A WRITER'S WIT
You can make an audience see nearly anything, if you yourself believe in it.
Mary Renault
Born September 4, 1905
Taking the Plunge
Since 2005 twenty literary journals have published my short stories, and I've featured a number of them under the "Published Stories" page of my website. The conventional wisdom has always been that after one has published at least fifteen stories, one then seeks to publish them as a collection. Well, as conventions go, this one now stands on its head. Companies are usually willing to publish a writer’s collection only after he or she has premiered a novel, preferably a best-selling one—and often editors would prefer that the stories be linked, making a collection seem more like . . . guess what . . . a novel. They sell better.
Short story collections have always sold "poorly," but prior to the turn of the century (this one), publishers had used the sales of their best sellers to subsidize what they called mid-list writers: solid writers, who didn't draw wide audiences but had respectable sales. I wouldn't presume to say that I'm equal to one of those, but several times in the last few years I've almost placed a collection, and yet, for one reason or another certain independent presses passed—while claiming to like my work! Painful. Then I read a short article—"Presto Book-O (Why I Went Ahead and Self-Published)"—at The Rumpus by fiction writer, Steve Almond. He'd already published several collections but decided to publish a collection himself. I believe he makes some great points.
Almond's words inspired me, some years later—I'm not the most courageous person in the world—and my short story collection, My Long-Playing Records and Other Stories will be out later this year. Before that time the PDFs of my stories will come down off the "Published Stories" page of my website, and if interested parties wish to read them they will then have an opportunity to buy a copy of those stories from Amazon. Yes, I chose to go with Amazon's CreateSpace, which will produce the book and the Kindle version, as well. In the coming weeks, though I'm sure other writers have already done this, I will be posting my experiences—from researching companies to seeing the manuscript edited and uploaded to selecting artwork for the cover. All the heartache and love of seeing my work come to fruition—just the way I envision it! As Rachel Maddow says, "Watch this space!"
NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2014
NEXT THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11: DIY PUBLISHING 101-B
Short story collections have always sold "poorly," but prior to the turn of the century (this one), publishers had used the sales of their best sellers to subsidize what they called mid-list writers: solid writers, who didn't draw wide audiences but had respectable sales. I wouldn't presume to say that I'm equal to one of those, but several times in the last few years I've almost placed a collection, and yet, for one reason or another certain independent presses passed—while claiming to like my work! Painful. Then I read a short article—"Presto Book-O (Why I Went Ahead and Self-Published)"—at The Rumpus by fiction writer, Steve Almond. He'd already published several collections but decided to publish a collection himself. I believe he makes some great points.
Almond's words inspired me, some years later—I'm not the most courageous person in the world—and my short story collection, My Long-Playing Records and Other Stories will be out later this year. Before that time the PDFs of my stories will come down off the "Published Stories" page of my website, and if interested parties wish to read them they will then have an opportunity to buy a copy of those stories from Amazon. Yes, I chose to go with Amazon's CreateSpace, which will produce the book and the Kindle version, as well. In the coming weeks, though I'm sure other writers have already done this, I will be posting my experiences—from researching companies to seeing the manuscript edited and uploaded to selecting artwork for the cover. All the heartache and love of seeing my work come to fruition—just the way I envision it! As Rachel Maddow says, "Watch this space!"
NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2014
NEXT THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11: DIY PUBLISHING 101-B
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