it for what it is.


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

bobbic said:


> If you have enough of them, and maybe other novels/novellas in the same series, yes, they will sell. Sell well? Not really, just a few here and there. But for me, it's worth it because it's getting my name out there and hopefully will lead to more sales of other kinds. And I plan to put them together into a collection eventually, too. I expect the shortest you could sell that way would be around 3,500 words and up.


You raise a good point. Eventually you could combine them into one larger novel later.


----------



## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I only have one short story. It's a follow on to my bestselling romance (by that I mean, my personal bestseller, not any particular list, although it did sit as high as #10 in Historical Romance back in 2010-11). The story is 6,000 words, and it's sold about 2,500 copies at $.99 over 4 years. It's also been free on my website, where I have no way to count downloads, so I'm not sure how many have gone out that way. I swore I wouldn't write another short story because I'm so sick of the "too short" reviews when it's labeled SHORT STORY every way I can think of.

However, I just in the past few days went over it, tweaked the story and the cover a little and reuploaded. It was on Smahswords but not out to any of their distributors. I took it down from SW and am putting it in Select so it will be in KU. Figure what the heck, it's worth a try. It doesn't sell that much any more, and it wouldn't take more than a couple of borrows to bring in more than a few sales at $.99.


----------



## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

I price my shorts between 0.99 and 2.99. I've sold over 650 copies to date. My best sellers are all romances and one tween middle school story. 

Hope that helps!

Rue


----------



## Frank Zubek (Apr 27, 2010)

My newest, Stain, is going free this weekend though I was hesitant about putting it in Select
But maybe a few curious folks will check out my other work

I agree ( from experience) short stories sell well or not depending on the genre

It IS a good idea to label it up front as some readers might confuse it for a full length book and get angry AND say so in a review

Me? I'm tired of trying to do shorts -- figuring for a long time kindle was the perfect place for them.

I'm switching to to novellas. Still.. the longer the word count the better chance you have of good word of mouth
I would think the short story market is a small one


----------



## Wired (Jan 10, 2014)

I thought KU was helping short stories. Not so?


----------



## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

kalel said:


> You raise a good point. Eventually you could combine them into one larger novel later.


I wouldn't call it a novel unless you rewrite all the short stories so that they "feed" into each other. All of mine are stand-alone stories, with beginnings, middles and endings, so putting them all together into a novel wouldn't work. I could put them all together into a collection, though, to make a longer book.

One thing I've been wondering---does Amazon really care if I have the same stories for sale there and on SW, for example, if they're in different formats? Like a collection of stories in a book on SW and single stories on Amazon? I don't really even see how they'd know.


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Ellen, are you pricing your short story in KU at .99? Or going a bit higher? I've got a couple of things I'm thinking of putting up in Select because I've heard shorter works are doing well on borrows, but not sure of the pricing deal.

As to the OP's question, I was selling short stories of various lengths, but pulled them all down (long story). Some of them were reworked and published in my collection (the first link below). I charged .99 for them. The one that sold the best for me was a post-apocalyptic tale, which should tell me to write more PA fiction, but I seem to be ignoring my common sense.


----------



## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

Slightly outside that range - I have a couple of 11,000 word "novelettes" at $0.99

They sell about as well as my novels, which is to say, not very. Once I have a few more written, my plan is to make an omnibus, which I hope will be more successful.

But I have print versions, which are cheap enough that I use them as giveaways and samplers.


----------



## m.a. petterson (Sep 11, 2013)

I had a backlist of previously published action/adventure shorts I put into an 80,000 word collection, but it doesn't move much. Nor do the two from the collection listed individually at $0.99.

I suspect genre is the key.

But I'm all for writing shorter work as a funnel into a longer series.


----------



## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Frank Zubek said:


> I'm switching to to novellas. Still.. the longer the word count the better chance you have of good word of mouth


I'm moving toward novellas, mostly because my short stories won't stay short any more .


----------



## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

I've written 7,000 word erotica that sold at 2.99 and I've written 15,000 word thrillers that never sold a single copy at .99, so I think it definitely depends on the genre. I have heard sci-fi has better luck at a short length, too.


