Kate, as someone who is working on a story collection, this is great advice and I really appreciate your post. I am wondering, though: if the answer to the follow-up question about "do you have a novel?" is "no, I am just focusing on stories," how would that land with an agent/editor? There are a handful of dedicated story writers out there, or at least folks who launched their career on stories (George Saunders, Danielle Evans), but is this slice of precedent too small to count on? Your thoughts would be appreciated. Many thanks.
Thanks for sharing this, Kate. I just finished my first story collection, and I'm working on a second collection. My native language is Spanish, and I'm wondering if the market is more or less the same. By the way, would you let me know what font did you use in this article? Happy 2024!
Beginning around 2004 when I was just getting into this writing thing, I wrote about ten short stories in different genres and filed them away. Then in 2012 I decided that I needed to get some kind of exposure and self-published a small collection on Smashwords. It's still on there. Question: is it possible to present any of them to magazines or journals, etc. to be published? I never promoted that collection to speak of, and have made about a dozen sales at $2.00 or less.
It's a bit of a pity there are not more children's short story collections. Patricia Scarry and Cindy Szekeres' Big Bedtime Story Book was one of the most useful books on our shelf. When I see it in the wild, I always pick it up for gifting.
Kate, as someone who is working on a story collection, this is great advice and I really appreciate your post. I am wondering, though: if the answer to the follow-up question about "do you have a novel?" is "no, I am just focusing on stories," how would that land with an agent/editor? There are a handful of dedicated story writers out there, or at least folks who launched their career on stories (George Saunders, Danielle Evans), but is this slice of precedent too small to count on? Your thoughts would be appreciated. Many thanks.
You can do this! It will be hard, but it's not impossible. You won't get automatically rejected if you say you have no plans on writing a novel ever.
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing this, Kate. I just finished my first story collection, and I'm working on a second collection. My native language is Spanish, and I'm wondering if the market is more or less the same. By the way, would you let me know what font did you use in this article? Happy 2024!
Beginning around 2004 when I was just getting into this writing thing, I wrote about ten short stories in different genres and filed them away. Then in 2012 I decided that I needed to get some kind of exposure and self-published a small collection on Smashwords. It's still on there. Question: is it possible to present any of them to magazines or journals, etc. to be published? I never promoted that collection to speak of, and have made about a dozen sales at $2.00 or less.
SOME litmags and journals are willing to publish reprints but most want first publication rights.
It's a bit of a pity there are not more children's short story collections. Patricia Scarry and Cindy Szekeres' Big Bedtime Story Book was one of the most useful books on our shelf. When I see it in the wild, I always pick it up for gifting.
Hi Kate! Any plans to write about cookbooks here?
I've only done a few in my time so I'm not the foremost authority, but I'll add it to the list!
Thank you, can't wait!!