Informal Poll Results

[lagilman]

Well, so far 51 people have thought this would be a good/great idea, and only 4 people have slammed me for needing it to feed my ego*. So I guess that's a reasonable "no, you won't look like a total egomaniac asshole for doing this" vote.

Only 1 person thought $1.99 was a fair price for the collection - the sweet spot seemed to be around $4.50 (I haven't done the actual number crunching yet, that's back-of-the-envelope). Since that fit in with my thinking, I am pleased. The folk who said "choose what you want, we'll pay anything" were lying through their teeth. But I appreciated it.

Not sure how to rate the new/reprint question without actually crunching it, except that clearly, there are a number of you who haven't read my short fiction. Which is kind of the point in doing the collection....

So, here's what I'm thinking: 10-15 stories, ranging from shorts to novella-length, with 2-3 new stories included. None of them will be set in the Cosa Nostradamus or Lands Vin worlds, a mix of genres, no theme other than I Wrote That.

That could be fun. For you guys, I mean. For me it means having to read 25+ stories and pick favorites**, and that could get ugly...



*for those who are seeing this as an ego-pat:  Yeah, once upon a time, only Certain Writers could get story collections, either from small presses or their main publisher. Yeah,  I know I'll never be one of Those Writers.  But digital publishing makes it possible to do this, and hey, why the hell not?  I'm proud of these stories, an editor thought they were worth publishing, and they've gotten good responses over the years.  So why not increase the readership, same as a backlist novel?


**and then check contractual availability

Comments

[jamileigh17.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't see things like this as an ego pat. Short stories are often more work in some regards than novels, and it's often a good way to convince others to read an author you like. They might not take a risk on a friend's recommendation for a full novel, but hand them a short story, and they'll give it a shot 95% of the time. It's often hard to find all the scattered short stories, especially if they're not all listed together anywhere (You're one of the few authors I know who has an easily findable works list, which at least makes it possible to hunt down things for completionists sakes).

I think the price might be slightly swayed by it being fans of yours voting. People generally pay more for something they're already confident they'll like.

[jesskastar.livejournal.com]

I chose print, but it wasn't an ego related thing or anything to do with you at all.

It's just that when I read stories, even short stories, I much prefer to hold an old fashioned book. Blogs are one thing or news articles to read online, but anything longer than five pages is too much for my eyes. I am a hold out that refuses to buy an eReader. *shrugs*

[lagilman]

I chose print, but it wasn't an ego related thing or anything to do with you at all.

And, to be perfectly clear, at no point did I accuse you of it. One of the choices was "only if your ego demands it" and four people clicked on that. This was my reference, and not any other.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

I may have been one of the people who selected the ego box, not as a vanity thing, but rather as closer than the other responses to my perspective. I have mixed feelings about mixed content collections--one of the reasons I'm not much of an anthology buyer, is the question of how many of the stories in the anthologies are stories I feel I'm getting value for my spending for. Sometimes there are only two or three, out of an entire book b(on the other hand I'm not thrilled at the prospect of paying say e.g. $2.99 per single short story or novelette to get the stories individually and forego ones not rewarding reading for me.

Different people have different reading protocols: some want theme anthologies/focus on plot and/or themes as what/how they choose their reading because they enjoy specific genres based on plot, theme, etc. Others choose by author(s) because they're attuned to particular writers' work. Segmentation into genre shows some of the dynamic, where there are genres of plot--romance, mystery, etc.--, genres of setting--fantasy and science fiction--, genres based on characters--e.g. "women's fiction", genres based on theme--e.g. "Christian fiction," and subgenres and cross-genre fiction where the boundaries are permeable and fuzzy.

A collection of Laura Anne Gilman stories, barring any preset theme or focus unifying the content besides "written by Laura Anne Gilman" gives no security to the prospective reader/buyer of the value of the content to them based on genre/plot/themes other than whatever prior knowledge the reader has of the scope of Laura Anne Gilman stories. Readers who buy/read by author and have LAG on autobuy, that's not a deterrent. For others, especially where genre/plot/theme trump author (the most extreme examples of that being Star Wars and Star Trek fiction consumers, who made books in those franchises bestseller level sellers, but don't buy non-Trek or non-Star Wars books by the same authors--they're focused on the particular franchises exclusively and ignore the writers' other works), there's a potentially high risk factor regarding appeal and value.

There's an author I can think of whose novels are near autobuy for me, but the author's range for short fiction is a lot wider than the author's range for novels, and the author's contemporary setting stories particularly, tend to not appeal to me.

So, anyway, there are risks in doing collections of "other" material which don't have a focused constituency for the content specifically in them. (Er, to translate--collections where the focus ties to a novel series/particular universe/setting of the author's, or to a particular unified theme otherwise, have constituencies to appeal to who are already invested in the setting/universe/characters, or the theme. A collection which doesn't have such a basis, is a much greater risk regarding appeal to consumers.

[lagilman]

By your logic, I probably would have simply chosen the "no" tag, since it wouldn't be of interest. A failure of context, I suppose- I should have been more clear that "only if your ego demands" is a lot harsher than "nah, won't sell."