----------



## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Sheila_Guthrie said:


> Ellen, are you pricing your short story in KU at .99? Or going a bit higher? I've got a couple of things I'm thinking of putting up in Select because I've heard shorter works are doing well on borrows, but not sure of the pricing deal.


Sheila - Yes, my short story is $.99 and always has been.


----------



## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

My shorts in KU are $0.99 and $1.99. I still get sales at both prices (along with the borrows), so I wouldn't want to price them higher.

Hope that helps!

Rue


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

kalel said:


> What do you think about them?
> 
> Has anyone found they sell well at 99 cents?
> 
> Anyone had any luck with them or should short stories be longer like 15,000 to 20,000?


I love them. I have three in that range. They sell okay.

And as for the final question, that length is a novelette, not a short story, according to RWA, HWA, SFWA, Writer's Digest, etc.


----------



## Alain Gomez (Nov 12, 2010)

kalel said:


> What do you think about them?
> 
> Has anyone found they sell well at 99 cents?
> 
> Anyone had any luck with them or should short stories be longer like 15,000 to 20,000?


Others have given you some good advice as to the price. I just wanted to point out that the different word lengths does/should affect what type of story your telling. A 5,000 word story is going to feel very different from a 15,000 one. Write the story you want to tell. Length be damned.


----------



## Bryn (Aug 22, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> According to duotrope.com, a short story is between 1,000 and 7,500 words. Under 1k is flash fiction.


The definition of the length of a short story could be debated ad infinitum. My understanding of Flash Fiction is that it is something that is written to a specific brief and/or timing. If you take the above definition, what do works in excess of 7,500 words and under 20,000 words get classified as?

A short story is a complete 'tale' that is shorter in length than a novella. It could be 50 words or 15,000. I think it's that simplistic; whether 50 words and 15,000 word short stories are marketable may be a separate issue.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I'm going to respond as a reader: I don't see the sense in short stories. If I'm going to sit down and read -- I want to read. I want to get lost in a world for several hours. I want to identify with characters. I want to escape. I cannot do that with a short story. It's over before it starts.


----------



## Michaelploof (Feb 14, 2014)

My children's short stories, 10k - 12k words haven't made their money back yet in a year and a half. And this is with a recent BookBub free day in which I had 13,000 downloads of book 1. I have pretty much given up on them, though I will likely write and release book 3 of that series on my daughter's insistence. They didn't sell any more at .99 than 2.99. While on the other hand, I have been able to make a living off my five 60k - 120k fantasy novels priced at 4.99.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Bryn said:


> If you take the above definition, what do works in excess of 7,500 words and under 20,000 words get classified as?


"A Novelette"

--HWA, RWA, SFWA, MWA, Writer's Digest, et. al.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

YodaRead said:


> I'm going to respond as a reader: I don't see the sense in short stories. If I'm going to sit down and read -- I want to read. I want to get lost in a world for several hours. I want to identify with characters. I want to escape. I cannot do that with a short story. It's over before it starts.


The sense in them is that they can be quick reads.

Not every story has enough story to it to go 60-100K or more.

Many stories that do go 60-100K or more don't have enough story to them to go that long, for that matter. 

The entire Twilight Saga could have been a single novel. And boy, did it feel stretched to me.

On the other hand, there are books that are very long and feel short, because there's so much story packed into 'em.

But with short-attention-span readers on the rise, short fiction makes sense for many readers.

And no length makes sense for every reader, as various readers' needs are different.


----------



## Bryn (Aug 22, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> "A Novelette"
> 
> --HWA, RWA, SFWA, MWA, Writer's Digest, et. al.


So Novelette for 7,500 to circa 17,500 to 20,000 words Novella for circa 20,000 - 50,000 words: is this the current 'perceived wisdom'?


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Bryn said:


> So Novelette for 7,500 to circa 17,500 to 20,000 words Novella for circa 20,000 - 50,000 words: is this the current 'perceived wisdom'?


The 'perceived wisdom' is simply historical industry standards, so no need for the tone.

