Kindle short pieces

LawrenceElliott · Jan 26, 2012

I just published my first short piece on the Kindle. I first tried to pitch the idea to Kindle Shorts, but the passed on it. I decided to do it using Kindle Direct Publishing. We'll see how it goes. I did the cover myself, too. Fingers crossed.

If it does well, I'll write more as I work on full-length books. Anyone else doing well with short pieces?

Here's a link to my author page:
http://www.amazon.com/author/lawrencedelliott/

Take care.

Lawrence

inkkognito · Jan 26, 2012

A somewhat off topic question, but did you enable "Look Inside?" I noticed your book doesn't have it; I published one of mine yesterday, and it doesn't have it either even though I enabled it. Am wondering if it's not working across the board.

LawrenceElliott · Jan 26, 2012

I read in the FAQ that it takes about a week, but a friend published one through Amazon.de and it's been over 3 weeks and it still hasn't shown up. I'll give it some time before I contact them.

Congrats and much success!

Lawrence

inkkognito · Jan 26, 2012

Much success to you too!

The "inside" showed up instantly for all my other books, but now I guess I'll have to be patient.

merrihiatt · Jan 26, 2012

It generally takes three to seven days for the Look Inside feature to activate.

inkkognito · Jan 27, 2012

It finally showed up for one book; still waiting on another.

And Lawrence, back to your original question...I'm not doing really, really short pieces, but I'm doing booklets of 7,000 to 10,000 words. So far they're selling modestly, which is fine as long as they're selling at all.

mshaw2268 · Jan 29, 2012

My horror short, Dead Man Walking, is doing well by my standards... which means people are actually buying it

Not setting the charts on fire or anything but since it's (1) a debut, (2) a short story, and (3) horror, I wasn't expecting a whole lot of action from it.

Also, I haven't really done a lot in the marketing area, although that will change after I release my second title in February.

Good luck with yours

LawrenceElliott · Jan 30, 2012

inkkognito said:
It finally showed up for one book; still waiting on another.

And Lawrence, back to your original question...I'm not doing really, really short pieces, but I'm doing booklets of 7,000 to 10,000 words. So far they're selling modestly, which is fine as long as they're selling at all.

My piece was just over 5,000 words, obviously shorter than yours. I've been working on several book projects, so I'm hoping I get a few more of these published until the others are finished.

Glad to hear of your success.

LawrenceElliott · Jan 30, 2012

mshaw2268 said:
My horror short, Dead Man Walking, is doing well by my standards... which means people are actually buying it

Not setting the charts on fire or anything but since it's (1) a debut, (2) a short story, and (3) horror, I wasn't expecting a whole lot of action from it.

Also, I haven't really done a lot in the marketing area, although that will change after I release my second title in February.

Good luck with yours

Congrats! I wish you continued success with the horror books. Every success is a SUCCESS!

inkkognito · Jan 30, 2012

LawrenceElliott said:
My piece was just over 5,000 words, obviously shorter than yours. I've been working on several book projects, so I'm hoping I get a few more of these published until the others are finished.

Glad to hear of your success.

I noticed you have the number of pages listed in the description. The "how-to" I read before I published my books said that including the pages or word count helps a lot with reader satisfaction/avoiding bad reviews. Good luck with publishing more "shorties." They're pretty lucrative for me so I'm focusing there as well (up to 10,000 words), although I've got some longer books in the works, too.

LawrenceElliott · Jun 10, 2012

Thank you very much. I saw your collection and it's impressive. Congrats!

Take care.

mscelina · Jun 11, 2012

This thread should properly be in the self-publishing forum, not the e-publishing forum. The two statuses are entirely different.

LawrenceElliott · Jun 11, 2012

I'm sorry. I don't understand.

justbishop · Jun 11, 2012

LawrenceElliott said:
I'm sorry. I don't understand.

I think mscelina means that this forum is for topics concerning e-publishing that happens through a trade or e-publisher. There is also a forum for self-publishing (digital or otherwise) that happens without a publishing house of any kind, which is what you seem to be talking about.

LawrenceElliott · Jun 11, 2012

I'm not one to violate Forum TOS' but I never saw an no explanation of that. Self-publishing can either be paper-based or e-publishing. Mine is a Kindle eBook, so I picked a subject that best fit my publication.

My apologies.

stormie · Jun 11, 2012

Lawrence, don't worry. Just ask a mod to move it to a self-pubbing forum.

nitaworm · Jun 11, 2012

Our short piece, Flutter Of Luv, made it up to #71 in the short story category after just 5 days. We also put it with Kindle Direct. (but amazon rankings come and go)

It's not our first short story released, and they seem to do well if promoted. We do promote it with a mini-blog tour, facebook party and twitter frenzy party. So that may help.

Now I do have many friends who have published their short fiction and it's taken off for them. One of them is a member here, Hugh Howey, another is Willow Cross and another is Kymberlee Burks-Miller and Jennifer Malone Wright. They nailed the covers to their shorts, got the works professionally edited, and put them in the right category - as well as they promoted them.

ShannonR. · Jun 11, 2012

Wow, this is a very helpful thread! I was considering whether or not to try to publish a Kindle Single and I'm glad to hear some others have had good luck with it.

When you're pitching an idea to something like that, do you do the usual query letter, or is there something else you need to do? I wasn't sure if the format warranted a different procedure than what you'd use for a print publication.

The project is a nonfiction about abuse in relationships-I have a lot of work done on it, but had to put it aside for personal reasons. Now that's not an issue, so I'd like to go ahead but it's not going to be long enough to be a 'regular book'. If that makes sense.

I will have to check out your publications too...that horror book sounds really interesting!

writerinthewoods · Jun 12, 2012

I have been publishing both short and long fiction on Kindle as well as Smashwords. I have sold some shorts even though they are extremely short, most around 1000 words. I have better luck with Smashwords.

Kindle short pieces

LawrenceElliott

inkkognito

Onlyifyouwanttowillyoufin daway-Enya

LawrenceElliott

inkkognito

Onlyifyouwanttowillyoufin daway-Enya

merrihiatt

Writing! Writing! Writing!

inkkognito

Onlyifyouwanttowillyoufin daway-Enya

mshaw2268

LawrenceElliott

LawrenceElliott

inkkognito

Onlyifyouwanttowillyoufin daway-Enya

LawrenceElliott

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

LawrenceElliott

justbishop

Proud Literary Sadist

LawrenceElliott

stormie

storm central

nitaworm

AW Addict

ShannonR.

<insert witty title here>

writerinthewoods