Amazon offers short stories for 49 cents

NEW YORK: On-line book store Amazon.com, in what could be a literary equivalent of snacking, is now selling short stories, and even alternate chapters or single scenes from novels, for 49 cents each.

"Amazon Shorts", on sale from Monday, have no printed editions and are only delivered digitally.

"Amazon Shorts will help authors find new readers and help readers find and discover authors they'll love," said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com's vice president of digital media. "We hope that by making short-form literature widely and easily available, Amazon.com can help to fuel a revival of this kind of work."

Publishers have always had a hard time selling and marketing the single, short-form work -- the novella, or the novelette, or the even shorter "novelini", he said.

Customers can now find Amazon Shorts from accomplished authors, such as Danielle Steel or Tama Janowitz, in various genres and formats, including alternate chapters and scenes to well-known stories, personal memoirs, one-act plays and classic short stories.

No digital rights management software is needed to download and read Amazon Shorts.