There's even a Wikipedia article on the subject. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count)

Novel.....over 40,000 words
Novella.....17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette.....7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story.....under 7,500 words

The Wikipedia article cites their source as the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America), but Horror (HWA), Mystery (MWA), Romance (RWA), and Writers Digest/Writer's Market have all used these definitions/breakdowns on length for decades as guidelines.

This is not to scoff at modern sub-categories like "flash fiction," just to acknowledge the history of what the breakdowns have been, well... all of my professional life and I'm in my late 40s.

But "flash fiction," "drabbles," and other such categories are relatively modern inventions; they have their place, but they also kind of confuse readers.

And there's really no such thing as "an epic-length novel," except in the vocabulary of booksellers and marketers, because the formal definition has been, for longer than I've been alive, that anything over 40,000 words qualifies as a novel, whether it's 40,000 words in length, or 400,000 words. The rest is just marketing terminology.

Groups like SFWA and such use these length definitions for purposes of awards; Writers' Digest/Writers' Market formalized them in their magazines and yearly publications for writers, as guidelines on length.

(http://www.sfwa.org/nebula-awards/rules/)

So, no, it's not some current opinion, trend, wisdom, or personal idea. It's just the history of the length breakdowns in the publishing industry for the past several decades, at least... stretching back, I imagine, to at least the times of the fiction pulps of the 1930s to 1950s.

And please: NO ONE is saying these are "hard and fast rules." The Wikipedia article itself admits that as one category merges into another, things get a bit nebulous.

Guidelines are guidelines, not "laws." 

I mean, yeah, people are free to do whatever they want and label them however they want, but I assumed this was about what is commonly understood, not creative freedom.

Heck, if I wanted to, I could start an all-new category: I could write a series of shorts that are all exactly 666 words in length and call it, I don't know... a "fiction fart," maybe.

I could gather a bunch of my writer friends together to do "fiction fart" collections, even.

If it caught on, you might hear someone on the street ask, "Hey Betty, did you get a whiff of that new fiction fart on Amazon by Stephen King? Whew, that was a strong one!"

But I strongly suspect I'd mostly be talking to myself, LOL.


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

YodaRead said:


> I'm going to respond as a reader: I don't see the sense in short stories. If I'm going to sit down and read -- I want to read. I want to get lost in a world for several hours. I want to identify with characters. I want to escape. I cannot do that with a short story. It's over before it starts.


I'm a reader, too, and that started long before I ever dreamed of writing a single word. I love short stories, long stories, in-between stories. You'd be surprised how much you can read in a short story.

If you don't like short works, that's fine. But you're missing some of the greatest literature ever written. Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, Guy de Maupassant... those are just off the top of my head this early in the morning. I could go on and on.

Craig, those accepted word lengths have been around longer than me, and I'm heading into my late 50s. I think many younger people -- or people who are just learning about writing and publishing -- don't know the history of fiction, and that these long, door stopper books are a relatively recent invention (of big publishing).


----------



## Jennifer Lewis (Dec 12, 2013)

I'm on a short story writing kick this year and have written 3. I strongly suspect that they will all end up being freebies. I wrote them because I wanted to try something new, and I really enjoyed the experience of writing them. The first cover in my sig is a short story I decided to use as an intro to my new series. It's getting "it's too short" reviews but it's also getting thousands of downloads and driving sales to the next book. I have two more that are in anthologies with other authors, another fun new experience that might bring me new readers. I'm planning to write another later this year just because I feel like it! If it's long enough to be a novella I might charge for it, if it's a short story it will probably be another freebie. I don't see a paid market for short stories in my genre--romance--right now.

Edited to add that I am a longtime fan of short stories as a reader. These days they're perfect for reading on your phone while you're waiting for someone. I think they could really catch on again


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Thanks, Ellen, and also Rue. I think I'm going to get a couple of things going and put them up at .99. I'd like to at least get my feet wet with KU, until my novel is ready to go. It looks like I'm getting a tiny bit of traction through D2D with my short story collection, so maybe shorter works will do okay. I'd cross my fingers, but it cuts into my typing abilities.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Sheila_Guthrie said:


> Craig, those accepted word lengths have been around longer than me, and I'm heading into my late 50s. I think many younger people -- or people who are just learning about writing and publishing -- don't know the history of fiction, and that these long, door stopper books are a relatively recent invention (of big publishing).




