Bankrupt: What do you do when your Publisher no Longer Exists?

You have two options – find another publisher or self-publish them.

This is what I was faced with recently on two of my six books/anthologies. I decided to self-publish Seasons of the Soul and Lockets and Lanterns, because they were published years ago (Seasons of the Soul in 2006 and Lockets and Lanterns in 2012).

I believe self-publishing is the right path to go on these two books. However, this meant I needed to develop a new cover. After all I did not own the rights to the covers, the publisher did. What should I do? Go with an expensive cover designer or do a nice cover without any bells or whistles?

I decided to do the latter. I could not see paying a lot of money for a cover artist on books several years old. Thus I turned to a friend who has self-published, and she is assisting me.

Now since the original Lockets and Lanterns cover never really said romance, and it is a romance, it made sense to have a cover that more matched the genre. In fact at book signings, people often thought this book was either a horror or mystery novel. Although Lockets and Lanterns includes an element of mystery – the husband’s secret – your average mystery reader would not consider it as such. It is pictured below. What do you think?

The second problem was the book’s description. It needed to be revised. It did not say “romance” and, of course, it must do that.

This got me thinking about publishers who market all types of genres. They really do not know what each target audience demands. So, although going through my submitted manuscript is going to be a chore since I will have to correct the point size and fonts used and remove all editor’s remarks, it also is a time of rejoicing.

Rejoicing you say? Are you nuts? No, I have been disinterested in these books for quite a while to focus on my new material, such as the recent release of my historical humorous tale, The Bride List. The cover is pictured below.

However, now I am excited about these older books. Why?

Because it also took me back to when my autistic sons were younger as relayed in a spattering of personal accounts in Seasons of the Soul. I could relive those trials, such as where the family almost drowned or a humorous tale of when Andrew’s cat went missing. And, I could reread the God-inspired story, loosely based on my grandfather, in Lockets and Lanterns.

So when disaster strikes like a publishing company going out of business. First panic then take a deep breath and realize the positives. Positives of getting the books printed as you wanted in the beginning and are able to do so with self-publishing them.

Have a great spring and I would love to have your feedback on this issue and as always God bless.

Calling Authors: Anthology Time!

The Legends of Ol’ Man Wickleberry

Ol’ Man Wickleberry, rest his soul, died in the 1920s, attacked by a bear…or was it a zombie? I heard he was rabbit hunting…or was he prospecting? Or maybe he was defending his cabin from wild squirrels? At least we can all agree he died in northern Michigan – or did he? Maybe he was in California and his body was brought back to his family, and so now his ghost walks the beaches of lake Huron. Or maybe he spends his everafter trolling guests at a vacation lodge, or interrupting writers who stay up too late, or…

That’s the trouble with Ol’ Man Wickleberry, there are just too many legends! Heck, we’re not even completely sure when he died! In an effort to find the truth, Book Born, in conjunction with the Ink Slingers League, has decided to gather those legends into a single volume – an anthology if you will – where the proceeds benefit the Book Born 2017 Retreat Fund.

AUTHORS:

1) You do NOT have to be a “published” author to join us! Even if you’ve never published before – whether indy, self, or traditional- you can still submit a story

2) All stories must be between 1,000 words and 10,000 words.

3) All stories must be about Ol’ Man Wickleberry. They can be in his PoV, or anyone else’s – someone he is haunting, his dear old mother, whatever you can think of. They can be about how he met his end, or they can be about his ghostly afterlife (though they should at least mention what led to his grisly demise).

4) Stories can have adult components (such as language or violence) but please no erotica or heavily sexual stories. Ol’ Man Wickleberry doesn’t seem like the type to be gettin’ it on.

5) You MUST have a Smashwords author account. Smashwords’ rules, not mine. You don’t have to sell any books on Smashwords to make this account – it’s free and easy – but you have to have one for us to link to in the metadata.

