When journalist David Margolick realized his piece on sexual molestation in the church was too long for a Newsweek article and too short for a book, he followed a friend’s recommendation to publish a Kindle Single.
A Kindle Single is a new eBook format for stories longer than a magazine article but shorter than a book. These pieces range between 10,000 and 30,000 words – or about 30-90 pages – and come with lower price tag than a typical book. Margolick’s A Predator Priest is about 20,000 words and is now available in the Kindle Store for $.99.
Margolick told eBookNewser that there is an audience for this format: “While the Internet is putting out enough high-energy snacks to spoil some appetites for longer stuff, it’s also allowing for feasts. That said we’re clearly at a very early stage in the migration of long-form to the Net. For people over forty, a story in a place like this is very, very hard to find.”
Conde Nast’s tech blog Ars Technica has found success in this new format. Ars Technica editor Ken Fisher told Nieman Journalism Lab that they had sold 3,000 copies of the eBook in 24 hours.