My Short Story Collections

To-date, I have several collections out for sale, each with a different focus.

The Next Stop - 3 stories will Twilight Zone-esque twists

Elusive Enchantments - 3 unusual romances

The Space Hotel Series Collection - All 5 of my Space Hotel stories

Lunchable Short Stories - 5 fun, slightly humorous stories to be enjoyed at lunch

Of the four collections, the Space Hotel one is definitely my best seller.  I credit this largely to the fact that I had Celebrity Space (part 1) up for free for several months.  Before the free period, it didn't sell at all.

The rest of them I get the random sale here an there but nothing consistent.  I have standalone short stories that have been out on the market long enough that they are starting to pick up slow, steady sales.  This just hasn't seemed to happen with any of my collections.

I suppose I could go through and pick apart the "presentation" of each collection.  You know, analyze the cover and the blurb... things like that.  But I honestly think that all of my stories and collections have a pretty uniform appearance.  I mean, is the cover of A Model Railway Man really that much more thought provoking than The Next Stop?

The purpose of this post was not to gripe and whine about people not buying my collections.  Merely to address what I think are two important marketing points.   The first is that it is important to have both standalones and collections on the market.  Don't miss out on that sales opportunity if you primarily write short stories.

The second thing goes more into the realm of speculation.  Why do the the standalones sell better?  Maybe people really are reading a lot on their cell phones or on their Kindle in the doctor's office.  Despite the naysayers, maybe there really are cult followers for short stories still.

I really wish there was some way to conduct a study on this...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "Ferryman" by Nigel Edwards

Summary: "A mythology grew up around the Ferrymen, fostered by a mystique which they wrapped around themselves. Some thought them amoral servants of a ruling elite, sanctioned to undertake work beyond legitimate resolution; others with more fanciful imaginations – or who were more devout, depending on your point of view – believed them emissaries of Evil, with a capital E." Could the Ferrymen become real in your lifetime? Should they? Read this thoughtful and disturbing near-future science fiction story and decide for yourself. Review: This was a fantastic short story.  "Well-written" doesn't even begin to describe Ferryman ; it's engrossing.  The simple, clean style perfectly highlights our precise  protagonist.  If this future Edwards presents to us does in fact become a reality, the character he describes is exactly the type of person who would become a Ferryman: highly competent with the hint of a god complex. What's  especially clever abou...
Read more

The Short Story Project

I was introduced to the short story genre in high school and simply fell in love.  It's completely different from reading a novel.  A novel is a lengthy involvement.  Character development and plot must transport you into the author's world as the story gradually unfolds. Short stories are distinct experience.  A good short story writer will make you care about the outcome of the characters even though you may not necessarily know anything about them.  It is a complete experience in one sitting; not too unlike reading a poem.  You read the short story/poem for itself and not for the hope that it will drag out for 800 pages and then maybe have a sequel. The short story genre has become a lost art.  When newspapers were at their height, a writer could make a name for himself by publishing a short piece of fiction every week.  Charles Dickens is a perfect example of this.  Since then, the literary world changed.  You have to have an age...
Read more

Interview with Author Hugh Howey

Welcome to Book Brouhaha! Why don't you start out by introducing yourself and telling us a little about "Wool." Thanks for having me, Alain! I suppose I'm just this normal guy who just wrote a little story called Wool. It's about a group of people who live underground. When their society turns on itself, it threatens all of mankind. In a way, it poses the conundrum of every revolution: How do you destroy an unjust social structure without the collateral damage being worse than the injustices were? I suppose the most interesting thing about me, personally, is that I lived on a sailboat while I was in college. This led to a career as a yacht captain, which sent me all over the Caribbean and the East Coast. I didn't start writing in earnest until my wife dragged me away from the sea and into the mountains. I've always loved the short form. I've been told that it isn't as marketable, even though science fiction has a long and glorious history of c...
Read more