I’ve got two projects that I may decide to take to e-publishing within the next few months to a year.
The first is BLOOD WILL TELL and its sequels. In order to do this right, though, I need to have the sequels written, critiqued, revised and polished. Therefore, this likely won’t happen for at least a year. In the meantime, I will start querying BWT again. Might as well.
The other would be a collection of short stories. I have three right now that are nearing the last of the markets I would be willing to sell them to. It’s not that they’re not good enough. Some of them have come close. Most of them have been vastly improved from their original versions, too. That’s a problem because most publications don’t want to see revised stories unless they request the revision. So, a story I sent out to one market and then later revised and improved, can’t go back to that market again. Two of those stories are actually novelettes (in the 10,000-word range), so there aren’t that many markets available for them in the first place.
At least not markets I’m interested in. There are a couple of places I could send them that just don’t pay much. In fact, they pay so little that I’m willing to take my chances on doing it myself. So those short stories are very likely to end up in an e-published collection by the end of the year or so.
It used to be, not so very long ago (perhaps as recently as this time last year) that there was a real stigma against self-publishing, including e-publishing. That’s been changing rapidly and it’s no so true anymore.
What is still a concern is that I’ll have to come up with (or pay to have someone better at it than me come up with) cover art. That’s doable.
And the real issue is marketing. Not in the traditional sense, of course. But I will have to find some way to make my stories stand out so interested people can even find them among the literally thousands of e-published story collections and novels out there now.
That’s going to require some thought.
There are some options for paid marketing if your budget can stretch to it. Authoright PR and Pump up your book are worth consideration. Good luck!
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Thanks for the tips. I very seriously doubt the budget will stretch that far. Cover art will be pushing it.
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If you take your time searching you will be able to find some ‘cheaper’ options. it all depends on what you want. the average cost is £400, but then you could also use newbies who are looking to build a portfolio and will complete the design for a fraction of that cost. If you need any help i can point you in the right direction.
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