The Value of 99 Cents

[Short note to my readers: you may have noticed I'm pulling a lot from my archives--I just discovered the majority of my old writings have vanished from the Internet, so I'm repurposing the few that survived, and may be either entertaining or of use, before even these are gone from the ethers.]

This article was originally published on Blogcritics, then reprinted on Seattle Post Intelligencer and How to Tell a Great Story. I wanted to share it with you even though I wrote it March, 2013, eight years ago, because it still applies. Perhaps even more so, as so many of us have been confined to our homes or restricted from much of what was once normal, for a solid year. We are either trying to find new means of work, or new means to live, for many, both.

(An update on the below article: I no longer have my old blog or website, and I pulled all of my writings from Amazon. Right now, everything of mine is on Instagram, here, on my new website, or scattered across the Internet, but for who knows how long. The Internet may be free, but it is also quite fleeting.)

THE VALUE OF 99 CENTS

These days, with so much free--YouTube has free music, Amazon has free downloads, libraries (for the most part) have free books, and the Internet has Free Everything--how does anyone manage to sell their wares?

The answer, from one corner of the creative industries in particular, seems to be pricing countless items at $0.99: ebooks, MP3 tracks, TV shows, etc. But how does one compete in that marketplace if comparing, for instance, one's two-page short story with the 500-page novel that costs the same amount?

I ran into this dilemma when I put some of my writings for sale on Amazon. For my collections of 10 poems or two-page stories, I was up against literally thousands of free and $0.99 ebooks.

As a fan of Michelle Sagara West, I felt her short stories were worth their $0.99 easily, because her Author's Notes always gave me insight into her life and inspiration, and her stories (for the most part) were exquisite and I adored them.

Her stories, however, were several pages, so I became obsessed with assembling Author's Notes to "add value" to my writing (and pages to the product) so that what I had to offer wouldn't look quite so measly.

My closest friends, upon hearing of his harebrained plan, took me to task. Add value? If my writing couldn't stand alone, it wasn't ready for publication yet.

I described my plight at length, but through our conversation, my attitude shifted and I decided to let my stories stand. But the concern remained-how could I pack enough value into two pages so that they would be worth the same as several hours of happy escape through a good novel?

That same night, by coincidence or grace, my friend and editor of SPAWNews, Sandra Murphy, let me know that her four short stories were on sale at Untreed Reads until the end of the month. She had offered to edit my shorts for free, and I wanted to support her so I purchased her stories, all of them a few pages. How did she add significant value to make such a short experience worth the $0.99?

"The Obituary Rule" made me smile, following the sassy friendship of two elderly ladies while one of them rekindles an old love. "Bananas Foster" was hilarious in a Three-Stooges fashion, mildly morbid but quite entertaining. "Superstition"-which slightly annoyed me by creating a twist that left me confused for the second half of the story (until the final reveal)-nevertheless had a haunting rhythm to it."Sweet Tea & Deviled Eggs" horrified me (in a good, goosebumps-crawling-up-my-arm way), sweeping me off into a southern world where a little girl makes some terrible choices, leading to a fascinating conclusion.

It took me an hour to read through all four of Murphy's stories. I had been through the paces of apprehension, of shaking my arms out to ease the creepy-creepys, of hearty laughter; I had smiled, felt warmed, chilled, bothered, and delighted. Was that worth $2.77? Yes. (They were on sale, so I only paid $0.69/story, but the point still stands.)

Whatever is in our power, even now in restricted times, and later in times of abundance, may what we write or offer have value to ourselves and to others, so even if it is short or on platforms such as Vocal Media, it's worth 99 cents.