Update on Kindle Publishing
An interesting experiment by Amazon is the Kindles Single program. The Kindle is a great place to publish articles, short stories and is probably the only place to effectively publish novellas. To get one of your works into the program you have to send an email to the program, details available here, and ask that your work be included.
I have no idea of the criteria they use. I have applied for a horror short story and a novella to be accepted and both were rejected. I bought a few of them to see if they were particularly good examples of writing and, while they were certainly okay, they weren't masterpieces by any means. I suspect after doing a little, very little, research that they are from authors who are already selling a large number of books. Amazon should realize that if they truly want their Kindle publishing program to take off they should focus on the independents a little more, maybe even offering a category just for independents, and not on the authors that you can already find by walking into the front of a Barnes and Noble and look on the front tables and shelves.
I'm a little disappointed in this program, not because my "shorties" weren't accepted but because they are accepting some things that aren't that good and, even at the low cost, are overpriced for what they are. I have been very, very happy with many of the Kindle books I have bought from independent writers that were priced the same as the singles.
Interesting article. I have a few shorties I'd like to submit. I currently have several ebooks available on Kindle so it will be interesting to see how they respond.