Bundling. It’s the latest fashion. Ebook fashion, that is.

Bundles are cool, in my opinion. You get more reading for less money. As a reader, I love that. As a publisher, I look at it as yet one more product that can earn revenue. Heck, retailers have been doing the “buy this many, get this many free” promotion on paper books for as long as I can remember. It’s good for them. It’s good for us. Win-win.

We started bundling here almost two years ago. We’ve got The Diving Bundle, for some of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Diving Universe novellas, and The Fates Trilogy, for Kristine Grayson’s three Fates novels.

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  The Fates Trilogy by Kristine Grayson

We also help our authors with files for indie bundles, like the one The Sacrifice (Book One of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Fey series) is in right now at StoryBundle. We look at it as free advertising for the series (if you wonder why I say that, check out the other books in the bundle). And we’re confident that once those folks read The Sacrifice, they’ll want, nay need, to read more.

But it did get me thinking about all the other bundles we plan to start doing.

You’ll notice that one of our main images on the new WMG home page says “Bundles & Subscriptions.” The subscriptions part, of course, deals with our two “magazines,” Fiction River and Smith’s Monthly. And the bundles part lists those two I mentioned at the start of this blog. But in the coming months that page will take on new life, and new bundles, as we begin bundling our products from various authors together, from novels to Fiction River volumes. We’ll also be doing more series bundles like the two we already have.

For example, tomorrow is the official release date for the second novel in Dean Wesley Smith’s Thunder Mountain series, Monumental Summit. As this series also has ties to Dean’s Jukebox series of stories, there are all sorts of bundle possibilities to contemplate. Add to that the science fiction/time travel/romance/western bent of these stories, and, well, who knows what I’ll come up with <g>.

But before we start bundling up, I’d like to hear your thoughts. Have you checked out any of the bundle sites? When you see a series bundle, do you go for it or prefer to buy each book one at a time?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Hopefully, you’ll have a whole bundle of them.

Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.