Kindle Singles criteria question...

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metamemoir

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Hello,

I am thinking about submitting to Kindle Singles. However, I'm not sure if the criterion below disqualifies me:

"Kindle Singles Criteria
• Self-contained work, not chapters excerpted from a longer work"


I am working on a full memoir. It's shaping up to have an unconventional, mashup structure: my early years are more like a collection of self-contained essays (each one focusing on a particular relationship or cluster of relationships from childhood), then the latter half assumes a more traditional storyline with sequential, chronological, plotted action chapters.

The piece I would consider submitting comes from the former, more self-contained group. It is mostly a humor piece that describes a family I spent a lot of time around growing up.

Would I still be able to include this chapter when I try to publish it as a whole memoir in the future? (I am at least a year away from that). Or might I encounter some problems? I hadn't ruled out the possibility of trying to go the agent/traditional publisher route for my full memoir...does self-pubbing part of it through Kindle Singles create a conflict with that? (My Kindle Single submission should be about 5-7k words, and I'm aiming for about 80k-100k for the full memoir).

I'm torn because I feel like parts of this shorter piece are wickedly funny and some of my strongest writing. So I would be disappointed if I could not include it in my full memoir (which is, of course, the main goal I have). But in the meantime it seems like it would be fun to test the waters and put this shorter piece out. I am also just confused because sometimes the mashup structure makes me feel as though I'm working on two projects: a collection of essays and a plotted action memoir story about a specific sequence of events from my later years.
 
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lastlittlebird

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You might want to ask the mods to put this into the Self Publishing forum, as I think it'll get more answers there.

I don't know the exact rules surrounding what you're asking, but I do know that some people will publish several short stories separately on Kindle Singles and then bundle them and sell the bundle as well. As long as what you're selling is self contained and not misrepresented it should be fine.
As to whether it would harm your chances of getting published with a publishing house, I'm not entirely sure about that.

Hopefully someone more helpful than me will tune in :)
 

Old Hack

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Whether or not you'd be able to include the short pieces in a longer work later on depends on two things: the contract you sign for the short pieces now; and how the publisher of your longer work feels about including pieces which have already been published.

If the longer book works well then I doubt that many publishers would be reluctant to publish it so long as the previously published pieces only made up a small proportion of the whole.

The contract issues, however, I can't help you with as I've not seen the contracts concerned; nor do I know how negotiable they are.
 

Old Hack

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You're not an idiot at all, littlebird. Reading more carefully through the original post I note that the OP wrote, "does self-pubbing part of it through Kindle Singles create a conflict with that?" (That's my bold.)

He's obviously asking about whether self publishing small portions of his memoir would cause trouble getting a trade deal later: it looks like he just got the name wrong when he mentioned Kindle Singles and you were right that his question concerned self publishing.

I'm going to move it to self publishing now. I should have paid more attention to you in the first place: so sorry.
 

metamemoir

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Thanks for all the thoughts!

Jeez, I'm kinda excited about the idea of submitting to Kindle Singles. I know it's a long shot, but I think it's a good short-term goal to have without compromising my long-term goal (of creating a whole book-length memoir).

I have two pieces that I think might work for submission. Both are on the short end of the spectrum at 5k each, but after choosing which one to work on for submission, I anticipate getting it up to 7k.

Besides being similar lengths and memoir, they extremely different. One is dark, tragic, talks about psychiatric issues, uses very dark humor, and is more of a intro/teaser/synopsis/trailer thingamajig for my book as a whole (especially the climax), but it DOES have its own narrative arc/mini-plot in. The other is fun, light, talks about my childhood BFFs and their quirky families, is more of an essay, and has a self-contained coming-of-age arc regarding sexual orientation.

My dark piece is the more original one. But I think my light one is more refined and intelligent.
 

bearilou

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I suppose, if I would suggest anything, make sure it reads as a stand alone. If it reads like a chapter of something longer, I know as a reader, I get really tetchy about buying something and then knowing I'll have to buy the whole book to read more.
 
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