Self-Publishing "1000 Words" - A Collection of Short Stories

Well, hopefully this will be mutually beneficial. I thought I'd start a thread on my 1000 Words project.

For my capstone honors college project, I elected to merge both my major and minor together. I'm a photography major with a creative writing minor, and for my photography I have a special interest in book cover design and photomanipulation.

Therefore, I decided to create a project consisting of ten short stories, each approximately 1000 words long, which would each be illustrated with a book cover. The title of the project, 1000 Words, comes from the phrase, "a picture's worth a thousand words."

While I will be creating a print, photobook version of all ten stories as the completion point, I realized I needed some sort of motivation to write, edit, and illustrate each individual short story.

Enter self-publishing.

I've long had an interest in self-publishing, but I also want to try the traditional route, and intend to start off trying traditional for my novels. Now, with the advent of ebooks, I want to try selling the short stories as a side project. Part of this is because I will be using my own first printing rights for the project, and the other part is to help me get a feel for the process and book cover design in order to aid future clients.

So I decided that I will create an e-version of each short story, and self-publish them as I complete them through Smashwords and Kindle. I'll start off using Smashwords so that I can learn the formatting, then create a Kindle version afterwards.

I am currently planning to price each one at .99 cents, then once all of them are written, compile them into the final anthology called 1000 Words. I have not yet decided on its price, though I'm considering $2.99 and $3.99 at this point in time.

I honestly don't expect to make any money off of this, especially since I have little in the way of marketing planned. I do intend to announce on my facebook page when I release a story, but seeing as how I have few followers on the business page, I'm not sure how effective that will be.

Also, I am hoping to offer a promotion of a couple day free downloading period (or give coupons to those who ask) for friends or people who might be interested in reviewing the short stories. I have considered leaving one story free once I get multiple stories uploaded.

In the meantime, my first short story slated to be published (hopefully by the end of this week), is "Snow Witch." A young witch ventures outside of her town for the first time in hopes of transferring her brother's illness to a willing creature.

I'm in the process of reviewing the short story (which I posted in AW's Share Your Work forums) and I'm also currently editing the book cover to make it the best I can.

Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts. I'm hoping that sharing the process will be helpful to multiple people.

Anything you’re wondering or want me to talk about specifically?
By the way, anyone know how to download the epub reader, Adobe Digital Editions? When I click on the link, nothing happens.

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As for an update, I have completed the cover for Snow Witch and finished formatting the short story for Smashwords. (Next up will be a Kindle edition). It is now up on Smashwords. The process felt surprisingly easy, and I only had one issue (had to change it from .docx to .doc), but the solution was easily remedied. I’m currently reading through and getting the hang of sales versus downloads, but hopefully it will work out well. I’m not sure if downloads also includes downloads of the sample.

Since Smashwords currently has a sitewide promotion going on this month for downloading an ebook, I choose to give “Snow Witch” the option to be downloaded for free. I’m hoping to entice people to download and review it, but we’ll see if anything comes of it. I missed the first half of the promotion, though, so it will only be free for three days, until March 10th. I would be curious to know how many people are interested in it because of the cover, and how many people are interested in the story due to the short description.

I also posted a note about it on my photo illustration Facebook page, made an announcement via Absolute Write’s announcements forum, and plan to post it to my Wordpress blog. I currently have two sales, one with the Smashwords coupon, and one an actual purchase. I’m not sure if the actual purchase was intentional or not. I’ll be curious to see how it tracks for the next few days (and will probably have to tell myself not to keep checking Smashwords’ dashboard for updates).

Next up is to create the Kindle edition, and then I need to edit and write the next short stories to be published. One down, nine to go.

An update on my “1000 Words” project.


For Snow Witch, once the free trial wore off, there were no more downloads of this story (except the one I bought as a gift for my fiance). As such, I’m currently looking at two possibilities: see if sales increase once other short stories are available for free, or make it free as well, and only make the actual, final anthology cost money. (I’m thinking $2.99 sounds like a decent price). Right now I’m waiting to hear back from Amazon/Kindle as to whether there is a way to make it free on Kindle, or if I should simply remove the story so I can make it free on Smashwords.


Either way, I plan to hold off on publishing any of the other short stories on Kindle until the full anthology is complete.