6) We don’t guarantee any editing, so make sure you’ve done it before you submit. If a story has a lot of typos or errors we will reject it. We will also not update your story later. If you write a “better” version or a new author bio, or anything else. Once it’s published, it’s published, so make sure it’s the way you want it before you submit it.

7) You will NOT be paid. Though the anthology will be for sale, all proceeds will go to the Book Born 2017 Expo & Retreat Fund. This fund helps offset the cost of the first ever Book Born Expo and annual Book Born Retreat, which is currently set for October 2017 (pending finalization). If you’d like more information on either, please join the Book Born Facebook group where more it will be posted.

8) We do NOT require exclusive rights. It’s your story, and if you want to publish it elsewhere, go ahead. However, because there is money involved I will send you a basic contract that just says yes we have the right to use it and no, you know you’re not getting paid. You can get a copy of the contract here – it’s a word document, so please fill your info in and include it with your story. You must sign the contract for the story to be used.

9) All entries are due by January 1st, 2017. This gives us a month to compile the anthology and have it ready for a February 1st release on Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

9) Cover, formatting, etc. will be provided by the Ink Slingers.

10) The only file types accepted will be .doc, .docx, .txt, and .rtf. We will NOT accept .pdfs.

11) Send your short story of no more than 10,000 words to joleene(at)joleenenaylor.com and include:

• the signed contract as a separate attachment
• your smashwords link
• your author name and story title
• a short blurb/synopsis of the story
• your author bio
• your website or blog link (optional)
• a short blurb/synopsis of another work available for download (optional)

If you have any questions, please leave them here or drop me a line at Joleene(at)JoleeneNaylor.com.  Thanks and I’m looking forward to what you come up with.

 

 

Short Stories That Are Too Short

Last semester I took part in a creative-writing class of about seventeen people, including our instructor. This class taught me many things about writing and gave me several new insights into my craft as well as many new tools to write more compelling and interesting stories. It also gave me a few ideas for articles, such as this one:

My classmates and I each had to turn in three short stories during the semester (two original short stories and one edited story). A few times people turned in stories that were really short and just had the barebones of a story. There were numerous reasons for why one or another student would turn in stories like that, with very little meat to it if any. Usually it was something along the lines of having their deadline sneak up on them and rushing to get something written and printed before class (I remember one girl was actually stapling the typo-plagued copies of her story together in the first few minutes of class before she turned it in. She later said that she’d rushed to get the story done, and had spent the first hour or so just wondering what the first few words should be. We all laughed at that, mostly because we’d all been there at one point or another).

However while other students were pressed for time, one or two said they were afraid that if they wrote anything longer it would be too long! When we heard this, we often told the student that their fear of making the story too long had actually made it far too short.

I’ve always defined a short story as between a thousand and ten-thousand words. This leaves a lot of room to work with, even for authors such as myself who are better suited to more expansive works like novels. Yet a lot of authors fear that getting close to twenty-five hundred words is going too far, getting too long, crossing into a territory reserved only for longer projects. Why?

I think it might have something to do with magazines and getting published in them. Many magazines, especially ones that pay, have a maximum word-limit, usually around five-thousand words or so. This creates pressure on the author who wants to be published. They want a wonderful and engaging story but at the same time they’re hampered by the feeling that they can’t go over a certain word limit or they won’t get published in this or that magazine. Even self-published authors aren’t immune to this: many indie authors write stories and send them out to magazines, often to get people to read their work, along with maybe a desire for income and maybe a small wish to show the critics of self-publishing that we can get published in the same magazines as traditional published authors and still have quality work.

The thing is, a story is going to be the length it needs to be. You can’t help it. Twice I’ve thought up and even written short stories that turned out that they needed to novels. And even when a short story manages to stay a short story, I find that a story that needs to expand to four or five thousand words or more is going to expand that length. As much as you try, you won’t get it down to twenty-five hundred without sacrificing quality. At least, not very easily.

