Some months ago I blogged about the eWorld’s potential to enliven the long-moribund market for short fiction. I’m not sure that’s happening, but neither am I sure that it’s not. What I do know is that I’ve ePublished a few dozen short stories, and while some of them have been about as much in demand as ice in Antarctica, others have performed in a spritely manner.
More recently I tried an experiment, making all the Ehrengraf stories exclusive to Kindle, and enrolling them in Amazon’s Kindle Select program. (There were ten of them at the time, written over a couple of decades, featuring the poetry-loving defense attorney who never loses a case.) I took them down from Nook and Smashwords (where they’d been selling like sand in the Sahara) and took the opportunity to give away the first story (“The Ehrengraf Defense”) for a couple of days. A lot of people downloaded it, and many liked the sample enough to go on to some of the other stories.
I’d already begun work on an eleventh Ehrengraf story, and when “The Ehrengraf Settlement” was finished, I immediately made it a Kindle Select title. And, with the great formatting assistance of Jaye Manus, I bundled all of the stories into a book, called it Ehrengraf For the Defense, and priced it at $4.99. (The bad news is it’s put the brakes on sales of the individual stories. The good news, which utterly trumps the bad news, is that Ehrengraf For the Defense is flying off Amazon’s virtual shelves. At the moment it’s my most popular title.) Besides selling a slew of copies, EFTD has been borrowed a dozen times by Amazon Prime members, who can borrow one book a month at no charge as a perk of membership.
As of today, I’ve moved a dozen other short stories to Kindle Select, available there and nowhere else. In the weeks to come I’ll be making some of them briefly available as free downloads, and if you follow my blog you’ll know when something’s up for grabs.
Because the stories I picked are all of the darker sort, I each “A Story From the Dark Side”, and if you pop that phrase into Amazon’s search engine, they’ll all show up on one page. Once again, I was lucky enough to get Jaye Manus to format them, and give them a uniform series-type look, and I think you’ll like the way they turned out.
And even as I write these lines, I know that some of you are furious at me for depriving Nooksters of the chance to read these stories.
So let me explain.
I’ve got nothing against Nook, and indeed I sell a lot of novels there. But I’ve never done well with short fiction for the Nook, and I’m not the first writer to notice that Nook readers just don’t seem interested in short stories. I’m not sure why this should be so, but the empirical evidence is persuasive. Whether my goal is to increase income or maximize readership (and the two are by no means mutually exclusive) it’s in my interest to do business where business is done. If I’m selling ten times as many stories for Kindle as for Nook—and the spread’s probably even higher than that—I’d be a fool not to focus on Kindle, where I can take advantage of the several benefits reserved for Kindle Select authors.
Along with the Nook partisans, there’s a small tribe of Amazon haters out there, who see that company as conspiring to take over the world. And perhaps they are, and so is Google, and so is Facebook, and so is eBay—and so is every other highly successful enterprise. Those of you who are appalled at the growth of Amazon, and want to save Barnes & Noble, might take a moment to remember a couple of years ago, when you were appalled at the increasing dominance of B&N, and wanted to save the great independent bookstores that they and Borders were putting out of business.
And, if you’ve been around a while and have a good memory, you may recall how those great independent stores became great in the first place—by doing everything possible to choke out the small neighborhood bookshops and dominate their local markets entirely. Sometimes it’s a dog eat dog world out there, and sometimes it’s the other way around.
End of rant.
I should point out, for anyone who doesn’t have a Kindle and doesn’t want to be pressured into buying one, that almost any electronic device other than a competing eReader (like the Nook) can be equipped with a free Kindle app. You can download one for your Mac or PC, your iPhone or Android, your iPad or iPod, and quite possibly your toaster oven. My eldest daughter reads everything on her iPhone, she prefers it to anything else including a printed book. The Amazon Prime borrowing feature is limited to Kindle owners, but a free app gives you access to everything else.
