BANNER ADS FOR INDEPENDENT AUTHORS ARE "Set Your Own Price".
ALL OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES, please contact click.for.email for information.

SIGN-UP FOR OUR FREE WEEKLY DIGEST
NAME:   EMAIL: 


Now that I’ve talked about the “sad news” with The Short Story Project (Part 1), let’s look at the problems, or “bad news,” before looking at the good news and beginning to explore possible solutions.

THE BIGGEST, BADDEST NEWS IS…

People want free content.  They want whatever they can get for nothing.  It’s human nature.  But people will pay for content and products that they feel have value to them.  

Providing content for free means that advertising dollars, ancillary product sales, and donations have to fill the gap.  Creating a product that people will pay for requires getting the market’s attention, though, and that, of course, costs time, money, and energy/effort.

Bottom line: In order to generate income for the creators and producers of a product or content, money has to come in the door somehow, someway.  Of course, there’s the reality of consumer economics — how many people make enough money to have the discretionary income to support paying for content and products. The smaller that demographic, the smaller and smaller becomes the potential market pool.

PROBLEMS PUBLISHING A SHORT STORY MAGAZINE OR EZINE

So getting operating capital (money) is the number one problem and contributes to every other problem facing the short story publisher.

Vetting short story submissions takes skill, knowledge, and time. That means that someone who has a solid grasp of what makes a short story good (called an editor) has to read and approve or reject each author’s short story submission.  Editors have to eat and pay their bills, so they can’t spend time doing something that offers no return.

Getting and retaining income is the biggest problem. A magazine can’t pay for editors and office staff, publication, copyrighting costs, and overhead, never mind paying authors, if they don’t have some sort of income. Advertising is tough to get without an established subscriber base, so the project runs in a deficit until a subscriber base can be established. To get that subscriber base, requires advertising and soliciting, all of which costs more out-of-pocket money.  Again, it comes down to paying staff and contributors enough to let them pay their bills and put food on the table.

There.  That’s the tip of the iceberg.  And it boils down to one thing: money.  The question, then, becomes, can short stories generate enough money to support their creators and producers.  Let’s look at some of the solutions available to authors

AMAZON’S KINDLE — A POSSIBLE SOLUTION THAT HOLDS A HUGE PITFALL

Amazon’s Kindle and similar e-formats offer one alternative — let the buyers pick and choose the winners and losers.  The problem with this is that good literature goes wanting and only authors and content with friends or an established fan-base win. Popularity has never been a guarantee of quality, though.  In fact, quality products usually aren’t those which prove most popular in the marketplace.  (Porn is an excellent example of this fact.  It’s very popular and reaps a high financial reward for its purveyors because a lot, and I mean a LOT as in billions, of people are willing to pay for it.)

AUTHOR COOPERATIVES AND ANTHOLOGIES

Author cooperative ventures which produce magazines, books, and anthologies, have all the problems associated with magazine publishing and book publishing…and more, usually because the project lacks of a good, reputable editor.  Advertising the resulting publication — getting the word out — is an huge obstacle unless at least one author has an established audience or somebody has very deep pockets to pay the tens of thousands to millions of dollars needed to grab national and international audiences in the quantities necessary to make a profit.

SO THE GOOD NEWS IS…

There is still a market for short stories.  There are still ways to succeed as an author of short stories.  I’ll be looking at some of the good news in my next installment of The Short Story Project.

3 Responses to “The Short Story Project, Part 2”

  1. SKCovey says:

    In The Arms of a Sociopath

    In one of the chapters I tell you exactly just how
    Mr. Charm is in reality. I love this and so I will
    share this part of Chp.VI, Which Hat To Wear Today.

    He was so full of BS, all his story were told over and over however, he would forget, and as he would
    retold them, he changed parts so they were never the
    same. This is one of my all time favorites; as the
    story goes, he accidentally hit x wife #3 and she took out a restraining order again him. He was arrested and all. Not happy about being treated as
    a criminal, he explained his side to be she tried to
    hit him and he was just defending himself. As his
    court date approached, he came to blows with his
    attorney so he fired him and represented himself.
    He can do anything the attorney could do and had not
    been doing, and of course better. So he, dressed up
    as counsel enters the courtroom and places his legal
    notebook on the table. His case begins and the judge
    said, Mr. Charms, I find you Guilty. You will atten anger management classes and be on probation for one year. You will report to probation department every
    two weeks. He was so mad, steam was coming out of his
    ears. His pleadings were perfect, how could it be.
    He should have a law degree! In fact he may just go
    home and make him one. Well, he didn’t make a law degree, but he did go home and did the research regarding the anger management classes and found out
    it only resulted in a certificate so why bother? He just made him one and sent it into the court. No one
    would ever know, and you know as he says, “they will
    never know the difference” they didn’t. The court never questioned it. The predator is above the law.
    In fact, today, even with a domestic violence change
    Guilty on his record, he has a concealed weapons
    permit and carries a gun. No one cares!
    As society are we to busy in our own problems to become involved in others or it is laziness, or
    do we just simply as a society don’t give a damn?
    True life example of a Sociopath!!!

  2. SKCovey says:

    On the Short Story Project. I understand it takes
    money to make these pages come alive. In your message
    does it mean your not going to use short stories as
    part of your material. What a shame, some of the
    greatest stories come in short form. I’m not a big
    novel person, must be the length. Perhaps those who
    write short stories would be willing to make a
    larger donation or yearly fee to be included in such
    a great website. I have two other stories coming
    out, to bad they will not be included with such
    talented writers. I’m sad.
    Sandie

  3. DLKeur says:

    If you read all four of the articles, you’ll see that, yes, we are. Go over to: THUNK! where the articles are easiest to find.