Using Short Stories/Novellas as "bait"?

[JohnsonJoshuaK]

I'm sure I'm not the first person to consider this, but has anyone had success using short stories or novellas written in the same universe as "bait" for novels?

My current plan is to release a set of short stories or novellas set in my Gunpowder Fantasy world shortly before my novel goes up and then blast them on free promotions to try and get people to proceed to my novel.

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[NathanWrann]

Personally, I would put the one or two of the novels up first, and then release some of the "free" novellas/short stories. so when those freebies go to the top of the charts you have some paid content out there that may reap the benefit.

[JohnsonJoshuaK]

The timing for release of the shorter content is definitely still in consideration, I think having the novel up first is definitely a good idea.

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[Sean Patrick Fox]

Nathan gave some great advice, and I would definitely suggest taking it.

As for your idea, yes, it has been done many times before by many different authors. Obviously the degree to which it's successful for you will depend on a lot of things, but it's not a bad strategy.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

Speaking as an editor now, the most important thing is to make sure each work STANDS ON ITS OWN MERITS.  I often get submissions to our Quarterly journal that are from an author's own setting.  In these cases, the biggest problem is that the individual story does not have enough world-building to stand on its own.  And when I mention this to the author, I get "well, if you read the novel..."

Well, guess what?  I'm not going to go read your novel JUST to understand your short story!  You need to provide enough world-building in the story to entice me to want to learn more about your world.  If I become enraptured with your setting in a novella or short story, I will want more stories set in that world.  But if I am left wondering "Er, what is a Whatchamathing and why are the Whodidyoucallthems at war with the Whoaretheynows and where did this Whattheheckwasthatsupposetobe come from?" I'm not going to be interested in anything more.

[Millard]

I combined all the advice in this thread by having a smaller, stand-alone anthology of shorts selling at 99 cents, as a "This was great, now let's try the pricier, longer stuff" lure, and it's currently going free to accentuate that.

[JohnsonJoshuaK]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Right now I have some ideas for shorter works that are referenced in passing in my main work.

My inspiration comes from various "Worlds of Honor" collections that fill in the side stories for David Weber's Honor Harrington universe.

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[Steven R. Drennon]

About six months ago I published five short stories under a pen name. Each involved the same character but was a stand-alone story. I listed them for $0.99 each, and then provided all five together in a collection for $2.99. The first couple of months I sold a few short stories and a couple of collections. It wasn't anything spectacular, but I was happy to see them selling.

Then the week of Christmas, I set the price for the first short story to free at Smashwords and that carried through to all the outlets to which they distribute. By the first week of January, it was free at Amazon. In the month of January I gave away over 10,000 of the free stories and sold over 100 collections, as well as a couple dozen shorts. So far this month (in less than a week) I have already sold 86 collections and a dozen shorts, with the original short story still free. (It has been downloaded almost 5000 times and is in the top 20 freebies for its category, as well as the top 200 of all freebies.)

Overall, I would say that this "bait" has landed me a pretty good catch. I'm now in the process of finishing up another series of shorts in the hopes of riding the wave of attention I'm getting with the original series.


BTW - My latest Smashwords report shows that I sold 36 collections at B&N in January along with over 5000 downloads of the free short. The collection has been consistently ranked around 10,00 to 12,000 at both Amazon and B&N for the past three weeks!

[Decon]

"Bait!"

Not really a term I would use but here is what I am doing.

The first story in my collection of shorts, The Mystery of the Crimson Robe, was only ever meant to be a stand alone short story, 6,000 words. I liked the MC and 12 months later the collection has been a reasonable sales success. I find myself now 40,000 words into a full length Novel, featuring the same MC, in the same city and with some of the previous characters. This story is completely different although she is still an LA detective and it heads off into the world of the paranormal.

Will readers of the first story be interested? Who knows. Dedicated short story readers don't usually go for full length works. Having said that I will obviously cross market the stories at the end of each read. The order won't matter. Even though the short story covers an earlier period in her career.

[ChristinePope]

I'm currently writing a tie-in novella to my full-length novel, Heart of Gold. I'm probably going to enroll the novella in KDP Select, although Heart is not in the program. I'm hoping that the free tie-in will bring readers to the full-length book, but I'm also being very careful to make sure the novella can stand on its own (although I'm probably going to include an author's note saying that there are mild spoilers for the longer work, just in case).

We'll see how it works, since this is the first time I'll be doing something like this. My other two KDP Select titles are standalone pieces.

[Ash Stirling]

I'm using a few free short stories over on Smashwords as 'bait' for my novellas - which were initially written with the view in mind to garner interest for the novels I'm working on. 

[Guardian]

This bait idea didn't work for me at all. I sell much more from my expensive flagship project, while the sales of my short is minimal comparing to the other one (While the short story has good reviews as well, even better than the other one.).

[j meyers]

Yes. The strategy is working out well for me so far. My free short story "Intuition" was written with the intent that it will always be free to gain as much exposure as possible since I have no other books out yet--it's my very short loss leader. I released it in November and my novel Intangible just came out a little over a week ago. By the time my novel came out, I had a mailing list of interested readers just over 100 people long, and over 200 people had added it to their tbr lists on Goodreads.

