I have a short story (2300 words). I don't wish it to be a novella, I'm happy as it is.
However, now what? I have been advised to send to magazines. No clue how to even go about that.
What are your thoughts on self publishing via KDP for a freebie?
I have a short story (2300 words). I don't wish it to be a novella, I'm happy as it is.
However, now what? I have been advised to send to magazines. No clue how to even go about that.
What are your thoughts on self publishing via KDP for a freebie?
Thank you so much for your advice! I hadn't thought of submitting as a competition. Definitely something to consider. As, I could trim it by 300 words. I think, doesn't seem so many does it.
I will definitely look at that website too.
/will hold off self publishing.
Thanks again Charlie
Jo x
Hi Joanne,
I decided to do a mixture of both -- I wrote a bunch of short stories of all different genres before I started to submit. I've self-published one so far, so that there is a sample of my work 'out there' for people to read, but I intend to do more in the future. However, what I'm trying to do first is get some of these pieces published through magazines and other reputable publications/competitions. Once the rights for those publications have run out, I am then free to self-publish the short stories as I see fit -- either individually or as an anthology.
If you decide to self-publish this story, don't expect it to sell lots of copies. It more a case of finding an audience first.
With KDP you can't set your story as a freebie -- the minimum price is 99p/cts -- unless you do either of two things:
1) enroll it into Amazon's KDP select programme where people have free access to your story and you will be paid on how many pages they read (I did this but didn't find very many readers with it, not that I expected to with just one short), or
2) upload it to ishop (or whatever it's called!) and other platforms where you can set your price to £0.00 and then have someone ask Amazon to price match it (not you, a friend). I haven't done the latter and you could call it gaming the system, but for one little short story I don't think you need to worry too much.
On the other hand, are you able to trim your story down to 2k words and enter it into the W&A free writing competition? Getting a publishing credit for your story might enable you to create more sales/reach for that story if you later decide to self-publish it.
As for magazines, you can find them here:
http://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/
It's a free database listing of many, many fiction markets all accepting submission. You can search by genre, word count, style, subject, etc. It's much like Duotrope except that the Grinder is a free resource and DT charges.
Just make sure you follow the guidelines and formatting requirements TO THE LETTER, so you stand your best chance of consideration.
All the best,
Charlie