# Can Publishing a Short Story on Amazon's KDP Increase Visibility to you Novel?



## sunaynaprasad (Apr 22, 2014)

My novel has been on the market for eight months now and has only made 11 sales, sadly. Everything the Internet tells me about promoting a book is either not realistic for a financially dependent 20-year-old or something I've already done. I am considering putting a short story up at a cheap price for people to discover me as well as promote it. Is this a good idea?


----------



## shadowwalker (Apr 23, 2014)

My understanding is that short stories do not do well by themselves (or even in collections) unless the author is already established. I'm not sure why a short story, even a tie-in, would generate interest/sales for a novel that you've already done all the promotional things for.


----------



## Dave Watson (Apr 23, 2014)

I'm confused. How did you manage to get 18 reviews with only 11 sales? 

Personally I had my first novel and short story available for free on Amazon and Smashwords for a long time just to get my name out there


----------



## Potty (Apr 23, 2014)

Amazon are actually branching into the short story/novella genre. They are currently doing something called "singles" where an author can formally submit a story between 5000-30k words. This is unlike self publishing on amazon as we know it because there is an actual submission and review process. If selected you can earn 70% commission on all downloads and your short story will most likely get more downloads as this will have a higher "profile" than if you were to just upload.

People looking to buy short stories will look on the singles knowing that the story they are buying has had a level of quality control so there will be minimal risk of buying dross. I've currently got an 11k short submitted, 5 weeks in and haven't heard back yet so I'm getting quite nervous! I really hope I get it as this will be my first official sale if I do.

Take a gander.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000694083


----------



## Caragula (Apr 23, 2014)

Would be interesting to know how many editors they have doing this, as I'm sure a backlog would rather rapidly build up.  Potty, 5 weeks is about the minimum time an agent takes to respond to what's submitted, so if this is Amazon we're talking, might be you have to hang a while longer yet.  My average response from the agencies I sent my novel to was about eight weeks.


----------



## sunaynaprasad (Apr 23, 2014)

Most of the reviews were from a blog tour or people whom I have sent free copies to.


----------



## krishan (Apr 23, 2014)

Having more products available on Amazon will help make it easier to find your work, if only slightly. You might consider joining the Kindle Boards for more advice. They seem well-informed about how cross-promotion and publishing multiple works can affect your sales on Amazon.


----------



## movieman (Apr 23, 2014)

shadowwalker said:


> My understanding is that short stories do not do well by themselves (or even in collections) unless the author is already established.



Over the last couple of years I've sold about five copies of a couple of SF short stories on Amazon and five hundred of another, with the other ten or so somewhere in between (most around twenty to thirty, but one around two hundred). So they don't sell particularly well, but they do sell.


----------



## sunaynaprasad (Apr 23, 2014)

If short stories don't sell better than novels, but having multiple works on Amazon helps gain visibility, then what else works? I like the idea of the singles submissions, though.


----------

