Amazon Shorts: An Interesting Idea

Have you heard about Amazon Shorts? The gigantic online bookseller and vendor of other goods as well includes a section offering short pieces of writing (fiction and non-fiction) for download at $0.49 each.

In order to participate, an author has to have at least one book for sale on Amazon, and then any submission has to be approved for inclusion as an Amazon Short.

To my surprise, two of my short stories (yes, short stories--fiction) were accepted. I am not basically a fiction writer, but two stories I wrote last year, "Volunteer" and "Marie's Story," appeared as Amazon Shorts yesterday. To find them, do a search for my name under "Books" at Amazon.com. Search Amazon Shorts for other choices, too.

I found the idea fascinating, although it is not likely to be a revenue producer. Some authors use the Shorts to generate interest in their related books, or even to provide updates or additions as Shorts. Others offer serial episodes of longer stories or books. My stories are not related to my books, although they are written by a senior and feature seniors, perhaps encouraging other seniors to write, and writers in general to include sympathetic senior characters.

If you are an author with a book or books offered by Amazon, consider submitting shorts as well. If you have a dollar to spare, I'd appreciate your downloading, reading, and reviewing my stories (as customer reviews). I am interested to know what someone, anyone, thinks of them.

If you have any experience with Amazon Shorts, either as a reader or as an author, please let me know. To me, it's an interesting experiment; it's existed for several years, yet I had not heard of it until fairly recently.

My books and shorts: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/105-2997487-5818060?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Marlys%20Marshall%20Styne

Amazon Shorts: http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sa_menu_sh2/103-1435355-6091001?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=13993911

For authors: How to participate in Amazon Shorts: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=570212

Copyright 2008 by Marlys Marshall Styne