I have a ton of 100-word microfiction, and theoretically I could take the best hundred of them and put them in book form. It’d be about the size of a chapbook, so it’d be a $2.99/$4.99 project. The problem is, they’re microfiction. Don’t know how many people would want to buy that.
I could value-add it by including illustrations. The problem there, though, is that the art costs go up significantly when we’re talking about one hundred pieces. Even if I spent no more than five bucks a pop on the art (which would get me, I dunno, stick figures or something), that’s still five hundred bucks which I won’t see recouped any time soon. And I wouldn’t want five-buck-art, anyway.
So. Thoughts?
Book is the wrong form.
Desk calendar.
Tale-of-the-day desk calendar.
No art needed, seasonality bakes right in, and you can do an edit on the 200-265th best to polish them up.
For bonus points, do month/day but not day-of-week, then sell it yearly….
Mew
I don’t have the money to design and make a calendar on my own. 🙂
Buying the art would be a mistake. At that point you’re using the stories as value-add for the art rather than the other way around, and that’s the wrong balance for you. On the flip side, you could lean into it. If you have any artist friends who are actively looking for work, you could let it be *their* project, and sell them the microfiction (or whatever works out to be a fair deal for the two of you).
Aside from that crazy idea… you’ve got the microfiction already. How much would it cost you to just bundle it up and throw it out there? If you give it clear and accurate labels, then people aren’t going to get offended or anything. Positive cash flow is positive cash flow, right? Even if small?