publishing your own flash fiction

[ElizabethWright]

Hi

just wondered if anyone has sold their own flash fiction via eg Amazon rather than submitted to a mag. hopefully the answer is yes and if so can you offer any advice?

 

[Motley]

I know someone who self-published a book with 100 pieces of their flash fiction in it. I have no clue if it ever sold and I no longer in contact with that person so I can ask.

Would the reading public want to read flash fiction? I think if you tried something like that it might be best to have all the flash fiction center closely around a particular theme or otherwise connected.

I've toyed with the idea of creating a city or town (I write fantasy.) and writing many short stories or flash pieces from different points of view of people around the town that interconnect, kind of like the old Thieves' World books.

 

[Fruitbat]

Or, if you don't want to go that route, I guess you could SP small ebook flash collections and give one of them away to try and draw readers. Then maybe republish all together as a print book once you have enough of them.

Well, really you could do it any way you want. But so many SP books just get nothing. Unless you'd be happy with just putting it up there and accepting what you get, you'll probably have to do something to draw in readers.

 

[kennyc]

I really don't have any tips other than Short fiction in general is a tough market and flash fiction particularly tough, like poetry. My collection Prosthetic Amalgams has had little traffic or sales since its release early this year, even less than my poetry collections. I've marketed it various places and put excerpts up on my blog which I also publicize. I certainly don't plan to give up the genre though.

 

[Gregg Bell]

I'm chiming in with the others. If you want to get read I would say post links to your flash fiction on Twitter. But yeah, that would be free flash fiction. Even short story collections are a nearly impossible sell on Amazon. (It's a shame.)

 

[noranne]

I publish my own flash fiction on YouTube and on Wattpad, but I don't even try to sell it. I'm just glad there are about a dozen people out there who seem to be reading it. Seems like a tough category to get self-pub sales in, especially for a new author.

 

[oscar54]

How about if you have a 100 stories about one topic?

 

[Serf1986]

What are some good websites to publish sci-fi/fantasy flash fiction on?
I've submitted my work to a few but don't hear back

 

[rwhegwood]

Have you tried Daily Science Fiction or Drabblecast?

 

[Fruitbat]

@Serf, go to The Submission Grinder and key in what you're looking for from among the choices. You'll find tons of them.

 

[spottedgeckgo]

Just wanted to add this, though I agree with most of the advice already here. Flash is also a great way to start growing an engaged audience. When you win readers over, they tend to stick with you as long as you keep feeding them, rather like cats in that regard. WattPad is okay, but it's slow (at least for me). I joined Medium a couple days ago and I'm growing a small following on there already. Plus the wonderful thing about free stories is that you can keep reusing them on different platforms, and getting feedback.

Far as making money, unless you can grow an audience first, I would suggest sticking to the mags, or putting out 99cent short ebooks with only 1-3 stories in each one. There is a market for those. Anthologies though? You need to build the audience first. I'm trying to do that with my Facebook group, but it's slow going. At least a couple of the authors are happy to have a place to share their morning "write to get motivated" pieces that otherwise wouldn't have an outlet.

 

[Yportne]

I tend to think of my e-books on Amazon as very small needles in a very large haystack. My biggest challenge has been trying to do things other than writing to make it more likely people will find my needles. It has not been easy, and I've lost enthusiasm for that part of the writing process more than once. Every now and then, someone stumbles across one of mine and decides that it shines more brightly than all those other needles.

My guess is that it's not any easier to find a print or on-line magazine where your story fits well enough to trump all the others that came across an editor's desk that day. I've been gathering a few here and there for flash fiction. Haven't submitted any yet, but you folks might take a look at Everyday Fiction (1,000 words), Flash Fiction (500-1,000 words), Page & Spine (1,000 words), Splickety (300-700 words), and Toasted Cheese (500 words).

Cheers!