Word comes from Amazon that it's looking once again at publishing writing that is shorter than conventional books. Here's the corporate press release:
Less than 10,000 words or more than 50,000: that is the choice writers have generally faced for more than a century--works either had to be short enough for a magazine article or long enough to deliver the "heft" required for book marketing and distribution. But in many cases, 10,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages) might be the perfect, natural length to lay out a single killer idea, well researched, well argued and well illustrated--whether it's a business lesson, a political point of view, a scientific argument, or a beautifully crafted essay on a current event.
Today, Amazon is announcing that it will launch "Kindle Singles"--Kindle books that are twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book. Kindle Singles will have their own section in the Kindle Store and be priced much less than a typical book. Today's announcement is a call to serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers to join Amazon in making such works available to readers around the world.
"Ideas and the words to deliver them should be crafted to their natural length, not to an artificial marketing length that justifies a particular price or a certain format," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. "With Kindle Singles, we're reaching out to publishers and accomplished writers and we're excited to see what they create."
Like all Kindle content, Kindle Singles will be "Buy Once, Read Everywhere"--customers will be able to read them on Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices. Amazon's Whispersync technology syncs your place across devices, so you can pick up where you left off. In addition, with the Kindle Worry-Free Archive, Kindle Singles will be automatically backed up online in your Kindle library on Amazon where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.
To be considered for Kindle Singles, interested parties should contact digital-publications@amazon.com.
In a look at the growing digital self-publishing market, sure to be accelerated by Amazon's new 70 percent royalty for self-published e-books that meet certain conditions, WSJ offers its thoughts. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says his company "wants to be a partner, not a threat, to publishers. 'I think the real risk is that there are a multitude of publishers. Some of them are really forward leaning, and are really going after this new e-book area,' he says. 'If you are not one of those publishers, then I would be worried.'"
Seth Godin sees the overall market splintering into two tiers of offerings: "branded/high-quality" and "cheap/good enough." Sourcebooks CEO Dominique Raccahagrees, adding "there is some truth to the idea that low prices will drag down our prices."
Self-publishing advocates like to celebrate the small number of successes--Karen McQuestion says she has sold 36,000 ebooks (priced at under two dollars) through Amazon (she is now an Amazon Encore author). But at least this WSJ story also notes that "most self-published authors don't have popular followings and see modest sales," citing a more typical author who has sold fewer than 400 print books and 100 ebooks.
Some publishing people are rankled by the Journal's six or seven-step comparison of what's involved in traditional publishing versus self-publishing. Raccah places that number closer to 26 steps. WSJ
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