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Publishing a novelette
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Rachael
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Jul 14, 2017 04:40AM
I have two longer length pieces (one's about 14,000 words, the other around 20,000) I'm thinking of publishing as novelettes/novellas. What price would you recommend for this? Is there a special part of Amazon for them? Have you noticed any difference in sales from full length works?
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I have two titles out as novellas. Plus a small collection of short dtories and verse. Priced at 99p/99c. They are enrolled in KU. Sales? Seem fine but I would be hesitant at a higher price point. And I have never found a special place for shorter fiction on the Zon although my little books do come up as 30-minute reads, but I think Amazon does that on page numbers
Rachael wrote: "I have two longer length pieces (one's about 14,000 words, the other around 20,000) I'm thinking of publishing as novelettes/novellas. What price would you recommend for this? Is there a special pa..."There is a special part of amazon for them: Short Reads. I have 3 and I'm so glad that I went ahead and put them out there. People really like them. There is definitely a place for short stories. I price them at 99¢.
I agree. I priced my novella at 99c/99p, and also did a free download giveaway with it, too, to draw people to my author page and my larger bodies of work. Anything priced higher for a shorter story and readers will be reluctant to spend on it.
As others have mentioned, Amazon will categorize your short works automatically based on your genre choices.My personal pricing scheme is as follows:
Short stories and short novella up to 25k words: 99¢
Novellas and short novels 25k to 75k words: $2.99
Full length novels 75k to 125k; $3.99
But price is like anything else, it's not a one size fits all deal. I've seen short stories priced anywhere from permafree to ten bucks.
My novella is 18,500 words. I launched it at 99 cents then raised the price to 1.99 after the first two weeks. It sells well at this price but is not a standalone. It's more like a companion to my existing series. It does not sell as well as the other books in the series. The nice thing about 99 cents is you have more options to promote with marketing sites. However some of them like ENT don't promote novellas.
Mod
The purpose of the stories also comes into pricing.
I have some Novelettes out and I price them at 99¢ and give them away a lot because they are related to my main series, and I want them to direct people there! If they were a stand-a-lone maybe they would be priced differently.
I agree with Christina's pricing formula though. That seems pretty
fair!
Christina wrote: "Short stories and short novella up to 25k words: 99¢ Novellas and short novels 25k to 75k words: $2.99, Full length novels 75k to 125k; $3.99."I agree. My novella has 20k words = $1, then 120 pics (closer to 400, but modestly collected at 120.) Since "a picture is worth 1,000 words," that's 120k words for another $3.99 = $4.99 total.
Besides that, it's matchbooked at Amazon: buy the paperback get the kindle free. So it's really at half-price-discount of $2.50 all the time.
V.M. wrote: "My novelette is a bit over 18k words and enrolled in KU. The minimum price allowed is 2.99. I can't price it lower if I wanted to."Minimum price for KDP Select (the program where Amazon exclusivity allows your book enrollment in KU) is 99¢.
Post deleted for not adhering to group rules beyond quoted text.
For shorter work I never go higher than .99 but recently I've just been going permafree and praying I foster a larger audience/better relationships with what little audience I have lol
I have also priced a novelette at 99¢. Your novelette, like anything you publish, is also a promotional opportunity. In the novelette's back matter, I included the first ten pages of the next book in the series, which happens to be a full-length novel. The extra pages give the book a little more heft. Don't feel as if you're limited to just the novelette's text.
