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Grab Your Free Ebook on Making Money With The Kindle!
www.patrickdemasi.com/Recommends/MakeMoneyWithKindle.php
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I run a blog on ebooks, with an emphasis on writing and e-publishing fiction for the Kindle, iPad,
Nook, etc., and one of the questions that often comes up is this:
How long does an ebook have to be?
If it's fiction, does it have to be novel (and, if so, how long should a novel be anyway?) If it's non-
fiction, does it have to be a whole book or can it be a report or shorter work?
The short answer is... there aren't any rules when it comes to length. It's not like a school report
where there's a required page count for your essay or story. You just have to meet your readers'
expectations by giving them a good deal for the money.
Length Considerations for Non-fiction Ebooks
I interviewed Kate Harper over on my blog, and she makes money publishing articles or "booklets"
to the Kindle Store. Now, these are more than the 500-word articles you may see on a blog post or
article syndication site. Many of her pieces are in the 8,000-10,000 word range, but they're much
shorter than a non-fiction book, which might ring in at 75,000 words or more. She cuts out the fluff
and just gives readers what they want to know, and she charges $0.99 to $2.99.
At Amazon, for ebooks priced at $2.99-$9.99, independent authors take home 70% of the
royalties, meaning about $2 per sale. (Royalties are similar at Barnes & Noble and other major
book retailers.) While that's probably not going to make anyone rich, she pointed out that she's
done very little for promotion and has sold quite a few ebooks! That's because Amazon is such a
huge marketplace, and the number of Kindle owners keeps growing. They're hungry for fiction and
non-fiction they can download at a good price.
Length Considerations for Fiction Ebooks
When it comes to fiction, there aren't any rules for length either. Novels used to have to fall into a
certain word count due to the economics of printing books, and shorter works (i.e. short stories
and novellas) just weren't published unless they were bundled together into book-like lengths.
With ebooks, it doesn't cost any more to create a 150,000-word epic fantasy novel than it does to
put together a 7,000-word short horror story. Of course, it takes longer to write and edit a longer
work, but the distribution and production costs are the same. You just have to make sure you have
a complete and professional ebook readers will enjoy.
If your story is on the short side, you should make sure to include the word count in the product
description or "book blurb" so readers won't feel disgruntled because they were expecting a novel
and got a short story (this is true for non-fiction as well). Disgruntled readers leave poor reviews.
Even if you're only selling your ebook for $0.99, people will want to feel they've gotten exactly what
they were expecting. If anything, it's good to over-deliver on what you promise.
If you feel your story is too short to sell (i.e. under 5,000 words) for $0.99, which is the minimum
price you can list your ebooks for with Amazon, B&N, etc., then you may consider bundling several
stories to create a collection. Though anthologies aren't the most popular thing out there, this can
work well if your short stories all feature the same characters or are part of a similar theme.
I have a three-story collection of fantasy stories (the ebook is about 17,000 words total) that I sell
for $0.99, and it does fairly well considering how little I do to promote it. The stories are about the
same characters as are in my (higher priced) novel. At $0.99, the short-story ebook offers a
cheaper option for folks who aren't certain they want to buy the novel yet, though I suspect I sell
more copies to readers who got the novel and wanted more adventures with the main characters.
Either way, it works for me, because I'd originally written the stories before thinking of e-
publishing, and they were just sitting around on my hard drive, collecting virtual dust. If you have
some stories like that, then e-publishing them may be the ideal route.
Whether you're writing fiction or non-fiction, there are no rules for length when it comes to ebooks.
Please your audience, make a little extra money, and enjoy being an independent author!
The author is an indie fantasy writer, sharing what she's learning about e-publishing and book
promotion on her ebook blog. If you're interested in learning more about e-publishing short non-
fiction, check out her interview with Kate Harper (the author selling non-fiction booklets for Kindle
readers).
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=L.a._Buroker
==== ====
Grab Your Free Ebook on Making Money With The Kindle!
www.patrickdemasi.com/Recommends/MakeMoneyWithKindle.php
==== ====