Self-publishing short stories, flash fiction?

Check out Smashword and Amazon. I noticed on Smashword that there are books--stories for free or .99 that have 5,000--8,000 words. I don't know how long your stories are, but check them out. I'm sure there are stories on there that have less words.

Bartholomew said:

So, I've got a pile of short fiction that I can't find homes for anywhere. The stories aren't bad--enough strangers and English teachers have said the stories were, at worst, readable, and on the other end of the spectrum, very very good. I'm not a bad writer, and I'm kind of annoyed at myself for letting the short fiction market make me think I am.

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No, you're not a bad writer, Bart, and don't ever think that. Short story markets are tough, and that's just the nature of competition; if it were easy, everyone would do it.

Are you sure you've tried every market out there? At least the paying ones; if you're going to go for non-paying, then yeah, might as well self-publish.

I've seen some folks post stories (usually flash) on their blogs and then collecting them into one volume to download via Smashswords. Though, they usually offer it for free. But if what you're looking for is name recognition, it's not a bad route.

I was submitting a short story earlier this year and all I was getting were a few 'not bad but not for us' rejections. I put it up on Smashwords and Amazon earlier this month for $0.99 and I've sold about a dozen copies so far.

Which means I have about 500 more to go before making the equivalent of a decent magazine sale.

Bartholomew said:

Is there any evidence at all that sales in these markets improve my likelihood of a sale in the better paying markets?

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From what I've heard (mostly from reading submission guidelines/blog posts from pro market editors), the only way it helps is if the high paying market editor you're submitting to has actually heard and/or cares about that particular low or token market you've sold to. So it's hard to say, really.

If you've exhausted all of the pro and decent token markets for a story, I don't see why you shouldn't toss it up on amazon as a self published e-book instead of letting it rot away on your hard drive. That's what I plan on doing with mine if they make their way through the list of markets without selling.

Personally, I'd give flash away for free on your blog or website, and put shorts up for 99 cents on amazon. You might also want to check out blogs like Dean Wesley Smith's. He talks a lot about self publishing e-books, and while I'm not sure I buy a lot of what he says (in fact some of his advice I think is really bad), but he does have some good posts about short story pricing and strategies and stuff.

Before you give a story away for free make sure that you have no intention of tossing it to paying publishers later because some of them will not take a story that has been previously published. I learned that the hard way when one of my favorite stories was published in a college magazine for free and it branded it. Some places would not even look at it because of that one publication in the college mag.

StoneWheller said:

Before you give a story away for free make sure that you have no intention of tossing it to paying publishers later because some of them will not take a story that has been previously published. I learned that the hard way when one of my favorite stories was published in a college magazine for free and it branded it. Some places would not even look at it because of that one publication in the college mag.

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I take it that includes blog posts as well.

Bartholomew said:

Is there any evidence at all that sales in these markets improve my likelihood of a sale in the better paying markets?

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They do not. It's all about the writing/story.

Credits at better paying markets may have some minor impact on the abilty to sell to lower paying markets but it's still minimal in my experience. Rejections, and lots of them, are part of the deal and they generally indicate that the writing/stories aren't competetive if individual stories are recieving 10+ rejections across a spectrum of paying markets including the semi-pro/token paying ones.

Such material probably isn't going to do much better for you self-published unless you're at the point where you're getting a lot of personalized "send more!" and rewrite requests or similar "glowing" rejections. But those also mean you're getting close to cracking the short story market to so which way to go remains a tough decision.

If you haven't collected 100 rejections and put at least 2-3 years into writing practice and the submission odds are you aren't quite ready and I'd recommend thinking carefully about the value of practice and patience.

You start by submitting to the markets that are higher pay (and/or higher distribution). Then you move down.

Plenty of folks (myself included) self-pubish short stories at $0.99 each. Sales, though, can vary widely with genre and other factors.

Some stories I submit to 'zines. Some I self-publish. Some I submit to publishers. Etc.

Thus why I call myself an "indie author": I'm independent of any specific distribution method. Maybe that's not how everybody defines it, but it's the definition that fits with what "indie" means in other fields. ("Indie publisher", now, is something else entirely—and yes, I follow UK style on purpose.)

Something I've seen lacking in all the self-published short story collections I've seen is theme. They were all collections of completely unrelated short stories, with nothing but their author to unify them. Some of the collections contained stories in wildly different genres, different styles, and different tones and while diversity and freshness is good, it really helps if you have something to tie the stories all together in some way: it makes the collection more rewarding for the reader, and so makes them more likely to seek out more of your work.

Ralph Pines said:

I take it that includes blog posts as well.

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No, it was to other magazines.

Old Hack said:

Something I've seen lacking in all the self-published short story collections I've seen is theme. They were all collections of completely unrelated short stories, with nothing but their author to unify them. Some of the collections contained stories in wildly different genres, different styles, and different tones and while diversity and freshness is good, it really helps if you have something to tie the stories all together in some way: it makes the collection more rewarding for the reader, and so makes them more likely to seek out more of your work.

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This is a good point. I often buy short story anthologies and the themed ones are usually the ones I end up buying. The only one I ever bought from one author only was Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things and all it did was confirm that his work just isn't for me.

I'm digging up an old post I wrote at "I Love Smashwords" because it sums up my feelings about getting your work in front of readers. It is terribly hard to find adequate short story markets these days and (IMO) it is because there is a boom in electronic publishing.

If you feel the stories are good and you've exhausted the traditional route, then you should, by all means, explore putting your work on KDP and Smashwords. But take what J. Tanner said above to heart:

If you haven't collected 100 rejections and put at least 2-3 years into writing practice and the submission odds are you aren't quite ready and I'd recommend thinking carefully about the value of practice and patience.

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Ralph Pines said:

I take it that includes blog posts as well.

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I'm not sure what StoneWheller thought you meant but yes, if you publish your fiction online, even on blogs, it is considered published just like if you put it in ebook form. You can't sell first digital publishing rights if you've already had it up on a blog.

Old Hack said:

Something I've seen lacking in all the self-published short story collections I've seen is theme. They were all collections of completely unrelated short stories, with nothing but their author to unify them. Some of the collections contained stories in wildly different genres, different styles, and different tones and while diversity and freshness is good, it really helps if you have something to tie the stories all together in some way: it makes the collection more rewarding for the reader, and so makes them more likely to seek out more of your work.

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I've seen some themed short story collections, but I agree that the ones you (as in people in general) tend to see are eclectic. Personally, I won't bundle any stories together unless they share a theme.