This is largely due to time. It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized that our final project is due on April 27th, the last day of regular classes before finals. Figure in two weeks for printing shipping a book, and that means I need to have completed the book by April 14th… a week from now. On the bright side, I guess I could do expedited shipping.


While I originally planned to do a large photobook version of “1000 Words” to showcase the completed book covers and stories, I’m starting to think that working with just the trade paperback version might be the best option.


Today I self-published the short story, The Carrier on Smashwords. Formatting was much smoother after having already done the formatting for Snow Witch. The one downside to running out of time to complete these stories, however, is not having as much time to find a proofreader. As such, I did extra proof reading of the story myself, and did it over a span of several weeks.

Once all the stories are completed, I do hope to find another proofreader for the whole anthology, or to look over it again myself, to try to catch anything I missed during this initial phase.


The benefit to going ahead and publishing it, though, is that it gives me the feeling that I must move on to the next story, regardless of if there might be more tweaks to be made. But if I were doing this for future projects, especially if it were a novel, I’d definitely want to find beta readers before it went live.


At the time of typing, The Carrier has had nine downloads, and no reviews (neither has Snow Witch). I just hope it is enjoyable.


Anyways, the statistics of the project is as follows:


2 Stories completed.

5 Stories written but not edited.

3 Stories still need to be written.

4 Book Covers completed.

2 Book Covers near completion.

4 Book Covers still need to be designed.


Snow Witch: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/139780
The Carrier: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/149719

Another update, as the due date for completing this project draws closer...

I have removed Snow Witch from Kindle (though it may still show as the system processes this), and made it free on Smashwords. There have been two additional downloads since then. It did recieve one review on Smashwords, which was two stars, but said it was worth the read.

The Carrier has 64 downloads since I uploaded it. There have not been any reviews as of this time.

I have just now uploaded the next short story, Shafted Dreams. Unlike the other short stories, it is a political commentary, and more on the literary side of genres. It is also told in three short points of view. I'm curious to see if it gets downloaded more or less, or has a difference in tendency to be reviewed. It is also a story I feel has a stronger cover, so I'm curious to see how that goes. Of course, I have uploaded it as free.

As a side note, I am noticing a theme starting to develop in this project, loosely themed around family. With that in mind, I'll pay attention to that in other stories.

Anyways, the statistics of the project is as follows:


3 Stories completed.

4 Stories written but not edited.

3 Stories still need to be written.

5 Book Covers completed.

1 Book Cover nearing completion.

4 Book Covers still need to be designed.

Anthology Cover still needs to be designed.

Let me know if you guys have any questions or anything you want me to go into more detail about with this project.

The latest short story I’ve completed (and published on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151461) is called “The Hunt.” It’s a short story about a young hunter defending herself against an intelligent cougar stalking her family’s village. This one is meant to be young adult/adult, and adventure themed.

As an update on the previously published stories, Snow Witch is standing the same in statistics, The Carrier now has 70 downloads and one review, while Shafted Dreams has only 12 downloads. Though there’s only been a few days of having Shafted Dreams self-published, it has far fewer downloads than The Carrier did. I suspect it may have something to do with an uninteresting blurb, or the difference in being published late at night versus early morning (though the fact The Carrier is still getting downloads make me think this should be a mute point).

Anyways, I have two more stories currently written that need to be edited, one story that needs to have edits finalized (which also needs adjustments to the typography on the cover), then three more stories/covers to complete. I also need to create a cover for the anthology itself. And this really should be ordered next week. Needless to say, it’s not a good idea to procrastinate. Especially when it comes to editing.

(By the way, for a little bit of detail about the making of the cover for The Dreamkeeper, I've added extra info on my blog page. It also has this info here, since I'm trying to document relevant information in both places. http://sbibb.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/self-publishing-1000-words-the-dreamkeeper/)

So for the quick update, The Dreamkeeper is now available on Smashwords. It's also sitting at 900 words, rather than 1000. Why? Because I kept cutting words, rather than adding them. After The Hunt, in which I probably should have cut another hundred words from the story, it's become rather evident that I follow the theory of making a story as long or as short as it needs to be. That means that if it needs to be longer, fine. (But you might be suprised at what can be cut, as I'm discovering with my YA novel). However, if it should be shorter, that's fine, too.

Of course, since this is specifically for a 1000 words project, I'm going to try to keep it within 100 words either way.

