[Alain Gomez]

As my father says: data is happiness (he's an engineer )

I've seen a lot of questions/speculations thrown around here about short story sales. So I want to do a guest blog series on my blog (http://bookbrouhaha.blogspot.com/) gathering REAL data from short story authors. I think this is important for both indie short story and novelists alike.

Personally, I write because I enjoy it. But I think that people hold back on writing short stories because they fear there's no money in it. Perhaps that's true, perhaps not.

So here's what I would like for you to send me in the body of an email:

Your past short story writing history- Just a few quick words saying if you used to write for magazines and such back in the day or if you're entirely new to writing

Date you electronically published your first story- through a publisher or by yourself, I don't care

Amount of effort you put into advertising your short stories- high, medium, low, none

Genre(s)- list your main ones

The average length your individual short stories tend to be- of course this varies, but everyone has a comfortable norm

Amazon sales data
-I would prefer last 6 months, but if you haven't been published that long, send me what you got
-For each month, send me how many TOTAL standalone and collections you had up for sale
-For each month, tell me how many TOTAL standalone and collection sales you made (please combine US, UK and DE sales)

B&N sales data
-Same as Amazon so we can compare

I'm asking for totals because I believe short stories sell differently than books. You're looking for 1 reader to buy all 30 stories rather than 30 different readers. This is why it's important to list how many works you had up and then total sales.

Please send all information to [email protected] You may also send me one personal link to add at the bottom of your guest post. This is merely a fact gathering attempt. Is it realistic to be a full time short story writer?

 

[Alain Gomez]

Ok, I have a few submissions, but more would be nice!

I'll be posting my numbers too.

 

[S Jaffe]

Alan, I'm very interested in this.  I've been having my short stories published in magazines (online and in print) for many years, but only started releasing them as ebooks in the last few weeks.  Give me a month or two and I'll have data for you.

 

[Alain Gomez]

Alan, I'm very interested in this. I've been having my short stories published in magazines (online and in print) for many years, but only started releasing them as ebooks in the last few weeks. Give me a month or two and I'll have data for you.

Excellent! Yeah there's no hurry for this one. It will be something that I continuously accept submission for as well as post updates myself.

I'm really interested in this as well. It's one thing for people to be posting their book numbers everywhere. But short stories?

 

[Alain Gomez]

I posted my numbers if anyone is interested: http://bookbrouhaha.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-short-story-sales-information-to.html

My plan is for this to be an ongoing thing. Every month I will update as well as list any other interested authors.

 

[Alain Gomez]

Shana Hammaker has been kind enough to donate her information to the cause: http://bookbrouhaha.blogspot.com/2011/07/short-story-sales-stats-for-shana.html

 

[John Hartness]

I might skew the curve a little, because my short story in the world of my novels is selling very well, but I think it's riding the coattails of the successful novels. It has sold 237 copies in the month since it has been released.

I've never really written short stories before, but have ideas for stories in this world that do not fit in a novel length.

I published this story on June 15th, 2011

Practically no advertising for this story specifically, just a couple of Facebook posts

It's an Urban Fantasy series

This one is 6,000 words, and I anticipate others in the same rough geography.

 

[Alain Gomez]

I might skew the curve a little, because my short story in the world of my novels is selling very well, but I think it's riding the coattails of the successful novels. It has sold 237 copies in the month since it has been released.

I've never really written short stories before, but have ideas for stories in this world that do not fit in a novel length.

I published this story on June 15th, 2011

Practically no advertising for this story specifically, just a couple of Facebook posts

It's an Urban Fantasy series

This one is 6,000 words, and I anticipate others in the same rough geography.

Nice! Would you mind if I published this on my blog?

 

[Alain Gomez]

July is up: http://bookbrouhaha.blogspot.com/2011/08/july-short-story-sales.html

 

[soyfrank]

I just published my first collection of 12 short stories last week on Kindle. If you're still looking in six months, maybe I can help.

 

[Alain Gomez]

I just published my first collection of 12 short stories last week on Kindle. If you're still looking in six months, maybe I can help.

I have no plans on quitting, so I'll be looking out for your stats.

 

[Michael Kingswood]

All I've put up so far are short stories (I planned to put out my novel last month, but unexpected delays have pushed that until the middle of this month).  I put up 2 in February, then nothing else until last night, when I put up a third.  I was waiting to hear back from some magazines and Writers of the Future for some of them.  And for others...I just procrastinated.  But now I've received my rejections and I'm ready to put out some more.    By mid-month, I'll have two more shorts, a collection of 5, a novelette, and my novel up and pubbed, if all goes to plan.

Those two shorts have sold a handful of copies a month, but that's about it.  I put zero effort into promoting them.  I'll let you know what happens when I get the rest of these things up.

 

[Debbiek]

I don't want to be on any ones blog because I use a pen name and don't want any one to know but for the record, all of my books are short stories around 6,000 words I sell approximate 3,500 books a month since November. I have 31 books.  Only 2 of the books are priced at .99 the rest are priced at 2.99.  My 2.99 ones are erotic romance and I sell more of them than the other.

 

[Alain Gomez]

Those two shorts have sold a handful of copies a month, but that's about it. I put zero effort into promoting them. I'll let you know what happens when I get the rest of these things up.

See, that's impressive though. No promotional effort AND short stories and you still managed to sell a handful.

 

[Alain Gomez]

I don't want to be on any ones blog because I use a pen name and don't want any one to know but for the record, all of my books are short stories around 6,000 words I sell approximate 3,500 books a month since November. I have 31 books. Only 2 of the books are priced at .99 the rest are priced at 2.99. My 2.99 ones are erotic romance and I sell more of them than the other.

That's interesting. I've heard that "30" is the magic number for short story authors. Supposedly, once you have 30 stories, things start to pick up. Would you say that's true?

 

[TWGallier]

I've put up a novel and 2 short stories since starting May 18th.  Even though the novel has been priced as much as $4.99, it is selling better than the two short stories combined.  Which isn't saying much, to be honest.

Nothing sold this month so far.

I do zero promotion.  I'm really quite shy, and banging my own drum just seems "wrong" to me.  LOL  Me thinks me in trouble in this bizness.

 

[Debbiek]

That's interesting. I've heard that "30" is the magic number for short story authors. Supposedly, once you have 30 stories, things start to pick up. Would you say that's true?

Yes, I would say that is true because first of all if one of your books is not doing well another usually another book picks up sales. Second is the "also bought" takes your buyer to your other books. There is advertising without you having to do it. I do not advertise my books because I don't want people to find out my pen name.

 

[bettymidnight]

Wow, those are some great posts you have up there.  I wish I could take part in this but I just published my first story last week (end of July) and haven't seen much activity yet.  Then again, I'm in erotica and that's either hit or miss.

~BM~

 

[Decon]

Sold 20 shorts in Germany last month, but two of them are translated to German so that helps. The sales were enough to get 10 of them in the category top 10's with one at number 1. I do better with my compilation which shifts around 200 per month, but mostly in the UK. I have hardly had the individual shorts up for long and they have only recently started to spread to the premium catalogues the last few weeks so it is hard to tell.

I just keep my fingers crossed there is a market for them. All mine are thrillers of around 5,000 to 8,000 words.

 

[CoreyWWilliams]

The only ebook I have up so far is a short story. So far sales are pretty slow, but it's only been up for a week now. Not nearly enough time to give any valuable data.

I kind of hope it does well. I think the Kindle would actually be a very good forum for cheap short stories, but so far most of the really successful indie authors I know mostly just write novels. I'm not really sure how good short story sales are in general, so I'm really interested to see how the blog about it comes out.