The Price of Thinking

I’ve been thinking. I understand how dangerous that is. But perhaps you’ll bear with me. I decided over the Christmas break that I was going to self-publish two more Kindle/Nook collections this year. One was going to be called “Whiskey, Guns and Sin,” and would be noir/crime stories. The second would be called “The Gaunt,” and would feature ghost/horror stories set in the woods. I figured I’d include three stories in each, and make each collection somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand words, and charge 99 cents for them.

So far, I’ve completed the first collection, which would run to about 7500 words and contain:
Whiskey, Guns and Sin (with a new ending from that previously published on Beat to a Pulp.)
The Finest Cut. (New)
The Grey Within (New)

The second collection is partially completed and so far runs to about 6,000 words, although it would be more in the end. It contains:
The Gaunt (unfinished)
The Toad
Mouth Wet With Rain and Leaves
The Finding

Then I started getting my numbers back from the sales of “Killing Trail” (2.99) and “Days of Beer” (99 cents). The relative amount of money I’ve made is far greater for “Killing Trail,” which is at the 70 percent royalty rate, as compared to “Days of Beer.”

So, then I started thinking: What if I put all the stories together, built the collection to about 20,000 words, and charged 2.99. I could entitle the overall collection, “Whiskey, Guns and Sin,” and then inside have a part 1: Noir/Crime stories, and part 2: Ghost/horror stories.

How does this sound to you? Do you think readers would be put off by a collection that includes both noir and ghost stories? Would two unified collections be better? (I’ve also considered just adding more stories to each collection to take them each to 20,000, but that means a lot more writing and I have a couple of other projects I’d like to get to.)

As always, feedback is appreciated. I’ve missed a day or two of visiting blogs but am getting ready to head out. See you around the blogosphere.
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Kindle and Nook Collections

Some folks I know who are self-publishing on Kindle are talking about hundreds of sales for their works a month. (I don’t know any of those folks who are claiming thousands.) I have two self-published titles up on Amazon and Nook, Killing Trail and Days of Beer, and I haven’t come close to that number yet. Sales for Days of Beer have pretty well flatlined, but Killing Trail is still selling a few copies a month.

One thing the folks are saying who are publishing more is that it 1) helps to have more titles available, and 2) it helps if they are all basically in the same genre. I’m never going to be able to pull off the second one. I don’t read in any one genre and I just can’t focus my writing in one. I like stories of all kinds, and I want to write the kinds of stories I like to read. And I don’t want to use three or four different pseudonyms; I’d end up having to tell folks it was me, anyway.

However, I’ve decided that I’m going to put up at least two more ebooks from my own Razored Zen Press in 2012. One of them will not be the erotica collection I was talking about last year. I just decided I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. However, I do have two specific collections in mind that I will try to publish.

The first will be called Whiskey, Guns and Sin. It will be a noir/crime collection. The title story was previously published at Beat to a Pulp, but the ending is completely redone for this collection. The Swampy Jack story, “The Finest Cut” will also be in there. And another story, which I have an idea for but which hasn’t been written yet. I have a cover concept firmly in mind.

The second one will be a “Hauntings” collection. I have one story written for this already, called “Mouth Wet with Rain and Leaves.” There will be at least two more stories but I have to write them first. I have plenty of ideas. I don’t know what the collection title will be yet, but all the stories will deal with hauntings in some way or another. I have a cover idea for this one too, although not as firmly held.

Each of these collections will be shorter in total words than either Killing Trail or Days of Beer, but will contain three stories each and I’ll sell them for .99 cents. I’ll see if this will make any difference in my sales figures on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For those of you who are saying, oh no, not more Gramlich already after Days of Beer in December and In the Language of Scorpions in January, it’s going to be at least a couple of months before “Whiskey” goes up, and quite a bit longer than that before the “Hauntings” collection is ready.

It’s a crazy new world of publishing out there. I haven’t the foggiest what is going to happen. But I'm going to have my stuff in the mix some way or another.
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