I usually end up writing short stories between four and five thousand words. In fact, I try to make sure they stay that length. I’ve tried for shorter but that usually doesn’t happen, and longer stories do sometimes happen, though they often get shorter when I start to edit. The thing is, these stories are going to be as long as they need to be and sometimes you have to accept that. If you want to write a story that’s shorter than what you usually write, do it more as an exercise, as a way to get better at saying something in less words than normal. Don’t feel like you have to make a story shorter, but just try and see if you can. And if you can’t, don’t feel disappointed about it. Just meant that story wasn’t meant to be that short.

And if you’re worried about getting published, there are plenty of magazines, anthologies, contests, and podcasts that accept longer short stories and even short novelettes. Just do your research, you’ll find them. Or don’t go looking for them at all, but try and put together a collection of short stories. You have full creative control then and can make your stories whatever length you desire.

Or perhaps short stories aren’t your thing. They’re certainly not my area of expertise, though that hasn’t stopped me from trying. Either way, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of authors don’t do short stories and they’re excellent. Just stick to your area of strength and see what amazing stuff you can do there.

But if you do endeavor to create amazing short stories, just remember not to let the length of your story become an inhibition and a drag rather than a tool for successful writing. As I and my classmates have learned, length is important, but it’s by far not the most important thing to keep in mind. That would be the story itself.

 

On an unrelated note, thanks to Ruth Ann Nordin for the new background on this site. I was kind of attached to the old one, but I like what’s here now. It’s warm and welcoming, if you ask me.

Following Up on Submissions

The last time I posted an article, I wrote about submitting a short story to a magazine. And as promised, I’m following it up…with an article on following up on those submissions when a lot of time has passed.

Most magazines promise on their websites that they’ll get back to you on your submission in 2-6 months. What they don’t tell you is that work and submissions tend to pile up, especially when the magazine may be an operation run by only a few or even just one person. And imagine getting several submissions at the very least every month for short stories, articles, art pieces, and just about everything else under the sun. Your submission could be lost underneath all that.

So if you find a magazine has been taking its time getting to your submission, it can be helpful to send them an email and ask politely if your story has been looked at yet. Here’s what I normally put down in an email when I’m following up on a submission:

Dear [Insert magazine name here],

I am writing to follow up on my submission [insert story name here] which I sent in [insert how long ago or date you sent it in] to see if it is still being considered for publication. If you could please get back to me when it is convenient for you, that would be great, and thank you for your time and consideration.

Hoping you are well,

[Insert name, pen name if applicable, and contact information]

It’s also a good idea to attach your short story to the email in case it got lost somewhere among the submissions.

Normally a magazine will get back to you pretty quickly after this sort of email is sent. Even then though, it may take some time for the magazine editors to get back to you on your short story. If that’s the case, it may work in your favor to send an email every month or so inquiring about the status of your short story. That way it’ll stay in the forefront of the editors’ minds.

Also, remember to always be courteous and polite in your emails. They could just send you a form rejection letter right away, so the fact that they are taking the time to actually look at your story, no matter how long that time is, to possibly publish it is worth staying on the magazine’s good side. And when the magazine finally does take a look at your short story, no matter what the result is, be courteous and thank them for the time they took to read the story you sent them. That way, if you send them something in the future, they’ll be inclined to work with you and show you the same kindness and understanding you showed them.

Do you have any tips on following up on submissions?

Submitting Short Stories to Magazines

Have you ever written a short story and tried to get it published in a magazine? Chances are you have. Many authors, both traditional and indie, write short stories and try to get them published in print magazines, on e-mags, or in anthologies. I’ve been published in a couple of magazines and I’m hoping for more in the future (though with my writing schedule these days, it’s hard to make time for short stories). And there are benefits to doing so, including:

• Short stories are a whole different beast to tame than novels, so writing and sending out short stories lets you know what works and what people look for in a good short story. Sometimes magazines will even give you feedback if they decide to reject your story, so you get an idea on how to improve it.
• At the very least, you’ll get some exposure from having your work published in a magazine. At the very most, they’ll pay you some money for a nice dinner out.
• For those critics who accuse indie authors of trying to skirt around hard work and just put any old book out, this is a way of saying “Hey, we can do it your way too.”

If you haven’t ever sent a short story out to magazine, this might give you some help in going about it. If you’ve already done it before, then maybe this’ll be a useful reminder. And like I said, you should try it. You never know what’ll happen if you do.

1. Find a publication. Once you’ve written a short story and edited it to the utmost perfection, it’s time to find a magazine. Publications like Writer’s Digest’s Short Story & Novel Writer’s Market contain may useful listing of magazines in all genres, as well as contests and agencies and conferences. You can also get info from friends or family members who write. Another blogger told me about a magazine she published a short story in, and I think that I might have a short story I could submit to them, I just have to make sure it’s ready before I send it out.

Also, it’s helpful sometimes to read the short stories they publish. This generally gives you some idea of what they tend to publish, so you’ll have a better idea of what might be accepted.

2. Read over the rules. Every magazine has its own set of rules about submitting to them and the terms you’ll get should you be accepted. They may want the short story sent in a particular attachment, or they may prefer the story in the body of the message. There may be restrictions on length, subject matter, or a hundred other things. And being published by them might mean signing over all rights to the story to the magazine, or only first North American publishing rights. So know what you’re getting into when you decide, “I’ll send it to this publication.”

3. Write that query letter. A query letter is a letter stating who you are, what you’re sending, and why you’re sending it. Once you’ve done your research, write up a query letter and send it along to the magazine with your short story. Here’s an example of me sending a query letter to a fictional magazine:

Dear Darkness Abounds magazine,

I am submitting my manuscript “Hands” (5,732 words) to your publication for your consideration. I decided to submit to your magazine because your website said you were into “dark, creepy fiction with an interesting twist on old stories” and I thought my short story matched your description.

I am a self-published novelist with two novels and a collection of short stories published, as well as short stories published in Mobius Magazine, The Writing Disorder, and the Winter 2011 issue of TEA, A Magazine (now The Daily Tea). I also write for two blogs, Rami Ungar the Writer and Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. I am also a senior at The Ohio State University double majoring in English and History and expected to graduate in May 2015.

I look forward to hearing from you and would like to thank you for your time and consideration.

Hoping you are well,

Rami Ungar
[contact information, including address, phone number, and e-mail address]

Make sure to include the word count of your story (that’s an important factor in many publications), why you’re selecting the magazine, and any relevant publications. Also, don’t make your biography too long. Just keep the relevant stuff and don’t give them your life story. You can save that for your memoirs.

4. Wait. Every magazine has its own quoted turn-around time, so you might as well be patient. However, it’s not uncommon for a magazine to let work pile up and miss your short story entirely, so if you find two or three weeks have gone by and you haven’t heard anything, it might be helpful to send an email asking politely if you are still being considered for publication (I’ll write a post about that another time).

5. How to handle the reply. Assuming the magazine didn’t lose your work in the pile of submissions they get and you get a reply, the important thing is to be grateful one way or another for their reply. If you’re accepted, that’s wonderful. Talk terms with them and then decide if you want them to publish you. If you get rejected, possibly look at getting published somewhere else, and take into account any feedback you might receive on your short story as a possible way to improve the story.

What tips do you have for submitting to magazines your short stories?

Some Tips For WattPad Users

I’ve been using WattPad for the past couple of weeks, and I thought that an article about it would be fun to write. Also, I found out this blog doesn’t have an article on WattPad yet, so I thought I’d break the ground and do a piece on it.

Throughout this article, I will try to give some sound advice on using WattPad and possibly getting some success through it. If any WattPad users have any additional tips they would like to…well, add in, please let us know. I’ll do a follow-up article with your words of wisdom.

So, first things first: What is WattPad? WattPad is a website where writers can upload and share stories with the public. It’s been in operation since 2006 and it’s been nicknamed the YouTube of storytelling. Writers can upload stories, gain feedback, create covers, and enter contests with their short stories or novels.

