Hi all.
I have recently written a couple of short stories. And am unsure what to do with them.
I have self-published a novella, however, I am wondering people's thoughts on published short stories. I would list for free as they are just over 2000 words.
Also, magazine submissions. Has anyone any experience with this?
Advice greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Competitions - I entered one recently and have had the story accepted into an anthology along the way. Keep sending them out, keep entering, write letters - these can prove lucrative in the magazine market. My frustration is massive as I have a book self published on Amazon and that is that. Bookshops won't touch it. An agent has told me there is 'no market' and yet I write about space and there is so much interest in it at present!
Don't know what the answer is. Unfortunately it is not just writers, I have a friend who is a wonderful singer yet is finding paid work difficult to come by. Same old books in the shops, same old music on the radio.
Hi there Joanne,
I came on the website looking for advice on whether or not my YA fantasy, 1 third written (20k words) is viable as a publishing piece. Just saw your post.
I have short stories too, but have found it extremely difficult to get them published. Trawling the websites, sending them off to publishers is all I can offer as help.
The only short story I've managed to get published was one for children, about our old tom cat (it died years ago, sadly), which I had used in English lessons for years with younger students- aged 11/12, with a great deal of success (used it as a model for their stories on pets). The story was based on a true event, then I 'embroidered' :-) to make the story more interesting.
After a year, and after contacting the editor and reminding her that she had me down for publishing and payment, she promised to sort that out this month or next (that was three months ago...). From what I gather, they generally get literally hundreds of submissions every day.
They can pick and choose who they use (I'm talking about magazine editors here) and the editor who answered me, and sent a contract for me to sign, said she had a backlog- or literally a pile of stories all promised to writers as 'to be published', and she just picked or chose who she wanted on a whim on any particular month's publication date, paying folk one month after the magazine is out, as well as sending a copy of the mag.
My favourite advice is to bite the bullet and publish on your own- use LinkedIn, Facebook, anything! But get it read and get it out there! Also, try online magazines- be prepared NOT to be paid, but to have your work seen, read, and commented on- hopefully for free.
Competitions look to use stories with guidelines for a story being 1,500 words. Yours, at 2000, may be too long. Mine certainly are, two at 5k and 7k.
Ok, got to get back to my research, as the book is doing fine- can't stop writing it- but my incentive is only to get money at the end- so I was researching the market, looking at fantasy for Young Adults as a genre, and looking at getting folk to read the first third- see if they reckon it's worthwhile to go on.
It's a desperate business writing. I get lonely and wish I could just write a wee letter now and again to folk, or have an online chat about their progress or mine- so if you wanted to connect: anteallach1day@yahoo.co.uk I'm called Roddy and live in Scotland. Your novella sounds interesting, I'm reading one by a friend who just published, he's in the Writers' Group with me ('Word Play' : or 'Word Factory': see Facebook, we're a performance group)
Take Care and hope you have a productive day :-)
Cheers, Roddy Scott