I think I'm ready...maybe?

Paris Love

What's up with the Orlando Bloom?
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I finally feel like I have a short story worthy of publication, but can't decide if I should start querying agents/publishers or maybe just go the self publishing route.

I have the tech savvy to self publish as well as a decent social media following for market promotion, but I'm waffling about whether I should let the pros promote my first short story or if I should go it alone.

I guess what I'm looking for is a check list to determine if one way or the other is better for me personally, and haven't found such a thing.

I'm also not sure if my story is considered solidly erotica or maybe something else. The sex is pivotal to the plot and is less than 10K words. No HEA, yet my beta readers mostly found the ending satisfying (with the exception of a fan of traditional romance novels).

If someone can offer a link or suggestion to make this decision easier, it would be most appreciated. Sorry if this question is asked a lot. I did a pretty thorough search of AW and didn't come up with anything here.
 

Filigree

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Congrats, Paris. I believe Emily Veinglory has a great site about romance markets, but I can't link to it right now.

Pros and cons of each path :

Self-pub only seems faster, because there's some necessary background research that many authors skip. You do have complete control and higher royalties. But you're also trying to stand out in a huuuuuge crowd of other self-published authors.

Going with a short-fiction publisher - if you aim for one with some recognition in the field - can give you marketing opportunities most self-pub authors can't get. Many anthologies offer one-time payments in exchange for first rights, so you might be able to republish it later. But dealing with many publishers can take months.

It's all part of the process.
 

gingerwoman

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I finally feel like I have a short story worthy of publication, but can't decide if I should start querying agents/publishers or maybe just go the self publishing route.

I have the tech savvy to self publish as well as a decent social media following for market promotion, but I'm waffling about whether I should let the pros promote my first short story or if I should go it alone.

I guess what I'm looking for is a check list to determine if one way or the other is better for me personally, and haven't found such a thing.

I'm also not sure if my story is considered solidly erotica or maybe something else. The sex is pivotal to the plot and is less than 10K words. No HEA, yet my beta readers mostly found the ending satisfying (with the exception of a fan of traditional romance novels).

If someone can offer a link or suggestion to make this decision easier, it would be most appreciated. Sorry if this question is asked a lot. I did a pretty thorough search of AW and didn't come up with anything here.

The majority of erotic romance publishers would want a HEA and a longer than 10K story. Some take erotica (no HEA ) too. There's more money in self publishing by all accounts, but you have to pay for or get editing somehow upfront, and shorter stories.....well I don't know I have seen some people who write and self publish a lot of erotic short stories targeting a certain kink say they do well, that's a different world entirely from the whole erotic romance scene.


When I started out I used to sell my erotic short stories to various markets for about $50 US each, but that may be a lot less than self publishers make to day per story. I don't know.

Self publishing you can get beautiful covers cheaply, cover art really isn't a problem, but it's the cost of editing that puts me off self publishing personally. I do know a lot of people are skipping editing and only using beta readers. People have a range of opinion about that.
 

Paris Love

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This is very helpful! Thank you!

I have a hard drive full of short erotic stories, so I may submit the stories that are more mainstream, but self publish the stories that defy genre.

Thanks so much for the advice. I guess I just need to do my homework and get on with attempting to sell my work. :)