It’s actually kind of interstitial. I realized that, hey: I have several years’ worth of short stories from my Patreon to draw from. I’ve picked out four of them (total word-count to be around 30-32K), one of which does need to be expanded a little because it could use it. They’re all horror, or at least horror-adjacent, with a common theme. The idea is to edit them some, have people read ’em, edit them some more, then release the four stories as a Kindle-only sampler.
Hopefully, I can get it done by the beginning of September. The only thing is, is this project a $.99 project, or is it a $1.99 one? Four stories, 32K words, remember. My inclination is to go with $.99, but I want people to take them seriously as stories…
Moe Lane
PS: I am apparently getting* my mom to do the art for it. She’s looking for something to do and she is an artist.
*I started the call saying Mom, you have any spooky woodcuts handy? and ended it saying Sure, I’ll send over the stories tonight so you can make something. While INSISTING THROUGHOUT that I didn’t want her to drop anything and do this project. Somehow, she kept agreeing with me until I was inexplicably doing what I was told…
Moe. I mean this as a *friend*.
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Go to a Starbucks, look at the prices on the big board, and .. just pick one.
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$0.99 is far too low. $1.99 is too low. Those are the tax on lunch, those are a rounding error when I fill the tank on the truck.
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Again, as a *friend*, value yourself.
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Mew
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p.s. you can always discount it after a month
Nah, this is actually science. Or at least empirical. This is the early period, where I lay the groundwork for the expansion later. The plan is that by this time next year I’ll have at least three books and a sampler out for sale, plus ancillary stuff, and *then* the prices can be a bit more reflective of market value. Bootstrapping it like this is tedious at the start, but it’ll pay for itself later because I’ll *know* what I can put together, and how much it’ll cost.
If I have to choose, then .. $1.99, please.
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Mew
I look at many, many Kindle ebooks, read lots of samples and buy quite a few. I have thoughts.
$.99 signals either “short(ish) story” or “loss leader” (ie., you can have book 1 of this series for almost nothing, but books 2-n cost $4 or more — which works on me and lots of other knowledgeable buyers).
$1.99 signifies “real book, but inexpensive enough for an impulse buy”. $2.99 would rule out many/most impulse buys.
So I would suggest $1.99. (BTW, I have seen some in-depth analysis of optimal Kindle pricing on or via madgeniusclub.com, but do not have any links, sorry.)