And here’s the list of Stories From the Dark Side:
A Chance to Get Even
Catch and Release
Dolly’s Trash & Treasures
Headaches and Bad Dreams
In For a Penny
Like a Bone in the Throat
Scenarios
Sweet Little Hands
Three in the Side Pocket
Welcome to the Read World
Who Knows Where It Goes
You Don’t Even Feel It
I don’t expect to make a book out of them. They don’t go together as obviously as the Ehrengraf stories, or the Scudder stories collected in The Night and the Music. By all means take advantage of the freebies when they come along. And, when you’ve got a spare 99¢ you’re willing to part with, and some spare moments that a short story would fit into neatly, well, click one of the links and enjoy.
LB
It was my greatest pleasure to work on those stories, Larry. Especially since there were three I had not read before. Score!
As for B&N, I’ve worn myself out with rants about them. After driving all the other bookstores out of my area, they’ve turned into a gift shop/toy store and I no longer see the point of even dropping in these days. Book wise, they carry the exact same stock as Walmart. As for the online bookstore, what can I say? It’s terrible. For all I know the Nook is a superior device to my Kindle, but I’ll never know because I do know for sure that I can easily find anything I want on Amazon and with 1-click or two days mailing time, it belongs to me. From the writer side, I’ve never sold a short story at B&N. Why? Again, not a clue. I’ve sold enough on Amazon to earn more than I could have made by selling them to all but the two or three top fiction markets. So I know the readers are out there, but they are shopping at Amazon not B&N. So yeah, I’m with you. Why not take advantage of the special features Amazon features?
I’m reading my copy of Hit List for the 10th time. 😉
The email UNsubscribe doesn’t work. I love Block but I don’t want to see this so often. Is there any way to stop it???
Sure. Go to the blog and click on UNFOLLOW at the upper left of the screen. If you ever want back on again, click on FOLLOW.
Good stuff here, sir, and nary a sticking point…well, save one. You actually can put a Kindle app on a Nook if you know what you’re doing (and I so rarely do). I have Kindle for iPhone and have the silly thing stuffed to the gills with books, many of them yours. Then I got a Nook Color for Xmas. Fun little treat that it was I could not read my Kindle books on it. Until a savvy son-in-law showed me that it is indeed nothing more than an Android tablet in disguise. He then showed me a legit company that makes Micro-SD cards that essentially reboot your Nook as an Android tablet, after which you have access to all the Android apps you’d care to purchase and Bob is indeed your uncle.
Who knew? Thanks, Mott. Reminds me of when I was getting ready to write A Walk Among the Tombstones, and had lunch with a guy from the phone company to find out what one could and couldn’t do. At one point he said, “You know, anything you want somebody to be able to do, just have him go ahead and do it. Because if it can’t be done now, it’ll be doable in a couple of months. Whatever it is.” In the electronic world, whatever it is, somebody can figure out how to do it.
Yup, I rooted my Nook as well. It was a gift. If I bought an e-reader I’d probably get a Samsung Galaxy tablet, which would allow me to install Kindle and Nook apps, and fit in a pocket. I like the iPad, but it’s enormous and expensive.
B&N is doing everything wrong with their website. I search for an author, and movies and music come up first. I can’t find my friends to share what I like. They pester me to review what I’ve bought.
I do like the Nook, but I wonder what’s going to happen now they’ve partner with Microsoft, and MS has their own tablet out.
Well, I currently have a Great Nook Color that was a Birthday present last month. I download music from Amazon and books from both Amazon and B&N as the previous poster noted you can do. I don’t know if a Kindle can do that. But the Nook is really a tablet in disguise. I can also do my email from it. The only thing it won’t do is take pictures. What is the problem with selling your books from both sites? Are these Amazon guys trying to be proprietary? As a fellow stamp collector I am sure you know that many dealers sell on eBay, Bidstart, and Zillions of Stamps offering the same material at multiple sites at the same time. They don’t care where you buy it as long as you do. Also sorry to hear that Keller in Dallas did not like Lombardy-Venetia reprints. They are really attractive and in some cases rarer than the real thing. I bid on a mint collection of them and got it for $75. Imagine my surprise when I later discovered that the 1863 issues, in the lot, were real. Auctions can be fun.
