Seeking Advice as an Unpublished Newbie

Kathella · Jul 6, 2019

Hello all! I have a couple questions about your experiences with self-publishing.

I have a couple of short fiction pieces I've had tabled for a while now, and I want to get them out there but I have some apprehensions.
I'm working on two other projects, a collaborative piece and a memoir, that are both significantly more substantial. Some day I want to have them self-published, but I have a long way to go before those are ready.

I've been tossing around the idea of self-publishing my short fiction pieces while I work on the other projects, to hopefully garner some traction with a handful of readers. I'd like for folks to be able to sample my writing style in a way, see if it's something that piques their interest. However, I'm hung up on deciding whether to self-publish the short stories or make them available as free-to-read content on my website. I would like to mention both pieces are very short, one at 6k words, the other at 10k words, so if they were published they'd be no more than .99 cents through the Amazon e-book publishing.

In your personal experience, do you think it's better to offer free-to-read content to attract interested readers? Or should I self-publish them through Amazon as a way to keep all pieces together in one simple, streamlined website? Is there not enough content there (the works being as short as they are) to merit self-publishing in the first place?

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated, and I'd love to hear your personal experiences if you've done something similar.

Marissa D · Jul 6, 2019

The thing is, publishing a couple of shorts on Amazon is like throwing a pebble or two into the ocean. They're not going to garner you any traction.

If I were you, I'd hang on to them until you're ready to publish other, longer work, then use them as giveaways for people who sign up for your (eventual) mailing list. They're money in the bank--save them for when you can use them intelligently, and not just for the sake of getting stuff out there. And good luck!

Kathella · Jul 6, 2019

That's along the lines of what I was thinking, as far as a short story on Amazon getting lost in the sea of e-publications.

That's a fantastic idea I hadn't thought of, though. Thank you very much for the advice!

cool pop · Jul 7, 2019

Uh, if I can charge money for it, I would charge for it. Put the short stories up for sale and you'll be building a name and hopefully a base so when your other work is out there, you have an audience. In self-publishing it's all about the back list. The bigger your catalog, the better. Everything you publish is a part of your catalog.

Selling 101: Don't offer free stuff UNLESS you have something people can buy as well. You have nothing folks can buy so free isn't going to benefit you.

Also freebies work better if they are a part of a series such as permafree (when you make book 1) in a series free. That's because you can make money from the sell through of the series. But just putting random books up for free without being able to capitalize from it, not sure that's going to help. It would be different if you had books already published. Then yes, put up some books for free if you like but just having books up for free is not going to benefit you. People will just get the free book and that's it. What would you get out of it? Never too early to start building your brand by getting your catalog going.

You'll get different opinions so it's up to you but yes, I would put the stories up there. Never know how well they might do. As for books disappearing, that happens to any book of any length if you don't promote. No one is going to discover any book unless people know about it. You have to promote shorts as much as you would any other book.

Good luck to you!

lorna_w · Jul 8, 2019

What Marissa said.

I've sold a lot of books, well over 100,000 of them, have a sizeable and responsive mailing list, and even my short story collections (of several stories) don't sell. So I echo the advice to save them and make them "free gifts" for signing up to your mailing list. Unless you are a huge name, short stories won't sell. And even if you are a huge name, they'll sell maybe 5% the numbers of what a book will sell.

(This is exactly the same as it is in trade publishing. The "Lee Child" short stories sell. King's novellas packaged four to a book will sell. Very few authors have that kind of selling power.)

Norman D Gutter · Jul 15, 2019

On the other hand, publishing a couple of short items gives you "practice" with all the steps involved in self-publishing: the creating/final editing, formatting, uploading, watching your own reaction to having your writing for sale to the public. While sales will most likely be in the small to non-existent range, I think it's a good thing to do. And I suggest charging $0.99 at first. Later, when you have more items for sale, look into doing some free items.

Polenth · Jul 18, 2019

My short story collection (around 66K) sells a few copies here and there. It tends to sell to people who liked the other things I wrote, so it's the other way around to what people hope will happen with their shorts.

The novelette (8K) I published only really sold at release and stopped. I took it off sale and will combine it in the next collection. Or write some related stories and publish them as a collection. Based on this, I don't publish anything shorter than a novella as a standalone.

The novella (24K) sells better than my novel. People tend to treat novellas more like novels, so the same sort of rules apply.

My current new short stories either get sold to a market or put on Patreon as rewards for my backers. They'll be combined into a collection at some point. There's really no point in me trying to publish them as separate items.

Laer Carroll · Jul 23, 2019

Polenth said:
My short story collection (around 66K) sells a few copies here and there. It tends to sell to people who liked the other things I wrote, so it's the other way around to what people hope will happen with their shorts

All good advice. Sure, put them out there. On Amazon you MUST price them but can introduce them as free for one week.

I waited until I had nine books online at Amazon and they were selling well. All are part of one of two related series: Shapechanger Tales and Confederation Tales. Each short story or novelette showcases an important secondary character in one of the series. Thus they had a built-in audience.

Do what you wish, but keep in mind the wise and practical advice those in this thread have given you.

Seeking Advice as an Unpublished Newbie

Kathella

A Petty Dabbler

Marissa D

Scribe of the girls in the basement

Kathella

A Petty Dabbler

cool pop

It's Cool, Miss Pop if You're Nasty

lorna_w

Hybrid Grump

Norman D Gutter

Engineer Sonneteer

Polenth

Mushroom

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer