Writing Short Stories as a Business Card and Audience Builder for Indie Authors

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Abstract

df9b">Not me.</p><p id="7b68">My writing partner and I are looking to publish our sixth novel in the <a href="https://readmedium.com/about-stone-cold-crime-stories-4fd6d05e466d">Detective Tom Stone series</a> this coming July.</p><p id="e1a3">We’ve been working on it since … I honestly can’t remember. I really can’t. We released our fifth novel, Subterfuge, in Nov. 2020 so that means we started our sixth by January or February 2021.</p><p id="22e4">A year and a half from start to publishing. It’s an involved story that we really enjoy.</p><p id="d682">So how are we staying in front of our audience or any audience? We’ve written four short stories and have released a free one once every four to six weeks on Amazon.</p><p id="2097">We need to write some more because the stories keep my mind sharp in the police-thriller-detective genre.</p><p id="921c">We’ve offered short story download on Amazon once a month for January, February, and March. In the back of the stories we link to our Facebook page and link to our novels.</p><p id="56dc">We spent $20 advertising on Facebook for each story and ended up with over 100 to 200 stories downloaded.</p><p id="dc99">We didn’t offer a download in April since it slipped our minds and we also haven’t done any advertising in the last six weeks.</p><p id="8d44">In recent days, we sold two short stories and had a full novel read through Kindle Unlimited and sold two other novels, including the paperback version of our fifth novel that deals with human trafficking, <a href="https://readmedium.com/about-stone-cold-crime-stories-4fd6d05e466d">Subterfuge</a>.</p><p id="0832"

Options

It may not sound impressive, but something kicked in to spur the sales so now we need to write and repeat while we finish novel six.</p><p id="e41d">Indie authors need a marketing strategy in order to attract an audience and sell novels. A short story is a low-cost way to test concepts, link in the back to your novels, and show readers your unique voice.</p><p id="0c7f">Here are two you can read on Medium:</p><div id="c8d9" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/massage-and-murder-8b3ad68f50f0"> <div> <div> <h2>Massage and Murder</h2> <div><h3>Detective Tom Stone found the woman, scared and trembling, and wondered how to best serve justice</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*nTd6QGpCcnlqOnAb)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="873b" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/caught-in-the-smoke-shop-shootout-d1cd2b4ea62b"> <div> <div> <h2>Caught in the Smoke Shop Shootout</h2> <div><h3>Davey fell victim to JoJo’s lifetime of bad decisions</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*MFjlAjHx76eUX-eE)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Publishing short stories offers a range of benefits

Capturing a chase, angst and raising big questions through a character can happen in a short story and not just a novel. A short story is tight and when it’s written well can prove as captivating for the reader.

Short stories can sharpen an author’s mind when working on a novel and then another — and another. A platform like Medium is an excellent place to publish tales ranging from only a few hundred words, or less, to 2,000-plus words.

Indie authors needing to build an audience, and who don’t want to give away a novel for free, can write a short story or two per month to unload part of a story idea and develop a calling card.

The form is a great way to show readers your storytelling skills without a major time investment.

Many indie authors use a rapid release strategy to write one novel, publish it, and within weeks have another one waiting to publish. Those who are publishing rapidly get a third and fourth story out within a month and in the span of a year they can have several novels with their audience gobbling them up.

Not me.

My writing partner and I are looking to publish our sixth novel in the Detective Tom Stone series this coming July.

We’ve been working on it since … I honestly can’t remember. I really can’t. We released our fifth novel, Subterfuge, in Nov. 2020 so that means we started our sixth by January or February 2021.

A year and a half from start to publishing. It’s an involved story that we really enjoy.

So how are we staying in front of our audience or any audience? We’ve written four short stories and have released a free one once every four to six weeks on Amazon.

We need to write some more because the stories keep my mind sharp in the police-thriller-detective genre.

We’ve offered short story download on Amazon once a month for January, February, and March. In the back of the stories we link to our Facebook page and link to our novels.

We spent $20 advertising on Facebook for each story and ended up with over 100 to 200 stories downloaded.

We didn’t offer a download in April since it slipped our minds and we also haven’t done any advertising in the last six weeks.

In recent days, we sold two short stories and had a full novel read through Kindle Unlimited and sold two other novels, including the paperback version of our fifth novel that deals with human trafficking, Subterfuge.

It may not sound impressive, but something kicked in to spur the sales so now we need to write and repeat while we finish novel six.

Indie authors need a marketing strategy in order to attract an audience and sell novels. A short story is a low-cost way to test concepts, link in the back to your novels, and show readers your unique voice.

Here are two you can read on Medium: