Shorts, SP questions

ap123 · Jan 25, 2015

Has anyone in here self pubbed shorts that aren't erotica, romance, sff?

If so, what was your experience?

I'm thinking about exploring different options (so yes, thinking about thinking about it), but I don't know anything about where to look to find info.

Thanks!

gettingby · Jan 25, 2015

A lot of bookstores and libraries carry literary journals. Reading them is a good place to start. I started a thread (well, two threads, but one is recent) about which literary journals people were reading. You can find it in the literary/mainstream section.

ap123 · Jan 25, 2015

Thanks, gettingby

I'm not looking for lit mags/journals, I'm looking to see if anyone here who regularly writes shorts that are not "genre" (for lack of a better word) has attempted self publishing them, and what their experiences have been.

Polenth · Jan 25, 2015

Where I've seen people self-publishing literary/contemporary shorts, their experience seems about the same as genres like SFF, historical and mysteries. But not the same as erotica and romance. In other words, generally unpopular with a small market, but you might get lucky.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 25, 2015

Even with romance and erotica, only a handful of writers make any money. There are tens of thousands of writers who self-publish, so unless you have something going for yu, such as a known name, chances are very, very few will buy syour stories. There are simply far too many writers, and far too few readers to give everyone a slice of the pie.

And the truth is, unless your stories are good enough to sell to quality magazines, they aren't good enough to self-publish, either.

Kylabelle · Jan 25, 2015

Ann, you might try asking for those who have actually done this over in the Self Publishing forum, with more luck.

Doesn't sound like anyone who's responded here has actually done what you're considering.

ap123 · Jan 25, 2015

Polenth said:
Where I've seen people self-publishing literary/contemporary shorts, their experience seems about the same as genres like SFF, historical and mysteries. But not the same as erotica and romance. In other words, generally unpopular with a small market, but you might get lucky.

Thanks, Polenth

Jamesaritchie said:
Even with romance and erotica, only a handful of writers make any money. There are tens of thousands of writers who self-publish, so unless you have something going for yu, such as a known name, chances are very, very few will buy syour stories. There are simply far too many writers, and far too few readers to give everyone a slice of the pie.

And the truth is, unless your stories are good enough to sell to quality magazines, they aren't good enough to self-publish, either.

Hmm.

I kind of feel I've been insulted somewhere in here, but I'm going to assume this is me misinterpreting. Thanks for your thoughts, James

Kylabelle said:
Ann, you might try asking for those who have actually done this over in the Self Publishing forum, with more luck.

Doesn't sound like anyone who's responded here has actually done what you're considering.

Thanks Kyla--I wasn't sure which was the better choice, can you move it, or do I need a mod who works this forum to do so?

Kylabelle · Jan 25, 2015

You'll need to PM one of the room mods to get it moved.

ap123 · Jan 25, 2015

Thank you!

Old Hack · Jan 25, 2015

Moving to Self Publishing, as requested by OP. Hang on to your hats...

Old Hack · Jan 25, 2015

ap123 said:
Hmm. I kind of feel I've been insulted somewhere in here, but I'm going to assume this is me misinterpreting. Thanks for your thoughts, James

I've taken a look at James's comment and see no insults in it: I think he's just telling us a few hard truths. But just to remind everyone, I'd be grateful if you'd report troublesome posts rather than discussing them in-thread: it gets the mods' attention, and it prevents derails. Thank you!

blacbird · Jan 25, 2015

A sequence of questions comes to mind:

Why do you want to self-publish short stories? Is it because you can't get them accepted by submission to standard publication outlets? Or because you are too impatient to go through the standard, and often very frustrating, submissions process, Or because you just want to get them "out there" into the ether in hopes they'll get read?

JAR is correct, by the way, in stating that if your stories are not at a level to merit publication via standard means, they likely aren't worth self-publishing, either. The simplest way to self-publish is just to post them on a website. Anybody can do that. Is that the standard you want to be judged by?

caw

Old Hack · Jan 25, 2015

blacbird said:
A sequence of questions comes to mind:

Why do you want to self-publish short stories? Is it because you can't get them accepted by submission to standard publication outlets? Or because you are too impatient to go through the standard, and often very frustrating, submissions process, Or because you just want to get them "out there" into the ether in hopes they'll get read?

You missed out some of the sequence, blac.

How about adding this to your list:

Is it because you recognise that self publishing is a valid, rewarding, and direct route to readers, and you want to do your best to meet the many challenges it presents?

By omitting this you've implied that writers only self publish because they can't get trade publishers to take their work on and that is both nonsensical and disrespectful to the many writers who work hard to self publish their work in the best way that they can.

JAR is correct, by the way, in stating that if your stories are not at a level to merit publication via standard means, they likely aren't worth self-publishing, either. The simplest way to self-publish is just to post them on a website. Anybody can do that. Is that the standard you want to be judged by?

caw

I agree with this, but find your final comment somewhat over-judgemental. Let's try to be less grumpy and more thoughtful, please.

ap123 · Jan 26, 2015

Old Hack said:
I've taken a look at James's comment and see no insults in it: I think he's just telling us a few hard truths. But just to remind everyone, I'd be grateful if you'd report troublesome posts rather than discussing them in-thread: it gets the mods' attention, and it prevents derails. Thank you!

Sorry!

blacbird said:
A sequence of questions comes to mind:

Why do you want to self-publish short stories? Is it because you can't get them accepted by submission to standard publication outlets? Or because you are too impatient to go through the standard, and often very frustrating, submissions process, Or because you just want to get them "out there" into the ether in hopes they'll get read?

JAR is correct, by the way, in stating that if your stories are not at a level to merit publication via standard means, they likely aren't worth self-publishing, either. The simplest way to self-publish is just to post them on a website. Anybody can do that. Is that the standard you want to be judged by?

caw

I write for two reasons. I write to be read, and I write in the hopes of earning a dollar. I do occasionally put shorts up on my blog, which I find rewarding, but my readership isn't tremendous (around 500 or so) and it doesn't earn me a cent, let alone a dollar. I haven't done much at all in terms of subbing shorts to lit mags, and I am looking at options. As one of those options, I'm hoping for info from people who have experience self pubbing short stories. Yes, I'm feeling rather bruised from my recent close-but-no-cigar experience of querying my mss, so I'm looking at my goals, trying to assess what is/isn't realistic for my words.

kkbe · Jan 26, 2015

Interesting thread, AP.

Back to your original question. I don't have experience with that but I did find something online: https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=176092&start=0&tstart=0 The crux of the thread was, Does anybody have experience with self-pubbing lit fic? Which isn't what you asked.

Having said that, I have read some of your work (!) and think it slips into that lit fic category. Anyway, interesting take on it, IMO.

If you self pub, you are getting it out there. Perhaps to a wider audience. One idea might be to publish as a collection, not sure if that was your intent. If you were able to link those stories together somehow, to bring a cohesiveness to the collection, that may be a selling point. And don't discount lit journals and the like. A lot of writers here have published their short stories in literary journals. It's a way to get your work noticed and it can put a buck or two in your pocket. Which is never a bad thing.

Good luck, AP.

WriterBN · Jan 26, 2015

ap123, I only have one short story available as an individual e-book, and it's permafree. It's not romance or erotica, so I really couldn't see trying to sell it for $0.99. It's more of a marketing vehicle for my other book, and it's helped sales overall.

ap123 · Jan 26, 2015

kkbe said:
Interesting thread, AP.

Back to your original question. I don't have experience with that but I did find something online: https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=176092&start=0&tstart=0 The crux of the thread was, Does anybody have experience with self-pubbing lit fic? Which isn't what you asked. Having said that, I have read some of your work (!) and think it slips into that lit fic category. Anyway, interesting take on it, IMO.

If you self pub, you are getting it out there. Perhaps to a wider audience. One idea might be to publish as a collection, not sure if that was your intent. If you were able to link those stories together somehow, to bring a cohesiveness to the collection, that may be a selling point. And don't discount lit journals and the like. A lot of writers here have published their short stories in literary journals. It's a way to get your work noticed and it can put a buck or two in your pocket. Which is never a bad thing.

Good luck, AP.

Thanks, kk--that thread you found is a worthwhile read, and has a link in it to a FB group of people self pubbing lit fic.

I was thinking of not so much a collection as groups of 2 or 3. My stories aren't flash but they are short, so I can't see trying to sell one by itself.

Thinking, thinking...

WriterBN said:
ap123, I only have one short story available as an individual e-book, and it's permafree. It's not romance or erotica, so I really couldn't see trying to sell it for $0.99. It's more of a marketing vehicle for my other book, and it's helped sales overall.

Thanks WriterBN! How long has your story been available?

Bartholomew · Jan 26, 2015

ap123 said:
Hmm. I kind of feel I've been insulted somewhere in here, but I'm going to assume this is me misinterpreting. Thanks for your thoughts, James

That's normal. Carry on. =)

I self published a short story and made about as much as I would have selling it to lower end magazine.

B

ap123 · Jan 26, 2015

Thanks, B.

Of those who SP'ed shorts, did you hire an editor before doing so? Pay for art/cover?

girlyswot · Jan 26, 2015

My short stories are all romances, so you can take this advice with a pinch of salt.

It's perfectly reasonable to self publish short stories, and it does not imply that they weren't good enough for literary magazines. There is a finite number of literary magazines with a finite number of stories in each. I would venture to suggest that the supply of excellent stories might easily exceed the demand for them in literary magazines. And the readership of literary magazines is certainly smaller than the potential readership for a self-published story (though possibly larger than the actual readership). Self-publishing is riskier, because it's a business venture, but the rewards can be much greater. My best-selling short story has earned several thousands of dollars, much more than any magazine would pay.

I would say that bundling two or three short stories is probably a good idea, but I would also recommend that you don't under-price your work. People will assume it's not worth much if you only charge 99c for it. For a small bundle, I would charge at least $2.99, and if the stories are very short, I'd add in an extra story rather than lower the price. You want the $2.99 price for the sake of the 70% royalty. Get a great, professionally made cover and get professional editing. You're aiming for a product that is indistinguishable from something a publishing house would put out.

The other thing you can do with short stories that might be worth considering is enrolling them in Kindle Select so that you can take advantage of the Kindle Unlimited scheme. If you do this, I would publish the individual stories in Select, and then as a bundle which is not in Select (but is still only available on Amazon, so as not to violate the TOS). The reason for doing this is that KU subscribers can borrow the individual stories as part of their subscription package, and you get paid for each borrow (currently about $1.40 per borrow, regardless of the length of the book or its price). Put good back matter in each book, directing readers to your other work and you can build up a core readership.

The readership for short stories is never going to be as big as for full-length novels, but it does exist and a lot of ebook readers really like short works. I say, go for it.

ap123 · Jan 26, 2015

Wow, this is great info, Girlyswot, thank you!

Exactly what I was looking for, concrete information. I don't know anything about SPing, so now I have some specifics to research.

Polenth · Jan 26, 2015

ap123 said:
Of those who SP'ed shorts, did you hire an editor before doing so? Pay for art/cover?

If you're opening up the questions to all genres now, I've published a full-length collection and a novelette. The collection is science fiction and fantasy. The novelette is steampunk. I didn't hire an editor, as I couldn't have afforded to do so. However, some of the shorts had been previously edited, as I'd sold them to places. I did the cover art myself.

The collection sells more than the novelette. None of them sell well, and that's with having sales to pro magazines and the like. It's a tough market even if your name is known. Keep in mind that whatever you spend on production is likely to be money you won't see again. But you also need the production standards to be reasonable, so you may end up having to spend money. It's probably not the best way to reach either of your goals (money or readers). Starting with low expectations means you're less likely to be disappointed.

Reading the self-pub diary threads will give you more details.

M. H. Lee · Jan 27, 2015

Adding to this and somewhat contradicting James above. You don't need to be known to earn money self-pubbing.

I decided to publish some romance/erotic romance stories in the last three months. I never tried subbing them anywhere, so I have no idea if they would be accepted in a pro-paying magazine or with an e-only romance publisher, but I think they're decently written. I did my own covers and own editing. I have no name recognition and they're published under pen names that I made up to publish them. No blogs or social media for any of the names. Most I've done is a $5 Bknights promo for some of them.

My best selling short earned me $300 the first month it was out. My worst selling earned close to nothing. For me, using KU and the borrows available through the program has been a tremendous boost, but I'm not sure that would work for literary stories.

The key is to get in the right categories to find your readership, use strong keywords, have a good title, appropriate cover, and strong blurb. And, of course, a story people want to read.

I price most everything at $2.99 for the 70% royalty on Amazon with the exception of some very short works that I price lower.