You and I get it, Sheila.

I mean, I don't ultimately care if people want to market their fiction in flashes, drabbles, epics, and farts, if that's what they want to do.

But there's something to be said for keeping things simple and easy to understand for the reader.

Even in those four categories, most readers are unfamiliar with the seldom-practiced "novelette" term and, given another fifty years, it wouldn't surprise me if the term "novelette" disappeared altogether and it looked something like this:

Short story.....up to 15,000 words
Novella.....15,000 to 40,000 words
Novel....over 40,000 words

But, we're not really there yet. So the four you and I grew up with are... still somewhat relevant.

However, lots of these thing things are print concerns.

For example, when Stephen King was selling short stories to _Cavalier_, the men's magazine that featured real literature with its risque photos of young women, before it went 100-percent sex, they used 7,500 as the upper limit to say "we really only buy short stories."

When you're fitting a story into a print magazine that has to be, say, 60/40 editorial-to-ads, word counts are very important.

Same with newspapers: article length is a huge concern.

These days, in eBooks, a story can be however long it takes to tell it, because there's no one there to say, "Sorry, Sheila, but the piece you submitted is about 600 words too long. We just can't fit it in."

With eBooks, write as long or short as it takes to tell a tale effectively, with no filler. There's no "page limit" that must be adhered to.


----------



## srKl (Aug 22, 2014)

I read this thread in full and generally speaking it sound like there isn't much success in writing short stories ...
Could it be that one of the issues is that there aren't many mediums to promote the book?
I read about a technisue from Darren Wearmouth but such launch techniques are not really applicable ...
I wonder which mediums function best for short stories?


----------



## mysterygal (Aug 7, 2014)

I'm chicken. In my blurbs I call all my short pieces short stories no matter what their length is. But if the piece is a long novella, I go ahead and call it that. I'd rather have a reader pleasantly surprised by the length of the book they've bought than ticked off because it's too short.


----------



## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

Michaelploof said:


> My children's short stories, 10k - 12k words haven't made their money back yet in a year and a half. And this is with a recent BookBub free day in which I had 13,000 downloads of book 1. I have pretty much given up on them, though I will likely write and release book 3 of that series on my daughter's insistence. They didn't sell any more at .99 than 2.99. While on the other hand, I have been able to make a living off my five 60k - 120k fantasy novels priced at 4.99.


Michael, after beating myself over the head trying to promote my middle grade novel (based on a prize winning play I wrote), I finally gave up. That market is very hard, and I've heard other authors say the same things. Nobody really knows why, except that kids that age don't buy their own books, so you have to convince the kid AND the parent. And kids that age (I've learned by working at the library) are ALL about what's popular with their peer group. If a series is popular, they are all over it. Without a lot of "in their face" promotion, like at schools, etc., it's very hard.

I actually am rewriting my book for adults (since it was originally an adult-level story anyway). It's a mash-up detective fairy tale, so that works. But if you already have a series, it's not as easy.


----------



## JenEllision (Jan 13, 2014)

I have a 9K short story (well, a novelette, if we're being technical) that accompanies (and is a prequel to) my YA fantasy series-- right now, and sales are low on it, but I'm pretty cool with that. It was something I wanted to write and if the series picks up as I continue to release books, maybe the short's sales will too


----------



## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

I have some short stories (ranging from 1-7k) all priced at 99c. They move no more than five sales a month each. I'll probably combine them into a collection at some point.


----------



## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

FWIW, my collection sells fewer copies than my individual titles.

Rue


----------



## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

YodaRead said:


> I'm going to respond as a reader: I don't see the sense in short stories. If I'm going to sit down and read -- I want to read. I want to get lost in a world for several hours. I want to identify with characters. I want to escape. I cannot do that with a short story. It's over before it starts.


What if those shorts are part of a continuing series with a recurring main character?


----------



## dmdaye (Jun 6, 2014)

I think the key is in having several of them, if you are advertising a series of short stories Amazon tends to work more in your favour.


