Little Essays Everywhere

This week, I’m working on making some of my stories available in digital format (for only $0.99 each). I understood that there would be a decently steep learning curve since I’m a bit of a technoidiot, but I still wanted to soak up as much about this thing that is digital publishing as I could. I’m learning all about formatting and refreshing my memory on Photoshop… Ultimately, it’s been far more fun than it has been frustrating, which is a good thing.

My dear friend J.T. Ellison (on Twitter as @thrillerchick) took me to task over breakfast a couple of weekends ago and forced me to get my royal butt in gear on this particular subject. She told me she’d been waiting for a digital anthology from me for far too long, and was willing to make one happen by force, if needs be. J.T. may look all sweet and tall and blonde and awesome, but she kills people for a living, so I try not to cross her if at all possible.

I explained that the bulk of my short story fodder (and there is quite the bulk, it seems) was either not available for me yet, or did not adhere to a certain theme. J.T. agreed with the first point, but argued the second. She also offered up the suggestion that I make novella-size anthologies of a certain theme, if I was so inclined to stick with that particular hangup. It was a good idea.

What I’ve decided to do is this: I’m going to begin by putting up the short stories I have available for sale on Amazon/Kindle and B&N/Nook at $0.99 apiece. You will get not only the story, but also an essay on the origin of that particular tale (I always love reading that sort of thing). I will then periodically put up mini-collections of my work–4 or 5 thematic story collections with possibly some original stories thrown in–for only $2.99. While it will be cheaper than buying each story separately, I will not include the origin essays in the anthology.

Does this sound good to you guys? Let me know what you think.

And now, apparently, I need to go write some more origin essays. For some reason I thought I had a lot more of these already done. Not that it matters, really…you know how much we authors *hate* going on and on about our stories.