The Philosophy behind Releasing Individual Pieces included in Anthologies

I’m looked at what I’d written and put together, and I re-thought my decision not to publish any of the anthology stories separately. For a long time I tossed up between publishing all or some of them separately at 99c (for pieces up to 5,000 words), $1.49 (for pieces between 5,000-10,000 words) and $1.99 (for pieces between 10,000 and 15,000 words), or just leaving them available as part of an anthology. I worried about how that might affect my readers, but, in the end, I decided to make it clear in the blurbs and on the covers of individual pieces that they could be found in an anthology and that the anthology only sold for $2.99. This way readers should be able to find the cheaper alternative.

I also decided that the individual stories would all have a similar style of cover and lay-out of content to the anthologies so the link between each was easier to notice. I started out by designing the covers myself, but will go for professional covers as I can afford it. I’ve chosen the initial cover style for the anthologies, and decided on an approach for the singles. Now I only have the final designs to create, and the individual stories to format.

What this also means is that I can release my future short stories as soon as they are written, rather than waiting until I have written a number of pieces. I’ll decide the anthology title and cover art beforehand, and then design the individual covers accordingly, letting readers know there will be a collection released in the future. Readers can then have the choice of buying immediately, or waiting for the much cheaper collection to be released.

I don’t know how this will affect sales of the singles or the anthologies. The advantages are twofold: increased visibility at sales points, earlier release of future shorts and poems, and providing a choice for readers in the formats available for purchase. The disadvantage is that some might disapprove of the same work being available in two forms, and then refusing to buy either, but I guess that this will be just another choice readers have to make for themselves.