How long should a book on Kindle be based on words?

At that length you might want to consider releasing it as a Kindle Single not as a book. That is very short.

At 2,000 words selling for $0.99 would be the highest amount you would want to charge. Anything higher and you would probably have an extremely high return rate on the book.

2000 is pretty short...I would at least try to get to 10 pages...I release short articles all the time...but they are anywhere between 10-20 pages and I charge .99-2.99 depending on content and subject...that would be 12 times font...

I am thinking 2000 words is around five pages correct?

I agree, I would aim for at least 10 pages for a substantial story that someone would pay for.

Why not come up with multiple stories then form a book of them? If you try and bulk up your existing 2,000 words you are going to create something that is pretty poor, most of it will be filler!

1$ max. should be the price. Actually I am not interested in Kindle

2000 words seems really short. I'd price it dirt cheap.

You should shoot for a minimum of 10,000 words and even that is on the low side for a short book.

What ever happened to - "It's the Quality, not the Quantity." ?

It all really depends on what niche you target in my opinion. For me, I have many books within the cooking niche (before you say the P word...NO, it's not PLR ).

I aim for around 30 recipes (excluding introduction and what not) and I am normally left with around 8000 words. I've sold them for $3.99 a piece and they have sold like hot-cakes.

You will always get refunds, that's business, but as long as you are not ripping them off and are providing Quality content, then you shouldn't have a problem.

Remember: Don't chase the money. Chase value!

I don't remember where I heard this... But....

Your written works should be treated like a lady's skirt...

It should be short enough to attract attention, and long enough to cover the essentials...

I aim for 10 to 20,000 words at the low end.

2000 words isn't even literary foreplay.

I'm actually working on a short story for Kindle right now. It stands at a little more than 7000 words and is about half finished. I've spent the last three days writing the back story and the setup for the climax.

I'm getting really close to where the real action starts. That's when I get excited because it's hard to tell what these characters are about to do. There's a feisty young woman in this thing and she's got her own ideas about the way things should be. She's right, BTW but no one sees that yet. She's almost always right but comes across very tactfully. I wasn't sure I liked her much when I started but she's won me over.

I've got a feeling she's gonna be smiling when all's said and done while everyone else is going to be eternally grateful.

it depends on the content but I think that at least 5,000 words required, hire a freelancer that would help you develop your idea

Why not put the effort to get something bigger written...or write it yourself? If you can produce a good book that people will want to read they will want to come back for more. Also if you could build an email list (like on the website you build to help advertise your book) you could also push related books...not a bad idea

Stumbled upon this and instead of creating a new thread, I thought I'd tag onto this one.

What are people's opinions regarding price points and Kindle shorts?

I would like to start publishing as I recently wrote a couple of short stories on demand and discovered I still want to write fiction. I have a few ss's sitting around, generally between 500 and 3,500 words (yes, 500 word short stories, I like them personally).

So, if I were to, firstly, group 3 - that are based on the same character - together (around 7,500-8,000 words) how much would you be looking to charge? Damn, that was a few clauses there!

Then, if there was a collection of different stories together, would that sell, or would it be necessary to write a load around the same/similar characters or 1 "main" ss to lend it's title to the ebook with similar stories inside?

For a collection of, say, 5 short short stories that totaled around 15k, how much would you pay?

Lastly, and I have not read 50 shades of grey, "erotic" fiction seems to be taking off, but how erotic is it? Are we talking Mills and Boon level or actually erotic? As that will make a big difference (never written the former, heard 50SoG is like that but with implied modernity).

The answer really varies. Here's a strategy that should help in your niche:
1) download the top selling books in your sub niche. See how many words there are
2) Scan the comment section for the top books. Usually you will get a wealth of information there. Customers often comment on book being either "just right" or "too short". Instead of guessing have the PAYING CUSTOMERS tell you what they like (in that niche....)

Since you are talking about fiction. From wikipedia: Word count - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Novel over 40,000 words
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story under 7,500 words

This definition comes from the Science Fiction Writers of America. I'm not sure if this translates to other types of fiction like romance. They would likely have their own society, why not look there?

I have seen very short stories around 2K words so your story in in the range of a short. As long as you have a beginning, middle, and end; and the story is complete from the readers perspective it should be okay.

But as a stand alone Amazon book? Maybe put together a collection of shorts.

I'm nearly finished writing my first ebook on practical search solutions for small business and it's clocked in at just under 20,000 words. I always had that word count as a target. 2,000 words might suit a healthy blog post.

By the way, I think 2,000 words is a good length for a "short". So long as it has a good twist to it. Just looking at a random short story collection here, and the page counts are: 8, 12, 5, 17, 6, 8, 10, etc. Which would be around: 2,000 words, 3,000, 1,250, 4,250, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500, etc. Averages, of course. So a 2,000 word story would fit well in that collection.

I also, personally, like very short shorts, ones that are 500 words or less. They're basically just an idea that you put down on paper.

2000 isn't short if it's good! But why not do ten of those and create a short story collection ebook? If you can write one, you can write a dozen, and it's worth more.

2000 words does seem a bit short. However, a story should be as long as it needs to be. Of course, for publishing on Kindle you might want something a bit longer than 2k. As has been mentioned a compilation of stories might be a better option.