Short stories on Amazon Kindle (and other venues)

You can see a list of my short stories including my collection, and a recent ezine sale at my Amazon author page:

http://www.amazon.com/author/jtanner

You can get okay results if you're careful by using the various automated tools. I'm a tech nerd, so I hand format my books in HTML to get the best control, then use Calibre to convert the HTML to MOBI and EPUB formats. I submit those to Amazon and BN.

Until Smashwords starts supporting direct EPUB upload, I cut/paste my formatted text from my HTML from my browser to a DOC file created in OpenOffice, paste in the required Smashwords header (per their style guide) and submit the DOC into the Meatgrinder. With this method, I've experienced none of the problems people who use Word directly to write in then submit have experienced. For 99 cent material (short stories) I let Smashwords distribute to BN as well since you still get the 60% royalty rather than the 35% royalty in that situation. (You give up some control, instant feedback, and monthly payments by doing this but those things don't matter much to me--Smash is good enough.)

Kindle previewer is the best representation of how a book looks on a real Kindle (I have one) but isn't totally perfect. You'll occasionally experience a glitch in a link not working, or an onscreen formatting error that won't appear on the real hardware and it will be worrisome if you can't check. Only way to be sure if you experience any issue in the previewer is to get a Kindle or make a friend with one. On the plus side, I haven't come across a case where something is GOOD on the previewer, but BAD on the hardware, so in my experience if you have no issues in previewer at all you're golden.

The formatting process for books or short stories is very similar. The only difference I can see is a table of contents (if you even have a table of contents in your novel).

I use Word to write all my books, then MobiPocket. I have Kindle for PC downloaded on my laptop, so I open the file that is created to see how it looks. If everything lines up correctly and looks the way I want (including making sure the links work), then I upload to Amazon KDP. You can view the final book in the previewer (which I do), to see how it will look before clicking save.

When I used Smashwords, I found the formatting very similar, except you don't need to convert your Word file before uploading. It goes through Smashwords' "meatgrinder" and if there are errors, Smashwords will let you know.

As a side note, CreateSpace now has a previewer, as well, and it shows you exactly how the book will look when printed. Pretty snazzy, actually, as you tap to turn pages and it is in a book layout format, so you see two pages at a time, just as if you were turning the pages of a book.

I've put reprints of my already-sold short stories up on Amazon. I uploaded a .doc file and it went just fine. I used the Smashwords Guide to get an idea of how to phrase the wording at the start and it took no time to put up.

Here's a link to my most successful one - The Project - it was published years ago in GRIT Magazine.

Sales are about five a month but I can't complain - it made good money the first time out so now it's all extra.

I upload MOBI so their converter does as little as possible.

(I found doing otherwise messed up some of my graphical touches which is what originally pushed me toward working directly in HTML.)

Other than the manuscript bulk, I don't know that it really matters whether you start with a short story or a novel. The processes you follow are the same. So frankly, whatever you've got ready-to-go is probably your best starting point.

For my short story collection, I followed pretty closely the methodology J. Tanner described. It takes some patience, a judgmental eye, and, as mentioned, double- and triple-checking prior to submitting. You want that first impression from the end result to be the best.

Once you convert the Word doc to MobiPocket, one of the files it creates is called "Kindle Content." That's the one you upload.

Sheryl Nantus said:

I've put reprints of my already-sold short stories up on Amazon. I uploaded a .doc file and it went just fine. I used the Smashwords Guide to get an idea of how to phrase the wording at the start and it took no time to put up.

Here's a link to my most successful one - The Project - it was published years ago in GRIT Magazine.

Sales are about five a month but I can't complain - it made good money the first time out so now it's all extra.

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Your description is well-written, but leaves a lot to the imagination. As I read it, I was thinking two things: $1.99 for a short story? and What is that biggest challenge ever? You allude to it, but never state it -- and it's your biggest selling point!

I bet you could sell more than five a month if you beefed up your sales copy a bit.