And in my first week of sales, I've sold 50 books, which I think is pretty good.  I'd say that's all thanks to the free short story.

I think there is definite value to putting it out before your novel is out, but would also be just as effective to release them both at the same time. But I will second Julie that it should stand on its own. And it should be your best work. It should shine so people will come seek out your novel.

Good luck!

[ChadWilliamson]

I'm grateful this topic was broached because it's one I've been thinking about with my planned series. I'm roughly a third of the way through the first novel and am thinking I'll take time between one and two to do a prologue novelette (personally I can't stand the term, but it's about to be about 10,000 words, so that's what I'll call it). I was thinking the same thing as the OP, to post the prologue before the first novel.

However, I like Nathan's idea to use it after I have the first two books up.

[Feenix]

I "bought" a free short story a few days ago and was surprised to see that the first chapter of the author's novel was included with the free short.

A hyperlink to the Amazon.com page for the novel was on the last page. 


Dave King

[JohnsonJoshuaK]

I "bought" a free short story a few days ago and was surprised to see that the first chapter of the author's novel was included with the free short.

A hyperlink to the Amazon.com page for the novel was on the last page. 


Dave King

This is a great idea!



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[j meyers]

I "bought" a free short story a few days ago and was surprised to see that the first chapter of the author's novel was included with the free short.

A hyperlink to the Amazon.com page for the novel was on the last page. 


Dave King

That's what I did too. Minus the hyperlink, since my novel wasn't out yet. It's really a brilliant marketing idea--one the big publishers utilize as well.

[flipside]

Well, that's a tricky proposition.

It would work well, assuming your short stories/novellas sell better than your novels.

If it were me, I'd try to submit your short story/novella to an anthology. Readers of that antho would then have incentive to look for your books if they liked that story, and it's theoretically a new/different audience.

Otherwise, releasing a short story/novella is just like releasing a new book: who knows if it'll catch reader's interest?

[Borislava Borissova]

That's what I did too. Minus the hyperlink, since my novel wasn't out yet. It's really a brilliant marketing idea--one the big publishers utilize as well.

I like the idea very much. Actually it needs to have two texts ready for publishing, one is the short story. It is a bit more time consuming for writing and editing but hopefully there would be rewarding if the both works are strong enough.

[Decon]

Where I can say a free short has worked for me, is by publishing one of the 12 shorts in Lunch Break thrillers which sells at $4.99. My sales have been fairly consistent ever since. But for the reasons I explained earlier, I am not convinced a short story will have the same effect on a full length book.

[Chrystalla]

Well, yes. (I wasn't sure about "bait" but yes, that's what it is). I wrote my novelette "Hera" as a promotional tool - it's a story I wanted to tell, but I decided that I would have it permanently free to draw readers to the other books in the series which starts with Rex Rising. I had it free on Smashwords, then Amazon price-matched in November and it's been free since. It does drive more sales to my novel Rex Rising, and people have even mentioned in reviews that after reading Hera then they decided to also buy and read Rex Rising.

Note, though, that they are marked as being in the same series (Elei's Chronicles).

[Kathleen Valentine]

I'm not going to go read your novel JUST to understand your short story!  You need to provide enough world-building in the story to entice me to want to learn more about your world. 

I agree completely and the story has to be satisfying with no cliff-hanger endings. I think there was a time when cliff-hangers worked but they have become so ubiquitous that readers are getting very fed-up with them. If you look at the Amazon Discussion groups you'll see a lot of threads about readers who feel cheated and ripped off by authors who end a book without wrapping up the story.

I think novellas/novelettes can be a splendid introduction to your style if the story is complete and satisfying -- it has certainly worked for me! Over and over and over readers tell me they bought one of my novellas/novelettes for .99 and then went on to buy more of my work even though I do not write series or in a specific genre.

A satisfied reader should be every writer's goal.

[ETS PRESS]

Well, that's a tricky proposition.

It would work well, assuming your short stories/novellas sell better than your novels.

If it were me, I'd try to submit your short story/novella to an anthology. Readers of that antho would then have incentive to look for your books if they liked that story, and it's theoretically a new/different audience.

Otherwise, releasing a short story/novella is just like releasing a new book: who knows if it'll catch reader's interest?

The draw to the short story / novella as a promotional tool is making it free. Free incurs hundreds, if not thousands of downloads. This is a traffic driving promotion. If the story story / novella is well written, stands alone, and is satisfactory, then readers will seek out other books by the author.

[Sarah Bridgeton]

I'm planning to do this with my novel and novella. I haven't published anything yet. Newbie question: I plan to put the links in the back of the books. How do I know what the links will be before they are published?   

[Kathleen Valentine]

How do I know what the links will be before they are published?   

If you're talking about the links to Amazon pages, you don't. If you are going to set up a web site with individual pages you can make "coming soon" pages and use those links.

[Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson]

I'm planning to do this with my novel and novella. I haven't published anything yet. Newbie question: I plan to put the links in the back of the books. How do I know what the links will be before they are published?   

The link to your Kindle book will be http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN#. Problem is without knowing the ASIN# of your book you can't complete your link.