Taking Down Old Stories

nprimak · Sep 27, 2014

Three years ago I published several short stories on Amazon and Smashwords (premium distribution, to all affiliated platforms). In the first few weeks they saw a lot of downloads and ranked very high, and on Smashwords they continued to see pretty high numbers. My primary interest at the time was gaining a readership so I made all the stories free and I didn't have much success sharing my work on sites like Figment or Wattpad so I wanted to give Amazon a try.

Amazon Profile
Smashwords Profile

At first I was very happy to get positive reviews and for a while things were fine but now that so much time has passed I think my writing has significantly improved and I'm concerned that having free work on Amazon, with a ranking which is slowly decreasing on Goodreads, is not such a good idea anymore. I don't want to ruin my reputation or seem unprofessional, especially if I decide to publish something in the future.

So I had several ideas to remedy the situation:

1) Take everything down - leaning toward this option

2) Merge the best short stories, price them at least at 2.99 and leave them up on Amazon only, take down from Smashwords

3) Spruce up the stories and price them at 99 cents on all platforms.

The thing is the stories are all pretty different so I'm not sure about putting them in a collection. Some of the stories I've already taken down from Amazon, only three remain and one of them I've tried selling for 99 cents for the last two years with zero success. I'm wondering if maybe part of the issue is that all my stories have quite different subject matter, but that's just my guess.

Anyway I would love any feedback! Thanks in advance.

Jhaewyrmend · Sep 27, 2014

yeah, leaping genres can be difficult for the indie publisher to gain any great traction on. I've been reading Read. Write. Publish (very highly recommend this book for any self-publisher) and it's got way more insightful tips than I can give you probably because I'm just now trying to get in the game myself.

I read the reviews that were given, and while Journey to the Fae Grove only got one review, it was a good review. The others were fairly received.

I think I would bundle them, since they are short stories, and offer them as 2.99 everywhere, or honestly even free but with the caveat that you are putting out new work. If you have an email list of people who've bought your books, send them an email saying you have something new coming out and put it out there.

Whatever you do don't take them down. No one is professional when they first start. Not Stephen King, not Tolkien, no one is golden. Let your work stand for what it is, be proud of it, I mean my goodness, you've published three short stories. If they're not your best work, it doesn't matter. You've got them out. And you grew from the process I'm sure.

For your new work, try sticking with one genre, maybe do a trilogy or a series of book (or short stories since that appears to be your niche) and then go from there.

Hope any of this helps.

Moldy · Sep 29, 2014

As a reader who has followed some writers throughout the years who have offered free stuff, I've seen them improve gradually overtime and can see the higher quality in their later works. I think that their older works still have merit though, and are still enjoyable, even if they aren't as polished and skillfully executed as the later works.

You may have some sad fans if you pull them down. My advice would be to leave them up or polish them as you said if you feel they need revision and improvement.

Polenth · Sep 29, 2014

The question isn't whether you've improved, because we all improve. It's whether the stories were of an acceptable quality. A glance at the reviews doesn't indicate that people thought they were terrible in general, other than some complaints about basic errors in some. Old stories can end up being reader favourites, even if your latest is technically better.

Which would leave what to do with them. It looks like there're only five stories in question here? So I don't see the harm in leaving them up (after a good editing pass to make them as clean and well-formatted as possible) and pricing them at 99 cents. Maybe they won't sell many copies, but they're there if readers want them.

Your big question is what to do with future work. If the stories don't really sell as singles, you might want to do something different. Like forming stories into themed collections, rather than publishing them as you finish them. Collections are also unlikely to sell really well, but more likely to sell some. Another tactic you see sometimes is packaging shorts with longer work. So having a novella as the main feature, then a few short pieces.

Literateparakeet · Sep 30, 2014

I agree with the others, especially Polenth. Great advice there, I can't add anything.

I was curious and went to amazon, and I was intrigued by the story (sorry forgot the title already) about the guy that woke up dead. What caught my attention is that you have 5,4,3,2 and 1 star reviews (I don't see that very often). To me that means the story really evokes feeling in people...some might not like it but you evoked something. Naturally, I had to get it to see what that is all about. I haven't read it yet, but I look forward to it.

nprimak · Sep 30, 2014

Jhaewyrmend, thank you for the book recommendation. I will definitely have to check it out. From what I've read on this forum and elsewhere it does seem that trilogies or a series of books would be far easier to market and get a readership with. It's not so much that I don't want to write something like that, but I think I might just not be ready for that yet.

Moldy, you're right I didn't think about the fans I might be disappointing. I never made an e-mail list or anything so I have no idea how many of them are actually out there.

Polenth, yes that is how I should have put it. I guess for me when I feel like I have improved significantly its hard to look at older work and still think the quality is acceptable. But maybe that is a discussion for another thread. Thank you for pointing out the distinction.

There are only five stories, three of which are on Amazon. I took two down from Amazon but left them on Smashwords. I could put them back up on Amazon without much difficulty though. They were getting the worst reviews (not criticizing basic errors if I remember correctly but just intense distaste for the story).

Literateparakeet, indeed that is something that has been happening to me with a lot of my stories. The stars discrepancy was even more extreme with the two I took down. I don't know what to make of it honestly! I love this positive perspective though.

Seems like everyone is in agreement that I shouldn't take them down, so they will stay up! Some of them fit together thematically and could go together in a collection, I think I'm going to give that a shot.

Taking Down Old Stories

nprimak

Potatoes are delish

Jhaewyrmend

Moldy

Polenth

Mushroom

Literateparakeet

Nerdy Budgie

nprimak

Potatoes are delish