Free Kindle Nation Shorts - How It Works, and Why It Works

(Ed. Note--An advance of a couple of brand new "Free Kindle Nation Shorts" that will go out in the next few days, I thought it would be useful to update and re-post this article on how Free Kindle Nation Shorts works. In response to some reader questions, let me clarify that subscribers to the Kindle edition of Kindle Nation Daily are able to read the upcoming Free Shorts directly on their Kindles.)

By Stephen Windwalker
 
One of the very nice things about the fact that the Kindle Nation Daily following is now well over 10,000 Kindle owners is the way in which its growth has created a gathering wave of authors and publishers who want to offer quality short stories and fiction and nonfiction excerpts for me to share with Kindle owners in the Free Kindle Nation Shorts format. Since last May 22 when FKNS debuted with Elizabeth Stuckey-French's (photo above right) short story, "Interview with a Moron," the citizenship of Kindle Nation has skyrocketed.

As a result, authors and publishers are beginning to see an impact on reader interest in their other work when they offer a free short piece or excerpt with a link to that other work. A while back when we shared Sue Lange's short story "Jump," for instance, the Kindle Store sales ranking for her full-length Kindle edition of Uncategorized, in which "Jump" is collected, soared to #376 and reached #2 on the Kindle Store Movers and Shakers list.

A few good days of Kindle sales aren't generally enough to keep the wolf from the door for a hardworking author, but it doesn't hurt, and if its helps to connect authors with readers then I feel as if we're accomplishing something worthwhile here. Few authors can afford to give their work away for free, and I'm not promoting the idea that they should, because there are two important catches here if this process is to work for all of us, both readers and writers:

• First, the Free Kindle Nation Short has to be a work of sufficient distinction and reader interest that significant numbers of people will want to go further and pay to download an author's other work. The spike in attention for Sue Lange's collection told me that plenty of Kindle Nation readers enjoyed the story and wanted to read more from Sue.
• And, of course, it is equally important that significant numbers of Kindle Nation's citizenry -- yep, that's us -- make the connection and, when we like a Short and have the ability and interest to do so, make a point of picking up one or two of the author's other books. In addition to getting reading that you'll probably enjoy, you are also helping to influence other authors and publishers to share good work through Free Kindle Nation Shorts.

It seems to be working. After Sue's experience with "Jump," she helped us to make a connection with Book View Press that led to the inclusion of a new Free Kindle Nation Short to be released later today. And in the next few weeks you can look forward to great FKNS selections from Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, DL Rose, Harry V. Lehmann, Robert W. Walker, Tom Harbin, and others.

My personal take on this wacky world is summarized in two highly technical principles that may be well grokked only by the supreme levels of the literati:

• we are all, one way or another, in this together; and
• what goes around comes around.

These are the underlying themes behind an essay that I wrote a couple of years ago called "The Feedback is the Filter," which later became part of my book, Beyond The Literary-Industrial Complex: Using The Amazon Kindle And Other New Technologies To Unleash An Indie Movement Of Readers & Writers. They have also served as the primary animus behind my obviously rather intense interest in the Kindle, and they continue to play out in important ways as demonstrated in this recent Kindle Nation post:

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  Amazon Builds Kindle Revolution with Guerilla Tactics vs. Conventional Warfare by Publishers and Competitors

As I've discussed in the past with my friends in Kindle Nation, I have been a little disappointed that Amazon has not done more to kindle Kindle-centered social networking since it launched the Kindle and, about nine months later, purchased Shelfari. But perhaps it's for the best, if a community like ours in Kindle Nation can build these connections, and pathways for connection, ourselves.

When the feedback becomes the filter, the differences between one book and another can be based on their levels of distinction and quality as reading matter rather than on the means of production that brought them into the world or the gatekeepers -- whether these were publishers, editors, agents, authors, reviewers, or whomever -- who were present and attentive at their conception. Indie publishing, self-publishing, e-book publishing, or mega-publisher publishing -- what's the real difference in this new day in which we can make the connections and wipe away the stigmata ourselves?

So, rock on, Kindle Nation! It seems like we have work to do. I hope you'll feel free to share your comments here or in an email to KindleNation@gmail.com, and if your name is Kingsolver or King or Patterson or Palin (or anything else) and you are trying to jumpstart your career with a Free Kindle Nation Short, don't be shy! But just make sure it's the right stuff, because in Kindle Nation we know from the right stuff.