Short and Sweet Satisfaction

When I began writing under my own name a short while ago, SHORT was the theme. Now, with two novellas (novelettes, really) available, I have discovered something wonderful.

SHORT is the new black.

Speaking from personal experience, the digital age has been fantastic for me, as a reader. I like shorter formats, because they are perfect for waiting rooms, trains, planes, and other inevitabilities of modern life. Anyone who has medical issues knows how painfully dull those magazines in lobbies are. A kindle loaded with a selection of light, quick reads can be a god-send. Commuters know, too, the relief of a distraction that can be begun  in the morning, finished in the evening, and make the ride to and from work a respite rather than a chore.

My two shorts surprised me with their success. I was hoping to get my name out, but not expecting very good sales. Priced at .99 cents, they have both been available as free downloads for short periods, but have also sold well at the ticket cost. Who knew? Well, some knew—I didn’t.  But I’m excited, as an author, to have a venue that seems custom made for short work. Prior to the digital revolution, shorts were a hard sell and languished in anonymity when they did sell to magazines and other less broadly distributed markets.

This makes me insanely happy, not just because I have a small amount of money coming in every month from sales (though I do get a shiver of happy from that), but because it gives readers a chance to get to know me at very little cost.  It also allows me to put out more stories. And it lets me enter a market that is, I believe, becoming a lion’s share of the publishing industry—at least, the digital sector.

Hurray for authors, readers, and shorts! I don’t think I’d realized, until I began gobbling up my own portion of singles, short stories, novellas, and novelletes, how much I love them. I suspect a lot of us didn’t think much about the smaller reads until we began revisiting this indulgence that is so very suited to busy lives.