----------



## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

dmdaye said:


> I think the key is in having several of them, if you are advertising a series of short stories Amazon tends to work more in your favour.


It definitely helps if they're in the same series, or set in the same town. I have a "Nameless, Texas" series which includes a handful of stories (some with the same characters, some not) and a novella that's a stand-alone story with the same characters. I've also had a short story accepted recently for an anthology, and it was also set in the same small town with different characters. I see it as building a set of books/stories that's almost like what Garrison Keillor did for Lake Wobegon. Some of the stories appeal to the cozy mystery readers, and some appeal to those who just like small town literary fiction. I'm just starting out, haven't had tons of sales so far, but they are consistent.


----------



## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Short stories don't sell nearly as well as novellas!


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

Seems it's only a short story if it's 7,500 words or less according to wiki, then it moves into a novelette

Yet it appears on Amazon that they base it on number of pages ( pages to number of minutes to read ) so who knows. lol


----------



## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

I wrote a short story to accompany the series I wrote under my pen name. I thought it'd make enough to pay for the cover and editing selling at 99 cents but one month (well half month technically) of KU paying $1.80 a borrow and I'm well in the black. 

I have 2 collections of short stories under my real name. One is erotica and sells a bit, the other is literary and has sold 6 copies. Most of the stories I'd published elsewhere first though so am not too fussed. The erotica collection has a few stories around 2,000 words or less (which is why I put them together) as that's the length preferred for the anthologies I submit to. I actually find it hard to write longer short stories.


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

kathrynoh said:


> I thought it'd make enough to pay for the cover and editing selling at 99 cents but one month (well half month technically) of KU paying $1.80 a borrow and I'm well in the black.


Are you saying within a month you covered what you shelled out for your cover and editing by having your short story in select and ku? ( i gather you are automatically placed in KU when you make the book part of select, yes? )


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

A book enrolled in KDP Select is automatically available in KU as well, yes.


----------



## Guest (Sep 10, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> The sense in them is that they can be quick reads.
> 
> Not every story has enough story to it to go 60-100K or more.
> 
> ...


I absolutely agree with this reply. I read more novellas than novels now. I have read far too many romance novels in the past 3 years that are stretched too long and stuffed with filler chapters, unnecessary extra information such as the contents of someones fridge, the description of a room or someones wardrobe/closet, outfit or a long flashback. I get bored very quickly and sometimes abandon these types of books.

I have been reading a few short erotic books over the past 2 months, I think short stories work great for certain erotic themes. Sometimes I'd like it to be a little longer with a little more plot, rather than one long sex scene.

In my opinion, Romance works better if it's a little longer to include a plot and some character development. *I love the 20,000-25,000 word novellas that are flooding Amazon right now.*


----------



## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

> Are you saying within a month you covered what you shelled out for your cover and editing by having your short story in select and ku?


Yes. It wasn't a huge amount of expenses especially for editing because obviously a short story is much cheaper than a novel but it takes forever when you are only getting 35c a sale.


----------



## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

I have a standalone scifi novelette (9K words) that was nominated for the Nebula Award that I released in mid-August for 99 cents. Hugh Howey raved about it on Twitter and Facebook, and sales and borrows were over 200 for August. Almost three weeks later it still sells around 5-6 a day and has 2-3 borrows a day. The sales rate doesn't seem to be diminishing at all, as it appears that the Amazon algorithms have captured it.

I have four other short stories at 99 cents that as a group sell maybe 1-2 a day or so.


----------



## Nichole (May 1, 2014)

I just released my first short story today and it's doing better than I expected (15 sales so far today and it's on two hot new release lists). 

I like the form, and I hope the audience grows. 

It seems there's an audience on Amazon, as they dedicate quite a bit of landing page category space to singles and shorts (7 out of 10). Why dedicate valuable real estate to less popular form? 

Kindle Devices
Kindle Accessories
Kindle Blogs
Kindle eBooks
Kindle Magazines
Kindle Newspapers
Kindle Nonfiction Singles
Kindle Singles
Kindle Worlds
Kindle Short Reads


----------



## Guest (Sep 11, 2014)

Nichole said:


> It seems there's an audience on Amazon, as they dedicate quite a bit of landing page category space to singles and shorts (7 out of 10). Why dedicate valuable real estate to less popular form?