I also have some SFF that doesn't sell much at all so I've just dropped the price on each of those to $1.49 and released two shorter stories as permafree to see if that changes anything. (They don't fit in any of the standard SFF categories so finding an audience for them is challenging.)

Literary is a harder sell than either SFF or romance/erotic romance/erotica, so you're facing an uphill battle. Having said that, I believe I've read at least one self-publisher on a different forum who had one literary story that sells a couple hundred copies a month. So, it can be done.

Just don't take it personal if you put a short out there and no one reads or borrow it. Discoverability is your biggest challenge starting out. (Hence why being known helps a lot, although isn't essential.)

I will say that self-publishing has helped me better understand the business overall and I think my second SFF novel that I'm querying at the moment was better crafted as a result of what I learned through self-pub. So, there are benefits beyond what you earn.

WriterBN · Jan 27, 2015

ap123 said:
Thanks WriterBN! How long has your story been available?

It's been out for just under a year. It took a couple of months for Amazon to price match the other channels where it was free.

ap123 said:
Of those who SP'ed shorts, did you hire an editor before doing so? Pay for art/cover?

Yes to editing. That's something I would recommend doing for anything published, whether free or not. The cover was done by a graphic designer friend of mine as a favor.

ap123 · Jan 27, 2015

Polenth said:
If you're opening up the questions to all genres now, I've published a full-length collection and a novelette. The collection is science fiction and fantasy. The novelette is steampunk. I didn't hire an editor, as I couldn't have afforded to do so. However, some of the shorts had been previously edited, as I'd sold them to places. I did the cover art myself.

The collection sells more than the novelette. None of them sell well, and that's with having sales to pro magazines and the like. It's a tough market even if your name is known. Keep in mind that whatever you spend on production is likely to be money you won't see again. But you also need the production standards to be reasonable, so you may end up having to spend money. It's probably not the best way to reach either of your goals (money or readers). Starting with low expectations means you're less likely to be disappointed.

Reading the self-pub diary threads will give you more details.

Thank you, Polenth!

M. H. Lee said:
Adding to this and somewhat contradicting James above. You don't need to be known to earn money self-pubbing.

I decided to publish some romance/erotic romance stories in the last three months. I never tried subbing them anywhere, so I have no idea if they would be accepted in a pro-paying magazine or with an e-only romance publisher, but I think they're decently written. I did my own covers and own editing. I have no name recognition and they're published under pen names that I made up to publish them. No blogs or social media for any of the names. Most I've done is a $5 Bknights promo for some of them.

My best selling short earned me $300 the first month it was out. My worst selling earned close to nothing. For me, using KU and the borrows available through the program has been a tremendous boost, but I'm not sure that would work for literary stories.

The key is to get in the right categories to find your readership, use strong keywords, have a good title, appropriate cover, and strong blurb. And, of course, a story people want to read.

I price most everything at $2.99 for the 70% royalty on Amazon with the exception of some very short works that I price lower.

I also have some SFF that doesn't sell much at all so I've just dropped the price on each of those to $1.49 and released two shorter stories as permafree to see if that changes anything. (They don't fit in any of the standard SFF categories so finding an audience for them is challenging.)

Literary is a harder sell than either SFF or romance/erotic romance/erotica, so you're facing an uphill battle. Having said that, I believe I've read at least one self-publisher on a different forum who had one literary story that sells a couple hundred copies a month. So, it can be done.

Just don't take it personal if you put a short out there and no one reads or borrow it. Discoverability is your biggest challenge starting out. (Hence why being known helps a lot, although isn't essential.)

I will say that self-publishing has helped me better understand the business overall and I think my second SFF novel that I'm querying at the moment was better crafted as a result of what I learned through self-pub. So, there are benefits beyond what you earn.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, MH

WriterBN said:
It's been out for just under a year. It took a couple of months for Amazon to price match the other channels where it was free.

Yes to editing. That's something I would recommend doing for anything published, whether free or not. The cover was done by a graphic designer friend of mine as a favor.

Thank you, Writer. And I agree, re having the work edited before publishing.

You've all given me some helpful info to get my research started, I appreciate it!

Shorts, SP questions

Twitching

Twitching

Mushroom

unaccounted for

Twitching

unaccounted for

Twitching

Such a nasty woman

Such a nasty woman

Such a nasty woman

Twitching

Huh.

Twitching

Comic guy

Twitching

Twitching

Mushroom

Twitching