WebProNews

For less than the price of a Coke Zero, customers can purchase short stories by a selection of published authors.

It's an experiment in little payments for little stories. 49 cents will gets the buyer a dozen pages by John Twelve Hawks, or 14 by medical thriller author Robin Cook. Established authors reign in Amazon.com's Shorts pages.

Amazon Shorts offers works in several genres:
 • Biography & Memoirs
 • Literature & Fiction
 • Mystery & Thrillers
 • Nonfiction & Essays
 • Science
 • Science Fiction & Fantasy

The online retailer delivers the works in digital format. Customers can receive PDF, HTML, or an emailed text version of the short. Shorts purchases remain in an Amazon customer's 'digital locker' for future retrieval.

The works offer a way to take an inexpensive look at an established character like F. Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack," in 33 pages for 49 cents. For an established author, the program offers a gateway for readers unfamiliar with their work to get interested in purchasing and reading longer works in published form.

Currently, Amazon only wants to hear from published authors who want to be considered for the Shorts program. It will be interesting to see if they open the program to a wider pool of writers, and if Amazon can grow the body of Shorts beyond its current numbers.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.