Well there are a bunch of authors that seem to be benefiting by writing shorter stories. Look at the romance or erotica chart (for example). There are several books that are in the short reads category.

*Deborah Bladon* = Vain series
*Deborah Bladon* = Pulse series
*Helen Cooper* =Alpha Billionaire
*H.M. Ward *=The arrangement series
*J.A. Huss* = Social Media series
*Claire Adams* =The boss romance series

*Whitney Gracia Williams* just completed a bestselling novella series - Reasonable doubt, which is an excellent series

I only read romance and erotica right now, mainly novellas. I have friends who pretty much only read romance novellas now.

*In my opinion*, 5000-8000 words is just right for Erotica (with a basic plot and a great sex scene)
10,000-25,000 words for a romance series is good (with great sex, a good plot, character development and a HEA)

I love short stories/novellas, they are perfect to read on the bus on my way to and from work, in my lunch break, in bed at night before I fall asleep or a quick read over the weekend.


----------



## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

I think the magic number for short non erotic is 15k. I have smaller books in the 5k to 11k range, they don't do much, collect dust is about all.


----------



## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

I have a series of 4 stories that range in length from short story to novella. The first in the series is a mere 1500 words. The 4th (and longest) is 18,000. I have each priced at 99 cents. They all sell, provided one of them is free and I advertise it. For the longest time I had stories 1-2 permafree, but saw very little follow-through to stories 3-4. Until I enrolled them all in Select and started offering them free, one at a time. Then I finally started seeing 'real' sales on the others.

So, in short (no pun intended), even my 1500 word story sells for 99 cents (and even has been read a handful of times via Kindle Unlimited) if I can get it in front of enough readers.


----------



## Sharon Austin (Oct 13, 2010)

Stephen King's Children of the Corn was a short story that became a movie. Just sayin'.


----------



## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Just to repeat a few others, 15k-30k is a good length. 
An author could make a living writing in it.
But it is really dependent on genre.


----------



## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

Anyone having success with non-romance and erotica titles?


----------



## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Well, mine are Young Adult Romance (as you can probably guess from the covers). But they are all novellas. Anything from 20,000 - 50,000 words. The younger market seem to quite like that, they race through them and constantly badger me for the next one (which obviously I love  ) And yes, I make a living from it.

I also prefer to read novellas. I choose them over full length novels any day, simply because I don't have a lot of free time and the good ones are exactly the same as a novel but with a lot of the waffle cut out. Having been reading a ton of novellas I now find a lot of novels just feel stuffed with "padding" to make them longer.

In terms of short stories/novellas that are not romance or erotica. I have read every short story Roald Dahl ever wrote. His are chilling black comedies and make up several books (kiss kiss, switch bltch, over to you etc) and I also adore Agatha Christie. She wrote loads of short stories, mainly mysteries but quite a few horror as well.


----------



## WordNinja (Jun 26, 2014)

Does anyone have any advice about this: I've got a 9000 word literary romance that I was planning to publish as the anchor for a literary collection (the rest of the stories are mostly flash fiction). But if romance does better, I'm wondering if I should publish it as a standalone romance for $1.99, then also publish it as part of the literary collection for $2.99. I don't foresee a lot of cross-over between those two genres, so I don't imagine many readers would get confused and buy both. Any thoughts?


----------



## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

I would absolutely pub it as a standalone story. Give it a good cover and price it at $1.99 and put it in KU. Publish the collection, too, if you like. Some people do okay with collections. Mine doesn't sell at all. 

Just be sure to give the collection a different title. Don't worry about readers buying both. The collection has added content.

Hope that helps!

Rue


----------



## WordNinja (Jun 26, 2014)

Thanks! I'm not really expecting the literary short stories to sell much. They'll at least sell better on Amazon than on my hard drive.  

I was thinking about giving the stories similar titles, like "Moonlight: A Short Story" and "Moonlight and Other Stories: A Literary Short Story Collection." Is that different enough? 

Should the covers also be different?


----------

