"Victimized" released as an esingle for 99 cents!

I bought it and will read it as soon as I finish the book I'm on right now.

Good luck!

I've bought it and will probably finish it today. It's excellent. Not much better ways to spend £1

Way to go after it, Richard. It'll be on my own Kindle soon. Also, I'm eager to hear any details you'd like to share about your cover design and all the ins-and-outs of going direct to the e-reader market.

Hey guys,

Thanks so much for the support, guys.

This is a new experiment for me, haven't self-published at Amazon before. I had this story, published in Murky Depths at 5000 words but I wanted to get the full 7000 word version out there. When I saw that Axel Taiari was testing these waters, I decided to go for it. I figured, even if I don't sell any, I could take the chance of "wasting" this story since it'd already been published.

The process isn't hard. I'm already set up on Amazon as an author, so that may make my process a bit easier, but the Kindle area is totally different. I thought there would be more difficulty uploading and formatting but I just used an .rtf file. I think it could certainly be "designed" more, and I can do that with InDesign, I found out later, but for the most part, what you see on the screen is just text. The cover, I just got the specs from them, and since I've been an art director for 15 years, it wasn't hard to put something together. I kept it simple, mostly text.

I just starting promoting this yesterday, so I'll let you know how it goes. I don't expect it to sell millions of copies, or even thousands of copies, but who knows? The biggest competition, I think, is the NOVELS that are selling for 99 cents. This is only a short story.

Amazon is really slow, and every time you edit your upload it takes 3-5 days to show that update. But overall it's been a pretty smooth process. If you have any specific questions, let me know.

Boughten!

Thanks Tuffy!

I was thinking of publishing everything that I had published online in 2011 in a collection anthology at the end of the year.

OVer halfway into the story, it's a good one Richard.

Thanks for the kind words. Sounds like a good idea, I'm kind of shopping a short story collection myself, so that's an option to keep in mind if I can't find a press for it.

It's also up at Smashwords.com now, so those that have the Nook or want to view it in any other format, you're in luck now!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/51495

I read this today and thought it was really solid. Though why do you kids have to write such violent, negative things these days. How about something with puppies and laughter?

Seriously though, great work. I was almost hoping you were going to go totally bizarre during the razor scene and have her step out of her skin though. Though that is probably a little too 'Clive Barker' for your style.

I even used Kindle's built in tweet afterwards http://twitter.com/kclawes

Hey, awesome, didn't even know that Kindle HAD a built in tweet! Thanks so much for the support, Kirk. I do sometimes try to write lighter stuff, but it just usually ends up dark. I did have a story "Terrapin Station" that ended up in Pear Noir! (and got nominated for a Pushcart Prize) in which nobody died. So, I'm growing! When I get my MFA thesis stories done, I'll get those lighter stories out there into the world.

The twitter integration is actually pretty awesome. For instance, if you hilight a passage and share it, it will do something like this for you http://twitter.com/kclawes/status/31935472234139648

In the case of Victimized, when I reached the end, it gives the the following page which allows me to easily tweet it, rate it and find related stuff.

Well that's totally awesome. And those referrals to other books/stories too, wow! Thanks for sharing that, pretty sweet. Hell, that could even be a promotional tool, highlighting passages to tweet. I need to get one. Very cool, Kirk, and thanks for the stars and all.

I'm happy to share! Next time, make sure you include a blurb about yourself, and a "Other titles by..." so if you do get some referral or curiosity buys people can more easily find more

D'OH. I guess I had so much bio related and all up at Amazon, that imbedding that in the story seemed like overkill. I can still edit the document, at any time, so maybe I'll add that in. Thanks.

Yeah, I used the facebook link at the end of the story. very handy.

So if I'm going to add information at the end of this eBook, like a bio, should I include hyperlinks in the Word .doc? I'm worried that will screw it up. I could just list the bio info at the end, or does that defeat the purpose if I don't hyperlink it?

Honestly, I don't know how that actually works when you publish it to Kindle. But a quick hit on the Google told me this

Insert Word hyperlinks to the Web as needed. They’ll carry right through to your Kindle Book.

From here http://www.newselfpublishing.com/WordKindle.html Where there appears to be a lot of info about getting the Kindle features to work right, such as indexes and "go to" features.

Also, it looks like Amazon even has a forum and community for Kindle publishing with a "formatting" forum! http://forums.kindledirectpublishing.com/kdpforums/forum.jspa?forumID=13 (one of the recent threads is about hyperlinks)

Also, if you're asking about actually including a Bio, I don't see why you shouldn't include it. ebooks will typically have all the stuff that a normal book has in it. Including a TOC, Dedication, "Other books by...", author bio, etc...

If you're going to mention your other books, including a link to the amazon store is probably a great idea too. I haven't checked but i have to imagine they have an elegant way for you to do that to make the buying process as easy as possible for the reader.

Thanks Kirk. I can figure out the hyperlinks (it's easy in Word) just wondered if it would screw anything up. I'll do a test run tomorrow at Smashwords, since I'm getting less traffic there, and then upload it to Amazon soon, probably tomorrow too. Like I said, I thought having all of that in the story would be obnoxious but DUH why not take advantage of that moment to link people to my world (book, sites, other stories, etc.)

I didn't know you could self-publish short stories. Keep us updated on how it goes, because I'd always tinkered with the idea of trying it out, but I thought you could only publish novels.

You can, Bekanator. I tried to get it into the whole eSingles program, but it's so arbitrary, and they take forever to get back to you. So, who knows if that will ever happen. The whole eSingles program is set up for stories and novellas. BUT, publishing it as an eBook, that works too. Only problem is people are selling whole BOOKS for .99 cents so there's competition. In a couple days I've sold maybe 25 copies. I have some blog promotion rolling out, so hopefully that will help.

Buy this story, people!

Basically, he has all of his published novels on there at prices up to $15. Many are much less expensive around $8. But he also has a bunch of short stories up there that range in price form 80 cents to $2.00. I bought one that I've heard good stuff about and it was $1.60. Looks like it's about twice as long as Victimized is. Admittedly he already has a reader base, but I would say it sounds like your pricing is pretty appropriate.

It might be worth looking up other authors on there who are known for short stories and see what they are doing. I know a lot of the Martin stuff was previously published in other anthologies and such.

Sweet, kindle on my phone... so Victimized up next on my list.

Awesome!

Just got it.

Very cool, thanks Minerva. Hope you dig it.