Last month, I mentioned a “Storyteller’s Bowl”-funded short story project by Greg Stolze, “Two Things She Does With Her Body”. Last night, the story’s funding drive completed, and the story was posted as a 7-page PDF for all to read.
It’s a decent little slice-of-life story, with good, very descriptive writing. As Stolze says, “There’s no twist ending, no elaborate plot, no dramatic reversal of character. It’s just this woman, doing these two things, two acts that contrast.”
According to the KickStarter project page, Stolze earned $345 gross, surpassing his $300 goal by 15%. For a 3,000-word story, that works out to 11.5 cents per word—considerably higher than a lot of magazines pay.
It’s interesting to note that some people have long thought short stories might be the “future” of electronic fiction—they’re perfect for a shorter attention span, a shorter period of time that people might want to spend reading on their electronic devices.
But somehow, that just doesn’t seem to have worked out in practice. Alexandria Digital Literature and Mind’s Eye Fiction, two of the first commercial e-book stores, concentrated solely on short fiction for that reason. They consolidated together, then essentially went under (though Alexlit’s fiction recommender is still around). Similarly, electronic short story periodical Jim Baen’s Universe just published its final issue.
On the other hand, Atlantic Magazine recently started selling short stories individually (albeit at a hefty $4-per-story price). And Mike Resnick at Jim Baen’s Universe says that the whole reason the e-zine is shutting down is that a remarkable number of free competitors have sprung up:
The business model for Jim Baen’s Universe was valid when it began, but outmoded within a year of its initial issue. To this day we can compete with the digests . . . but we can’t sell an e-zine when so many quality e-zines are available for free.
I suspect that crowd-funded projects like Stolze’s stories might be another potential future for the medium, at least for established writers. It will be interesting to see if this method catches on.
First, congratulations. Any time someone can make money by writing, I take my hat off to them. Second, I have a hard time believing this to be a sustainable model. I checked out the fund-raising page and learned that there were 17 contributors for the $345 raised, which comes out to a bit over $20 per contributor. People might do this once or twice to help out a friend or to support a model, but do we really think anyone other than friends or family will regularly support authors to the tune of $20 for a five minute read?
I’ve spent the past decade pushing the idea of affordable electronic fiction so I know where my biases are. As a reader, I have entertainment choices and spend my entertainment dollars carefully. Not that this story isn’t worth every penny–there are just so many choices available at a more affordable price.
Rob Preece
Publisher
It has worked six times and failed once, so far. (Twice, if you count the sorta-kinda-web comic.) You can check out the results here.
http://www.gregstolze.com/fiction_library/index.html
In the process of liberating those six stories, there were 180 distinct pledges. Of those pledges, 100 came from people who only pledged to one short story. 38 of those people pledged twice, 18 thrice, 8 four times, 5 five times and 12 people pledged to all six stories.
Two pledges came from relatives (a cousin and a niece, each of whom only pledged one time) and 18 came from non-relative friends and colleagues who know me personally and might not have otherwise pledged. Of those 18, 17 were one-time pledges and one was a triple. (That triple sort of started out as a reader but we became buddies through years of mutual suffering.)
Conclusions? I dunno. I was an English major. If you add up my numbers, it turns out that there should have been 181 pledges. Interesting data though.
-G.