Kindle to Sell Short Stories for $3.99

The Kindle will begin selling short stories next week picked and edited by The Atlantic magazine. Amazon's e-reader will offer two a month for $3.99 each, with the first two appearing Monday from Christopher Buckley and Irish writer Edna O'Brien. The latter writes her fiction in longhand and had never heard of the Kindle until this deal, notes the New York Times. The stories are exclusive to the Kindle.

The plan could provide a home for stories too long for magazines but too short for a book. Buckley's piece, for instance, is 15,000 words. “Sure, ideally, I would like it printed on archival paper and bound in red morocco with gold embossed for a limited edition and signed by the author,” he tells the Times. "But if the Kindle edition “grabs some eyeballs—and I guess grabbing eyeballs is what the Internet is all about—then I’m all for it.” (More Kindle stories.)