pricing children's stories

[BeccaPrice]

I have 4 children's stories that I wrote when my kids were small - these are the "read before bedtime" kind of story - an average of about 6 pages long (between 5 and 8 pages).

I've been thinking of publishing them through Amazon, but I can't figure out a good price or structure.

Should I publish them as individual stories, at 0.99 each? that may seem like a lot for such short stories. should I publish them as one book of 4 stories? if so, how should I price it?

The four are very different: two are fairly serious and mythic-fairy-story-ish, and the other two are more modern in feel and lighter in tone.

[Katsunami]

Maybe this will be of some help. I've bought two short stories by Terry Brooks. They're background stories in the world of Shannara.

Allanon's Quest -> 34 pages @ 2400 characters per page
The Weapons Master's Choice -> 42 pages @ 2400 characters per page.

They cost US $0.99 (€0.75) a piece at Diesel Ebooks, and €0.91 a piece at Kobo. That's 2.39 eurocents a page, maximum, for a story of a best selling author, and these stories are longer than yours combined. I know, you can't really make a price based on th number of pages, but if someone like Terry Brooks asks €0.99 for a 42-page story, I wouldn't have the nerve to ask that price for a 5-8 page story as an amateur writer. You'd be asking just short of $4 for 24 pages, while one could also get a 400 page novel at that price, with a little shopping around.

If it were me, I'd not (dare to) ask more than €0.60 (US $0.79) for the lot of them.

[BeccaPrice]

I didn't think that, at Amazon, you could ask below $0.99?

[JSWolf]

Why not publish them in one book and charge $0.99 and see what happens?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I didn't think that, at Amazon, you could ask below $0.99?

I do not know. I've never published anything anywhere, and never buy Amazon books if I can help it (because I prefer epub, not because I hate Amazon).

You could publish them at $0.99, and see what happens, as JSWolf says. Maybe you'll sell 1 million copies in 2 days. It happened before, sometimes with the silliest games you could think of on mobile phones.... but probably not.

[BeccaPrice]

I doubt I'll sell a million copies. I'd like to sell enough to pay for the artist who will be designing the cover, but that's all I expect. I figured I'd put them up at KDP for free for while too... I don't know how much market there is for bed-time stories that don't have illustrations to them. I just figured, they've been on my computer hard drive for several years, they might as well sit on Amazon's hard drive too.

next question: should I put them in order of lightest to more serious? or mix them up a bit more?

[Katsunami]

It seems Amazon generates samples from the beginning of the book. If so, it'd be best to put the best story first. I do not know if you can set the sample length when uploading, but I've seen books that show 2 or even 3 chapters as a sample. If this cannot be set and it's Amazon's default, you may actually be in trouble.

[BeccaPrice]

On a quick google, it seems that Amazon sets the first 10% as a sample length, so that would be about 2.5 pages. It actually would be fine with me if the first story was the sample.

I've currently got it set that the first two stories are the lightest ones, and ending on the most (so I've been told) thought-provoking one.

I know this isn't the best medium for what should be picture books, but I've been told that my stories are basically unpublishable (they're not simplistic enough, although they have been reader-tested, and are suitable for my target age group, which is any kid who wants to have stories read to them before bed - maybe 4yo on up)

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why not publish them in one book and charge $0.99 and see what happens?

This. You will never know if you do not try!