As for the statistics of the project so far, Snow Witch hasn't had any more downloads, though The Carrier is still getting the occasional download, and now sits at 76 downloads total. How many people actually read it, I don't know. Shafted Dreams is being... well... shafted, at a low 13 downloads since I uploaded it three days ago, while The Hunt has surpassed it with a total of 24 downloads and 1 review. Not bad for uploading it yesterday. Everything's free, of course, so that may help me get downloads, where having them cost $0.99 didn't have much result.

As of uploading The Dreamkeeper a few minutes ago, it has had three downloads. I shall hope that continues.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151854

Meanwhile, I am working on another cover for an unwritten "1000 Words" story, tentatively called, The Magician, and I have three story ideas to play with. One shall be young adult dystopian/war.

Thanks, I hope the thread has been helpful. And I hope you enjoy the stories when you get the chance to read them.

At the moment my main site doesn't have any cover designs on it, but my plan is to update the site (actually, I'm thinking of dividing it so there's a cover-intensive section and a portrait intensive section) as soon as I complete this project and my class portfolio.

Then I'll have everything done, and I can advertise the cover art I've been working on, as well as easily updating it. At the moment I've been using my blog and DeviantArt to showcase the cover designs and newest illustrations.

Since uploading The Dreamkeeper yesterday, it's had 42 downloads. The other stories still have a few downloads trickling in, though I'm not sure if that's due to uploading more stories, or to people finding them on thier own. The Carrier has done the best job so far of still being downloaded. Shafted Dreams is having the least success. I will be interested in seeing if they continue to be downloaded once the project is complete, or if downloads will slow down. Since everything's free, price is not a factor.

I'm considering uploading a couple other short stories I wrote (longer ones) once I complete this project, and actually pricing them to see if it makes a difference, and if those are actually purchased. Plus I'll have the anthology version, which will cost money, however, all the "1000 Words" short stories will remain free, at least for the time being. That way, if anyone wants to support me, they can, but no one has to.

I've just completed another cover for one of the stories I need to write, and I've written a sci-fi romance story to add to the project. This means that I have two stories to edit, two stories to write, and four covers to design.

You can find my latest short story, Aenima, at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/152094

Whew. These past few days have been hectic. It's time for me to order the print version of 1000 Words, and thankfully, I'm in the final stages of preparation. I've got all the stories done. All the covers are done. I've just uploaded The Magician to Smashwords. Now I've just got to review the print book file on Createspace and make adjustments as needed.

Short Story on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/153295

Look forward to Socks (a sci-fi young adult romance) and Four-Way Stop (a literary horror story) on Smashwords soon. I plan to make more notes about this project in the coming posts, and I'll also have further announcements regarding the upcoming print and eBook editions of "1000 Words," the complete anthology.

By the way, if any of you have been reviewing the short stories already up on Smashwords, thank you. It's neat to see the reviews trickling in. Really neat if they're good, but still nice to know what's not so good.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any questions.

if you’re curious about the statistics for the project as a whole, Dreamkeeper is in the lead with 122 downloads, easily surpassing The Carrier, which has been up a week longer, and stands at 102 downloads. It’s possible that people are downloading in multiple versions, or not reading them, but still, I found it interesting to see. I’ve gotten a couple more reviews on the stories (mostly good, yay!), but Dreamkeeper has none at this point in time.

Aside from the short I just did upload, Shafted Dreams has a measly 19 downloads, and no reviews. I do wonder whether this is because of the cover or the blurb, since everything else is between 30-70 downloads.

After this, I only have one more 1000 Words short story to upload, Socks. The final short story, dubbed “1000 Words” for the title of the anthology, will only be available in the eBook and print anthology versions. I’m not quite sure what I’ll sell the print version at, but the eBook version will likely cost $2.99. I don’t expect a lot of sells, especially since I don’t have any marketing plans in place for it, however, I think it’s nice to offer something for those who want to “contribute to the author.”

Meanwhile, the print version of 1000 Words is in the proofing stage (to be printed as soon as possible, in order to get in turned in on time), but I’m fairly happy with it. Reminds me that I actually enjoy formatting print books. Of course, the next step is the eBook, which means seeing how to implement special text as well as embedding images into the file.

Let me know if you have questions, I’d be happy to answer them.

