e-publishing short stories.

defyalllogic · May 25, 2010

have you done it? is it worth it?

it seems easier than spending the time to shop to every magazine/anthology...

There's so much research involved in than but Amazon makes it seem so easy and capitalistic. I do the writing and then sell it. a processing fee comes out but there's no months of waiting or limited subscriber radius. [self-publishing]

if you post something on your blog and then try to sell it to a mag or other outlet, it won't work because it's been published on your blog. if you post it on your blog can you then sell it online?

also does anyone know if there's some kind of table that relates word count to selling price?

Thanks! yay! done.
(today i'm home sick, so sorry if none of that made sense.)

CACTUSWENDY · May 25, 2010

To pin point this a little more...what word length are you talking about? Short stories can be anywhere from 100 flash stories....yes...there are places that takes that size, to novellas. ( approx. 40,000)

A lot of folks here have done them in all sizes, some even full length novels.

What size will help others know how to respond.

defyalllogic · May 25, 2010

well that's the thing it would vary from flash to longer short stories. thats why i'm looking for kind of a laddered guide. rough estimate for price set by WC ranges.

Unimportant · May 25, 2010

defyalllogic, are you talking about self-publishing your short stories rather than selling them to an edited, commercial market (magazine or anthology)?

I myself wouldn't do this, for two reasons.

One is that if I shop my story around to a few dozen markets and get a few dozen rejections, that tells me the story isn't good enough to publish. It's the editor's job to decide if a story will please readers -- and if they all think it won't, they're almost certainly right. I don't want to ask readers to pay money to read my work if it's not good enough.

The second reason is that I'm a nobody, so no one is going to buy my self-published stories on author name recognition. They might pay for and read my story if it's in an anthology edited by a name they recognise and like, or if it's published by a publisher they're familiar with and whose work they like, but without an editor or publisher to piggyback on, I've got nothing to snag a reader's attention. In which case, who is going to buy my stories? Um -- no one.

My $0.02.

defyalllogic · May 25, 2010

yes, i mean self-publishing.

and that few dozen editors business is so daunting. for each story. rather than polishing and self-publishing.

i get bored with SS submissions after about 3. I want to be writing or editing rather than checking out venues...

I know it sounds really lazy but, and is...

Unimportant · May 25, 2010

But if you want to sell self-published works, don't you have to spend more time and money on publicity and marketing and promotion than you would submitting to markets?

(Unless you're a household name. Which I'm not. Hopefully you are!)

defyalllogic · May 26, 2010

what happens if you don't? If they're just made available online to buy and search-able on amazon or some other place. if you just link to them in the same way you would a bloc.

that's why i wouldn't do this with a novel. but i kind of want the instant gratification that it is available for public consumption... if they choose to consume (for a price).

nitaworm · May 26, 2010

It's your work. Do what you want with it. Look at the market for short stories in the online ebook stores, go to forums and sites to see what other's have done and blaze your own path for what you want to do for your work.

Good luck.

Unimportant · May 26, 2010

defyalllogic said:
what happens if you don't? If they're just made available online to buy and search-able on amazon or some other place. if you just link to them in the same way you would a bloc.

that's why i wouldn't do this with a novel. but i kind of want the instant gratification that it is available for public consumption... if they choose to consume (for a price).

People can't choose to consume (or not) a product unless they know that product exists. Have you ever searched on Amazon for a story whose title you've never heard of, by an author whose name you don't know, and then bought the story?

Perhaps I'm missing something somewhere, but I can't see how an author can expect to find readers for his stories unless his stories are somehow put in front of those readers' faces.

valeriec80 · May 26, 2010

As someone who does self-publish her ebooks and whose website gets a fair amount of hits, I think you'll be in for a rude awakening. Last year self-publishing, I made $182. And from what I understand, my results are not typical.

Expect, if you do just throw up some short stories on Amazon, not to sell any copies.

You do mention posting stories to blog, however. If you do that, and you've got a decent following already, you might have a bit of success trying to sell stories. But I'd recommend using smashwords, not Amazon. They format your book into lots and lots of ebook formats and get it listed all over the place, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the Ipad store. Plus, you get 80% of the list price, not 35%.

veinglory · May 27, 2010

I would agree that self-publishing in general, and especially self-published short stories, are unlikely to sell well. Also, you can sell to a print press, and then an electronic press for electronic rights, and then self publish when they revert. But you generally cannot do it in the reverse order.

e-publishing short stories.

defyalllogic

i'm a girl. (i have tendonitis)

CACTUSWENDY

An old, sappy, and happy one.

defyalllogic

i'm a girl. (i have tendonitis)

Unimportant

No COVID yet. Still masking.

defyalllogic

i'm a girl. (i have tendonitis)

Unimportant

No COVID yet. Still masking.

defyalllogic

i'm a girl. (i have tendonitis)

nitaworm

AW Addict

Unimportant

No COVID yet. Still masking.

valeriec80

Got the hang of it, here

veinglory

volitare nequeo