March 14, 2013

Decisions, Decisions

It's been a hectic couple of weeks, and what little writing I did involved proofing the scanned copy of a backlist title, A Love For All Seasons, which will be available for download next week (the cover for this one has been giving my cover designer and I a lot of grief; we ultimately decided the original artwork I'd selected wasn't working and we're starting over). After what seems like forever (I'd taken a couple of weeks off after finishing Man of Her Heart, not aware that all hell was about to break loose in a whirlwind of unexpected, nearly nonstop personal activity), I'm getting back into actually creating new words! I must say it feels great!

I'm working on the short story prequel to my upcoming novella, which I have named Lost That Lovin' Feeling.  This is the first time I've done a prequel, so it's rather exciting.  This is backstory for the novella, Love Will Follow, since I decided that the reader needed to know more about the heroine's history, but I didn't want to include the backstory in the actual book; that would only slow down the pace.

I'll be offering Lost That Lovin' Feeling as a free download from the Freebies page of my Bunderful Books website, alongside my Bunderful Sampler.  Here's my issue:  Originally my plan was to offer this short story exclusively from my website.  I know it can take weeks for a book to go free on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and in this age where 99 cents can buy a full-length eBook, I feel a little funny charging even 99 cents for a work that is almost certain to be under 25 pages, possibly under 15.  I don't believe in padding, so the story will be however long (or short) it takes to be complete, and it will include the first chapter of my novella (at least now I'm considering it a novella, but again, the length might change before the story is complete), Love Will Follow.

But despite my best efforts to inform the reading public about the free availability of this story, there will be people who won't see it.  I hate to lose out on prospective buyers because they didn't know the story was available, but yet I hate to charge for something that I feel should be free.  So, this is my plan:

In addition to offering Lost That Lovin' Feeling at my website as a free download, I've decided to also sell it for 99 cents at Amazon and Barnes & Noble while I attempt to make it free at those sites.  I will use the Product Description to let prospective buyers know the length, that it is a prequel, and that it also includes the start of the story it precedes...and I'll hope like hell that some uninformed buyer doesn't ding me with a 1-star review because they didn't read the Product Description and were expecting a full-length eBook.

I'd love to know what you think of my strategy!