Single Short Stories or Anthologies — What Do People Want to Buy?

I love short stories.  I always have.  I love the finesse and power of a piece of fiction that can get into your head, create a mood and a setting, deliver memorable characters and events, and finish with a flourish, all within the space of a few thousand words.  I'm more inclined, at any given moment, to be reading a collection of short stories rather than a novel, and I can easily name any number of favorite shorts: A Cask of Amontillado, A Rose for Emily, The October Game . . . .

I've grown up knowing that you need to write novels to be successful, that you can't make a living writing short stories.  But just like all the other facts about writing I've grown up internalizing, that seems to be starting to change.

Lindsay Buroker writes:

As we've discussed before, there are no rules about minimum word count when it comes to ebooks. You can publish a 150,000-word novel or you can publish a 5,000-word short story, and anything above, below, and in between is up for grabs too. You can put together a collection of short pieces or you can sell a single adventure. Are novellas allowed? You bet.

You can do anything you want, but it's worth being aware of what sells best. As it turns out, readers seem to be less interested in short-story collections and more interested in single-story ebooks, regardless (to some extent) of length. In other words, short stories can outsell bundled works.

It seems odd, since a collection may be much longer and give the reader far more value, but my collections are always at the bottom when the sales totals come in at the end of the month. I've heard other indie authors report similar findings.

[....] You may feel that 99 cents is very fair for a 6,000-word story, or your shorter works may be longer. If this is the case, you may do better turning individual short stories into ebooks rather than bundling them for readers, especially if you can do your own cover art or have it done cheaply.

– E-book Endeavors » Blog Archive » Short Stories vs. Short Story Collections–Which Sell Better?

Like Lindsay, I'm not sure I personally feel comfortable trying to sell a short story for 99 cents.  What I have been thinking about doing is grouping together pairs of thematically-similar stories and selling those as 99-cent downloads.  I even have a name for them already — "Double-Shot Editions."  What do you think?  Drop me a line or leave a comment below.