Well, the good news is in! “1000 Words: A Collection of Short Stories” is now available as an ebook on Smashwords, and soon to be available on Kindle.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/154613

Here’s the cover reveal (went through a couple transformations, but this is by far the one I like best. Yay for a “Twilight Zone” feeling):



Overall, converting it into an ebook wasn’t so hard. Mostly just time consuming, and tweaking things here and there (I’m pretty sure there’s still a couple issues with the Smashwords format, but I’m not sure what). Once I had the Smashwords one done, converting it to a Kindle ebook didn’t take long. Unfortunately, you don’t get all the neat layout designs of a print book, but the content and images are the same.

It’s available for $2.99, and comes with one additional short story not available for free (unlike the other nine stories in it). I will soon be making a print edition available through Createspace, and the price is to be determined. It'll be interesting to see if anyone actually buys it.

I’m considering offering formatting services for both print and ebook editions for self-published authors if this goes well, so let me know what you think.

Check out my blog post to see images of the printed book: http://sbibb.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/1000-words-now-available-in-paperback/

Anyways, the good news is: It’s here. My Honors College Project is done. Turned in. Complete.

Yay.

Formally titled “1000 Words: A Collection of Short Stories,” is is now available on Amazon. I even fixed the description’s HTML so that it used line breaks. (Though it looks like I’ll have to independently set up the “search inside” feature for the paperback book).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1475227477/?tag=absowrit-20

Gotta admit, the cool thing is that while I was showing a copy of the printed book to my mentor for the project, a few of the other photo students got a chance to look at it and seemed impressed. Plus, one of the staff who works there decided to buy my book, making him the first official buyer of the paperback edition. Yay! My fiance has first dibs on the ebook edition. LOL

So now, here’s the part that may or may not be helpful for those of you reading my posts. I’ve taken pictures of the printed book (The Honors College permitted me to buy ten of them, one first myself, one for my mentor, and one for each of the seven models), at different angles. It’s a 6×9 inch paperback book from CreateSpace (they do print-on-demand, or “POD” printing) at 72 pages.

I’ll say one thing. It may be small, but I’m impressed with the interior color printing. The text is crisp, and the colors from the images don’t appear to smudge. The inner covers look great. I might have been a little off on how the spine was supposed to look, but it looks like the guides were correct (once I made a PSD to work from) for the wraparound cover. The paper for the front cover feels a little thin (as opposed to the paper a book printed at Lulu used for the cover) but the quality of the image looks great.

The paper pages are a bright white, but easy to read. I would personally consider extending the gutters out a bit or changing how I typeset the text in word, because the sentence feels a bit short when I try to read a paragraph, but that’s something I personally can do better to improve.

The pages open easily but do not lay flat (I felt a bit concerned about how thin the book is, but the binding appears to be holding).

I agree. Even with the proof copies, it's sort of awesome holding it and flipping through the pages.

And thanks, I'm glad the cover is working for it. :-D

Thanks, and yeah, I agree that it does seem more teen romance. Most of the stories are YA, but only a couple are romance. At this point I'm not planning on changing it, but yeah, it's something I want to keep in mind for future projects.

Good news! I’ve finally started editing the prequel to “Socks,” one of the short stories from my 1000 Words project. I’m happy to announce that the title will be “Ashes.” I’m currently in the process of planning the cover, which shall be done in similar fashion to Socks, as a way to show they’re related. The difference is that “Ashes” is not restricted to a one thousand words word-length, and is currently closer to 7000 words. I’m planning on self-publishing it and selling it for $0.99 on both Smashwords and Kindle.

So, for a little more information about “Ashes,” it takes place in the time before “Socks,” so readers will get to see a little more about the bunkers and the world she lives in. It’s also young adult, sci-fi romance. I hesitate to call it dystopian, since it’s not technically a dystopia, but it runs along similar worlds to popular dystopian YA right now (Pandemonium is the one that comes to mind, though I wrote this before reading that book). It is a complete story, however, if people like it, there is room to continue it before the actual “Socks” story begins. As well as room for right afterwards. Granted, it’ll be competing for time with Distant Horizon, the novel my husband and I are working on, but we’ll see how well it’s recieved.

I'll keep everyone updated on how it goes, both here and on my blog, then see about updating the stats once it goes live.