Amazon released the Kindle Singles off pieces of non-fiction and journalism that are usually much shorter than a novel, but more than a magazine article. The Singles can be read in any of the many platforms Kindle, Kindle through smart-phones to desktop client of Amazon's Kindle, and they are priced accordingly, from $ 1 to $ 5.
Long-form journalism has seen a startling revival in recent years, with services like Instapaper and read it later allows you to push more articles for mobile devices – how the iPad – to read later. Difunden typical thinking that web users want their information into pieces small easy, sites like Longform.org – which curates more in-depth stories – are blooming.
Kindle singles will normally run for between 5 000 and 30 000 words, no man's land between a magazine article and a short book. In the past, there was no easy way to sell work that length. Magazine isn't just big enough and book-buyers want to receive your money in terms of page count. Electronic publishing has no such limits. In fact, the format looks perfect for tablets and phones. What is more natural than firing up your iPad during lunch and spend an hour reading about a 150 million bank heist (raised by writer Wired and New Yorker Evan Ratliff)?
Raised is also the product of The Atavist, a small new publisher dedicated to long-form journalism. Writers do not receive the same kind of money that would receive major magazines, but they get something potentially better – a reduction in profits. Thus, a journalist can make a living by covering – in depth – the stories that interest you. Atavist titles are now available as Singles Kindle and will be coming to the iPad and iPhone via dedicated apps in the near future. This model, healed by quality but with pick-n-mix of sales, can be the real future of magazines, rather than electronic magazines like Wired apps or New Yorker, who come to pills with all print size restrictions.
It seems ironic that the web, along with mobile phones and other portable computers, saved the same thing that we think he would kill. And short stories may just be the next.
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