What sort of work is published on WattPad? Just about anything is published on WattPad. Novels, novellas, short stories, poems, non-fiction pieces, of all types and genres. Science fiction, fantasy, and YA stories tend to be the most popular, with horror and romance in a close second. There’s also a sizable amount of erotic fiction on the site, though I haven’t personally browsed that in any great detail. And technically erotica isn’t allowed on the website, but I won’t tell if you won’t.

Is it possible to get success through WattPad? Depends on what you mean by success. It is possible to spread your work to other writers and readers, maybe get feedback, and learn something from other writers by both reading and being read. And it is also possible to get the success that every author only dreams about (there’s an example of that in a recent issue of TIME magazine), but like anything in fiction, that is very hard to achieve and what can cause it is very difficult to predict.

How do you spread your work through WattPad? Tags and categorizing your work is very important, because it allows people with similar interests to search out and find your stories (and on that note, make sure to also rate your short stories appropriately. At the very least, an R-rating might deter some nine-year-old from reading a wildly inappropriate story). Also, networking with other authors, commenting on their stories, and even recommending works to authors you make friends with can be very helpful.

What are some ways to keep your readers interested in your work? Besides having interesting work, there are a couple of ways. One is to post frequently new stories or updates. Another is to post a novel on the site, but to do it in serial form. Posting new chapters on a regular basis keeps our readership up and it keeps them wanting to know more (especially if you end every chapter on a cliffhanger).

Should one copyright their work before posting? Well, that depends. Copyrights cost money and take time to process, so if you don’t mind waiting and shelling out money for the fees, then by all means get copyrights. At the very least, you should get copyrights for novels or for works you plan to sell in the future, and do it before you post it on WattPad.

I should also mention that WattPad allows users to post whether a story is copyrighted or not, so take advantage of that when you post a story. It could be seriously helpful.

If you publish a story on WattPad, can you put it on your resume as a publication? Again, that depends. This is a website where anyone can upload a story, so whether or not you want to include uploading stories onto an author’s YouTube on your resume is up to you. Some authors are comfortable, some aren’t. I know a few of both. If you are comfortable with it though, then only do it for stories that you’ve never published before in any way, shape, or form. And if you’re shopping for a publisher, definitely don’t do it!

What are these contests through WattPad you mentioned earlier? Wattpad holds a number of contests throughout the year. Most are small, but there are some big ones, including the Wattys, which are held once a year, and the Attys, which are for poetry and were started by author Margaret Atwood (yeah, she’s on the site. How cool is that?). The contests are open to all users with a WattPad account and who follow the rules of those contests.

If you are a regular WattPad user and have any other tips you’d like to mention, then please let us know. If I get enough tips, I’ll do a follow-up article on the subject with your tips in it.

Short Stories – Guest Post by Terry Compton

Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.

Mickey Spillane

I need to do my disclaimer first.  I’m not a huge selling author with lots of books on the market.  I’ve never been traditionally published.  I’m just a newbie that self-published my first ebook in November 2010.  I don’t want anyone to think that I’m like Joe, a friend of mine that was giving out lots of free advice when I first started racing stock cars.  Joe did have a few trophies from trophy dashes and thought he knew everything.  He insisted you needed more motor or bigger motor and lots of horsepower.  On the other hand I found John.  He didn’t say too much but the car he was helping with was always in front or close to the front during the main.  He said, “Get your set up right first and then try to find the horsepower as you have the money.”  I went over to John’s shop one day for something and I was amazed at the number of trophies he had.  They covered shelves he had in a small office and extended out on a shelf near the ceiling that lined two walls of his shop.  These trophies weren’t just from trophy dashes but most of them were from the mains.  That’s what you strive for.  Winning the trophy dash is nice, but the main is where you make your money.  I figured out right quick who I needed to listen to.

