: Is it impractical (not cost effective) to publish individual short stories on Amazon KDP? This answer suggests that nothing published through Amazon (or other indie e-book route) should be priced

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Should have read deeper.

In this article Dean Wesley Smith goes into ebook pricing, and includes a section specific to short work (by his definition, under 10,000 words). Much of his advice is based on an author who has many-many works available to a reader, but his take in general is that even short work in stand-alone format shouldn't be priced low enough to be limited to 35% author payment on KDP. He sells his own short work for .99, though he sometimes offers short term discounts and bundles the works into discounted "omnibus" or "collection" form that sell for much less than .99 per story.

His reasoning is that it's important to value your own work, to avoid the situation where it becomes "not worth your time" to continue writing. As well, low pricing leaves no room for temporary "sale" discounting, and you'd have to sell 2-6 times as many units at the lower price to make the same income as the higher price (comparing [CO].99 short stories to .99, or .99 novels to .99) -- and are unlikely to do so.

Naturally, this is a long term strategy -- it assumes that an author will continue to write, in volume, producing new work on a regular basis (as Dean Wesley Smith has been doing for the past forty years or so). It is not really applicable (in terms of short-term sales to draw in new readers, at least) to the author who has only one or two works for sale on Amazon. However, it does seem to provide a good guide to setting up a business plan that doesn't undervalue one's work.

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The problem with publishing short stories on Amazon is basically the same as the general problem with publishing --too much competition. With an almost unlimited supply of writing to choose from, what (other than personal friendship) is going to steer someone towards your work? That problem doesn't change if you change your pricing --or the length of what you write.

As you mentioned, it's the chicken-or-the-egg problem. How can I sell if I'm not known, how can I become known if I don't sell? I'd suggest trying to build up a reputation first, either via traditional publishing, or by releasing fiction free, either on a blog, or in a community oriented around the kind of work you write. Once you gain a following, you can switch to online sales, and at a price-point that reflects your platform.

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