Lev Messick
I don’t want to get into a debate on the relative merits of eReaders. I only know about the one I have, and am happy enough with it. But congratulations, Lev, on getting more than you thought you were bidding on. It all too often happens the other way around! (And I have a couple of the L-V reprints myself, and like them fine.)
I’ve been steadfastly avoiding a descent into philately after becoming so enamored of Keller. Looking forward to the philatelist edition of Hit Me, to push me over the edge.
Yup, that might just do it…
I cannot wait to get this book. Ordering as we speak. You know how I love your sick, dark work. Congrats to both you and Jaye. She’s a dreamboat. Well, so are you…
Thanks, Julia. For clarification, the Dark Side stories haven’t been gathered into a book. They’re available individually, although they’ve been uniformly formatted, etc. In a year or so there’ll be a print collection, but it’ll be called something else, and will overlap this batch (leaving out the stories that appeared in Enough Rope, and including some others).
You know, I used the phrase “for clarification,” but I think I just muddied the waters a little more. Oh well…
I figured it out, don’t worry. Hubby is ecstatic. He has his kindle read your work aloud to him during his commute. One hour and twenty-five minutes of LB. Twice a day.
Oddly I find that my short fiction does better on B&N — or at least some of it does. I think the reason, though, is simply because I can more freely offer books for free there (via Smashwords). Sure, there is a delay in going from free to paid and back again, but I don’t have to restrict access, and I can do it for more than 5 days a quarter.
Nook users apparently respond to free and cheap for short fiction. (Which, I suppose, makes them a less than ideal audience, but you might keep them in mind for books which have been out for a while.)
Interesting observation, Camille. Thanks!
Probably the wrong place for this, but I couldn’t figure out a better one to contact. This may be one of the dumbest posts you’ve ever seen.
First, let me mention that I’m Catholic by upbringing.
Second, I’m a big John Sandford fan – I’ve read ’em all.
So a couple of months ago I wanted to make myself a BLT.
As I’m getting the ingredients out, I thought to my self: I hope I have some lettuce.
Then I thought _oramus_. I chuckled. Then I thought: if I were to turn that into a joke, it would go something like “What was the benediction the pope gave to the Italian salad growers for their crops?”
Then I thought: who would I tell such a joke to? It seems funny to me, but to appreciate it, you would
have to have a strange sense of humor, like puns, and understand at least a little Latin.
A couple of days later I was visiting my 93 year old mother, who is still quite sharp, has a strange sense of humor, and is Catholic. She needed cheering up, so I decided to chance it. I told her the joke, and the punchline _oramus_, but her Latin was a little weak. I explained it meant “Let us Pray”, and she immediately got the pun and laughed her butt off!
So I’m reading The Burglar on the Prowl, and it’s about a string of odd coincidences, and Bernie picks up the latest John Sandford. What a coincidence that one of my favorite authors is mentioning a book by another of my favorite authors! Then further along, Bernie describes the plot as about a former vegetarian who is going around killing vegans and eating their livers. Unlikely, but Bernie waxes on about how Sandford can make such a preposterous plot seem reasonable.
When a little while later Bernie reaches for the Sandford novel “Lettuce Prey”, I just about fell off my chair laughing.
I just wanted you to know that if you were wondering to whom you would tell such a silly joke, I’m the answer, and I really enjoyed it.
John
That’s not a dumb post at all, John. It’s a treat, actually—thanks for it.
And I trust you’ve read the new John Sandford, Stolen Prey. I finished it last week and thought it was terrific.
Cool. Just letting you know sir a have a short story out and three poems sent to contests. Let’s hope one of them hits a home run.