I have been emailing Joleene Naylor about a cover for my new upcoming novel and a collection of short stories.  When I told her that I had one short story “The Sunset of Big Oil” on Smashwords that had over 2000 page views in two days and sold one copy with a review in less than two hours, she suggested I needed to tell about it.  One of my other short stories “The Leprechaun’s Gift” sold two copies in two days.  I don’t consider that a big success but it is getting things started.  How did I get started writing short stories?  Well, I’m glad you asked.

I’ve been reading several blogs and forums about how to write, what to write and how to publicize.  One is Self Published Author’s Lounge, another is JA Konrath’s blog and two that really caught my eye are Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith.  Dean and Kristine both have been saying not to worry about doing a lot of promoting.  They say the best promotion is to have more books.  I looked on Smashwords for Dean Wesley Smith and saw that he had 69 short stories, collections or novels there under just his name.  He writes under several pen names, too.  Kristine is his wife and I think I saw one time that they have over 700 books and short stories between them.  They have won several awards over the years so I figured they might be like John and worth listening to.  Dean says write more short stories, publish them and then put them into collections of five or ten.  I decided to try it and currently have six published short stories and another that will come out the third week in August.

When I saw “The Sunset of Big Oil” generate over 2000 hits in two days and a sale with a good review in less than two hours on Smashwords, I was thinking move over Amanda Hocking here I come.  Then the next day however, the graph tracked across the bottom of the chart.  I’m still getting a few hits per day but when the top is set to 1250 and you only get 4 or 5 hits a day, they don’t even make a bump.  However, one thing I did see was that I was getting more page views on all my books on Smashwords and more free sample downloads.  So far, the sales haven’t followed but sales on Kindle have picked up.  Does one drive the other?  I don’t know.  Why did the one short story get so many page views?  If someone has an idea, I’d like to hear it because I’d like to see if I could duplicate it on future short stories and novels.  I suspect that a lot of the interest was because gas prices are so high and people were looking for a legal way to stick it to the Big Oil companies or hoped that I had.

I have received three major benefits from doing the short stories:

1. I have more books out there for someone to find.  The more that are there, the  better your chances of being seen.  Dean Wesley Smith talks a lot about this and even has figures to back it up.
2.  Writing the short stories gives me a chance to practice the craft of writing.  I can    switch genres to try some different things.  I can try different techniques.  I can  polish my writing without taking months to complete a project.  I have also been doing some of my own covers.  They don’t measure up to Joleene’s yet but maybe one of these days after I get all the right tools I need. (grin)  I don’t like to read short stories because most of the time, it seems like they leave you hanging in the middle of the story.  I have been having fun writing these stories though and I have worked to get them to come to a conclusion.  I know this will help later in my novels.  I want to keep learning and improving.  Doing the short stories in different genres also gives different search words when someone is looking for a particular thing.
3. One thing I do with the short stories is to work up stories from things I’ve heard    on the news or from what people are talking about.  The Sunset of Big Oil came from a news story about the super tankers that were lined up in some harbor.  The crude oil tanks were full and they couldn’t off load.  What if that became   permanent?  What if???  Dean Wesley Smith talks about writing from a list of    book titles.  He has two different lists and takes part of a title from one and the rest from the other.  So far, I need to have an idea first but maybe with a lot more practice, his way will work for me as well.

One other thing I’ve learned is how global Smashwords and Kindle truly are.  My review for “The Sunset of Big Oil” was from Australia.  You hear about people from all over the globe buying ebooks but until one buys from you, sometimes it doesn’t really sink in.

Are short stories the answer for everyone?  I can’t answer that.  I don’t have enough data.  I know its working for me and I’m going to continue to write short stories as well as the novels.  Are my results spectacular?  Not for everyone but they did look impressive for me for two days.  Ask me in a year or five how they have worked, because I think this is going to take some time to build and polish.  Like the quote at the top of the article says, I just want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.  I doubt that I will ever have any of my novels become required reading in high school but I do hope that one day if I continue to improve, they will become “Hey, man, you’ve got to read this.”

Terry Compton

http://www.terrysbooks.com