P.S.: There are a lot of quilters out there -- but you don't appear to try to rope them in much.

I use a style-free Smashwords file, change the notes, save it as HTM, and upload that to KDP. My author name is here; any of the $0.99 ones are short stories I formatted myself. (Not in the Select program, sorry.)

I use a PowerPC Mac, so I actually can't use things like Scrivener's "Make Kindle version" feature. I used to hand-code an HTML file, but I eventually figured out how to get the aforementioned shorter method to work. Saves time and looks the same—as long as I make sure not to look at the bloated code.

*checks sales spreadsheet* I have two series up. On Amazon, I've sold more copies of short stories than the novel for the Darkworld (urban fantasy) series; more copies of the novel than the short stories in the Aleyi (classic fantasy) series.

I've had no formatting complaints.

Granted, the Aleyi novel is the one that's mentioned in my sig on this site and has a free serial version available that's in the web fiction directories.

Blarg said:

Your description is well-written, but leaves a lot to the imagination. As I read it, I was thinking two things: $1.99 for a short story? and What is that biggest challenge ever? You allude to it, but never state it -- and it's your biggest selling point!

I bet you could sell more than five a month if you beefed up your sales copy a bit.

P.S.: There are a lot of quilters out there -- but you don't appear to try to rope them in much.

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Well, I don't want to tell the whole story. That's the point of the blurb. I'm not sure exactly what you think the sales copy is supposed to do - to me it's to tease you into buying the story - not lay out the entire story up front.

And as for the price - I started it at .99 and moved it up. It's been published in a professional magazine which, to me, helps sell it beyond the average SP'd short story. As far as quilting goes, it's got the quilting tags - I'm not rushing around to spam quilter groups on Amazon.

Common wisdom is $2.99 is the sweet spot.

That's the minimum for the higher royalty rate, and gives you room to test sale pricing to see if it impacts your rate of sales.

Track your baseline sales for a month or two, then test sale pricing. For example, if you test 99 cents you need to sell 6x as many books to make the same money. So if your test pricing doesn't result in that many more sales it's not helping your bottom line. (There are some admitted abstract benefits if it sells more but not 6x more, like greater exposure.)

J. Tanner said:

Common wisdom is $2.99 is the sweet spot.

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Actually, that was "common wisdom" 6 months–1 year ago. Now, even JA Konrath says it may be higher. "Common wisdom" is that it depends on your genre and target market; several folks sell as well or better at up to $4.99 (or more!), which is the top price to charge and stay in the "impulse buy" territory.

Even in my own experience, my sales are lower at $2.99 for a novel. (I write fantasy for YA+.)

At 22,000 words, I'd price it at $.99 cents. Just my two cents.

Carradee said:

Actually, that was "common wisdom" 6 months–1 year ago. Now, even JA Konrath says it may be higher. "Common wisdom" is that it depends on your genre and target market; several folks sell as well or better at up to $4.99 (or more!), which is the top price to charge and stay in the "impulse buy" territory.

Even in my own experience, my sales are lower at $2.99 for a novel. (I write fantasy for YA+.)

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Well, I could argue that those few people and Konrath are trailblazers, but I won't. You're basically right. There are people succeeding in that whole $3-$6 range, but mostly with novels.

JW was considering 99 cents for a 22K word short story collection. That's going to be a tough sell regardless of price. I was trying to nudge him up into the sweetspot. (If he'd been considering $11.99 I would have tried to nudge him down to $4.99. So a bit case by case perhaps to call it "common wisdom" but whatever, this is casual conversation.)

merrihiatt said:

At 22,000 words, I'd price it at $.99 cents. Just my two cents.

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The problem with 99 cents (aside from the ghetto theory which may or may not be particularly accurate) is that you leave yourself no room to release the individual stories in the collection. If you've absolutely ruled out doing so, you're okay I guess, but I'm not sure absolutely ruling that out is the best option. Releasing them seperately has been a positive for me.