Short Story Publishing?

[breezeshadow]

Hello everyone. So I've been a writer for ages, and today, after showing one of my friends my writing and having her like it, I started to consider whether I may actually be good enough to get into publishing. There's just a few concerns about this.

First off, I don't know if I'm actually good enough. I have stuff posted on my DW (here, here, and here are the recent ones), and on my dA are edited/more complete versions of those three stories, along with other things (dA here.). But I know my friends saying I'm good enough to publish does not necessarily mean I am, and I don't want to get ahead of myself. You don't need to read every one, or any, or give any extensive critique if you don't want to; I just want to make sure I'm not jumping the gun.

Second, I am a fantasy writer. As far as I could tell, there are very few publishing venues that are interested in short stories of the fantasy variety. Does anyone here have any experience with magazines, online and off, that accept fantasy submissions? Or know of any? I could write realistic stories, but they aren't my preference.

Also any advice about this would be fantastic. I've never tried submitting anything before, so I don't really know how it goes. Thus, any comments at all would be fantastic.

Thank you! Sorry for not replying much here; don't have much time to think about DW this semester.

Comments

[fannyfae]

I know of a few fantasy articles who have, with the help of a good beta reader or editor, been able to publish their own works vie ePublishing. I am sort of surprised no one else has mentioned the incredible disparity between what legacy and other publishing houses pay vs. the absolute game changer, Amazon, paying authors 70% of list price for titles priced between 2099 and 9.99. Legacy publishers, you are lucky if you 1) get published at all 2) get an advance for more then $1,500 and 3) get more than between 17.5% - 25% (if you are very lucky. And if you get all those things, you still have to pay back that advance - which in previous years was much higher, but hey, the industry is hurting. Rare is the author that will get more than that unless they have a proven track record.

I am going to suggest three blogs to be read if you are serious about being published.

http://www.thepassivevoice.com - this guy is an attorney turned full time author. I read him every morning and every day I learn something new.

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com - Dean Wesley Smith is an action / mystery writer that is able to support himself with his writng. He is fairly prolific and has a lot of good info, too.

http://www.kriswrites.com - This is Dean's wifw, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She writse fantasy books and she is also self supporting with her own work.

The world of writing and publishing has changed and there is no reason whatsoever that writers need to subject themselves to abuse and rates of return that does not respect their craft. All you need to do is make the effort. You learn along the way and you are looking after your own best interest in a way that no publisher, editor or agent ever could.

[analect]

I'd definitely agree with that, although I would say - from personal experience - a) self-publishing can be a real PITA. With Amazon's 70% over 30% deal, you need to read the fine print clearly, because it's not for everyone (they may include your book on loan projects, for example). Also, their back-end system is terrible from a technical point of view, so it's lovely to be able to have a publisher with an experienced tech/format team to stand between you and the screw-ups. b) If you intend to be anywhere other than *just* Amazon, you need to know or learn XHTML to correctly format and prepare your work for .epub format, plus doing all the conversion, distribution etc. yourself, which can be a real headache. (Alternatively: I just suck at it. *grin*)

In my view, small presses that epublish give you the best of both worlds: you can focus on actually writing, and leave the technical stuff to other people, and you still get an average of 30-40% royalties on cover price. Some also pay advances for longer work, usually around the $1000 mark (although yes, that does require recoupment, but it's handy). True, you don't shift the kind of numbers you do with a larger company, but they are also much more open to new talent, new ideas - and less run by accountants!

The only issue I've found is that there are fewer epublishers dealing with non-romance genres. Ones do pop up that deal with mainstream fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc., but they don't do half as well as romance/erotica houses. I'm trying to cling to the hope that this will yet change. (If I'm wrong and someone knows of a really successful digital publisher who doesn't predominantly do romance: for the love of all that's holy, please share!)

Oh, and in addition to those excellent recs of fannyfae's: check out the Chicago Manual of Style. It's worth investing in a copy, as that's many publishers' standard text.

[fannyfae]

Passive Guy mentioned a fairly painless program last week called Jutoh which takes a great deal of the PITA formatting etc. out of eBook formatting. I agree, without something like that, it is just maddening. I had one book up on Amazon that I had to pull down because the illustrations didn't make it into the final text. Amazon failed to mention that if your manuscript has any illustrations at all in the old KDP model, you had to put it in as a zip file. Now that I have Jutoh, and am nearing a point where it will be uploaded once again, I will let you know how it turns out. So far so good.

And yes, reading contracts is important - which is why I suggested the three blogs that I did. Passive Guy (PG) is an attorney, and he will be uploading an analysis of the Amazon contract, etc. Other publishers, especially with eRights, it is becoming clear that they do NOT care about the authors as much as they might have in the past and that their main concern is maintaining their relevance and profit margins in an industry that is currently changing at an astounding pace.

[analect]

Oh, bummer about the illustrations. Their lit was never terribly clear, and some things do still seem to function in a fairly random manner. I've had things disappear for no reason, and things that were pulled down magically pop up again... yet never been paid for copies sold when they did. :\

But I digress. Thanks for the rec - I will definitely look into Jutoh. There's quite a handy plug-in for OpenOffice as well, that automatically converts .odt to .epub. I'll see if I can find the link and see about making a resources post for this kind of thing - could be useful!

[prisoner_24601]

I just want to point out that it doesn't have to be entirely one or the other when it comes to e-pubbing vs. traditional publishing when it comes to short fiction - or hell, long fiction for that matter.

Unless I'm writing for a specific themed antho or something like Writers of the Future (in which case I send a story there first), what I do is make a list of pro and semi pro markets, and start submitting down the list in order of payscale, until one either bites or I'm out of markets. At that point (and I haven't reached it yet, it'll take a year or two to reach the bottom of the list), I'll probably toss it up on Amazon.

Writers can also have your short story published by an e-zine and then once the exclusive rights wear off (usually in a year) try to resell it. And then when you can't sell it anymore, put it up on Amazon.

So there's a lot of ways you can go, including mixing and matching. Also, it seems to me that the most successful people who e-pub stuff have a hell of a lot of stories that they can post. If you're just dealing with one short story, it might make sense to shop it around awhile while you write more and build up a backlist before publishing on Amazon.

[fannyfae]

My suggestion was never intended to say that you should only consider ePublishing. What I am saying is if anyone wants to write as the main means to support oneself - and many, if not most, do want to be able to do what they love, they can never forget for one instant that this is a business. Just like filmmaking and fine art, writers, filmmakers or artists who do not pay attention to the bottom line often get screwed. This is especially true now because the transmedia landscape has gotten so integrated. I see far too many writers not think about eRights, just as I have seen far too many screenwriters or filmmakers don't think past being greenlit. The results can be really heartbreaking.

My goal is and has always been for writers, artists and all creatives to have more say and control over their intellectual property. The world has fortunately changed to a degree now, where it is the creatives who will be the ones cashing in - not the agents, publishers and distributors who don't always act ethically and they certainly all too often do not have the artist's or writer's creative of financial interests at heart. They have their own percentages that they care about. That is why those three blogs are, in my opinion, very good. They don't sell get rich quick b.s. to anyone. All three are about the business and the creativity.