Scribd and me

A couple of years ago, Heath Vercher asked me to do a joint concert with him in Second Life for Valentine's Day. He would play a few of his romantic compositions (Seduction is absolutely my favorite piece) and I would read some short, romantic stories. We called it our Love Stories collection and I wrote five pieces for this two-hour concert.

The concert was a success and we had a lot of fun with it. The five short stories I wrote existed as "in the air" pieces as they were too short for most publishers. Because of the nature of Heath's audience, they were sweet romances rather than erotica and I would use them as introductions when I did my readings in SL. I recorded three of them with the intent to upload them through Itunes and sell them as audio stories, but since I lack the knowledge of just how to go about accomplishing that, those files still languish on my computer.

And then I found Scribd.

Scribd is a great place to find both free and for-sale stories. Anyone can upload their stories and make them available to the reading public. A perfect home for these short works, I thought, and I created my Scribd account. I uploaded the first of the stories I'd written from the Ramayana (why I love that epic is another post in and of itself. If you want to know that story, tell me in the comments and next time its my turn, I'll tell you about the spell India and this magificent epic has put on me). Because the Ramayana belongs to everyone, and because I simply retold a story already well-known, I decided to offer it free of charge.

Next up was Love at Third Sight, an original story. This one I charge for because it is original. Scribd takes 20% of the price as thier share plus a $.25 download fee out of the price I charge. So I set $1.25 as the price, which means I'd make $.50 for each copy someone bought. I did the same with One Last Dance, one of my favorites of these short works. Gorilla Love, also original, I didn't charge for since it's barely 700 words long.

Unfortunately, the two works for sale aren't selling. I need some feedback. Is the price too high? Should I lower it to $.99, the same as a song off Itunes? What about the audio files I have sitting here on my computer? Anyone have the knowledge of how to post them to my website and sell them that way? Or should I just offer those for free, too? Where should I post them?

Check out the freebies (there are several episodes of the Tales from the Ramayana now...I wrote two new ones just this past month and uploaded them as well. You can find them on my profle page at the top. Scroll through the list to read them all!) and please, leave feedback in the comments! I promise, you won't hurt my feelings. This entire endeavor is an experiment. Let me know what you think?

Play safe,
Diana