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    Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction
    Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction
    Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction
    Ebook173 pages1 hour

    Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction

    By Matty Dalrymple and Mark Leslie Lefebvre

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    About this ebook

    Are you a short fiction writer wondering what opportunities are open to you?

    Are you a long-form fiction writer wondering if short fiction is worth the investment of your time?

    Short fiction is enjoying a resurgence and provides both independently and traditionally published authors opportunities for creating income and connecting with readers.

    Matty Dalrymple and Mark Leslie Lefebvre will show you where those opportunities lie and how to take advantage of them.

    CREATING INCOME

    Traditional Publishing Market
    Anthologies & Collections
    Mechanics of Indy Anthologies
    Standalone e-books
    e-book Collections
    Serials
    Foreign Language
    Markets
    Audio
    Patron Support
    Getting Unstuck

    CONNECTING WITH READERS

    Offering Your Story for Free
    Reader Funnel
    Reader Magnet
    Video
    Author Readings
    Market Research
    Flash Fiction and Micro-Fiction
    Chapbooks
    Bonus Material
    Custom Story
    Location-based Apps
    When the Reader Is an Agent

    BEST PRACTICES

    Editing and Proofreading
    Cover Design
    Links and QR Codes
    Being an Active Member of the Community
    Create Once, Publish Everywhere

    Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels and Suspense Shorts and the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers. She writes, speaks, consults, and podcasts on independent publishing as The Indy Author™. Mark Leslie Lefebvre (as Mark Leslie) has authored numerous horror short stories and edited horror anthologies. He writes, speaks, consults, and podcasts on topics related to writing, publishing, and bookselling. He was the founder of Kobo Writing Life and is the Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Kingsfield Publishers
    Release dateFeb 4, 2020
    ISBN9781393422327
    Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction
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      Book preview

      Taking the Short Tack - Matty Dalrymple

      PART 1

      STARTING THE VOYAGE

      INTRODUCTION

      Who Are We?

      In 2015, Matty Dalrymple published the second Ann Kinnear Suspense Novel, The Sense of Reckoning—the follow-on to The Sense of Death—and planned to plunge into Book 3.

      “The Sense of Death” by Matty Dalrymple“The Sense of Reckoning” by Matty Dalrymple

      But another idea was clamoring for attention, and this idea became the first Lizzy Ballard Thriller, Rock Paper Scissors. Ann Kinnear fans wanted to know when Ann would be back, and Matty assured them that as soon as Rock Paper Scissors was launched, she’d return to Ann’s adventures.

      Rock Paper Scissors launched in 2017, to be followed by Lizzy Ballard Book 2: Snakes and Ladders in 2018 and Book 3: The Iron Ring in 2019.

      “Rock Paper Scissors” by Matty Dalrymple“Snakes & Ladders” by Matty Dalrymple“The Iron Ring” by Matty Dalrymple

      The Ann Kinnear fans were not amused.

      So, while working on the Lizzy Ballard books, Matty began writing Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts to tide over the Ann fans.

      “All Deaths Endure” by Matty Dalrymple“Close These Eyes” by Matty Dalrymple“May Violets Spring” by Matty Dalrymple“Our Dancing Days” by Matty Dalrymple“Sea of Troubles” by Matty Dalrymple“Write in Water” by Matty Dalrymple

      As the stories began to collect, she had an idea for an ultimate goal: to assemble twelve stories, one set in each month of the year, to be published as a collection subtitled A Year of Kinnear.

      But until those dozen stories were complete, what could be done with the individual stories as they were finished?

      Retaining one as a reader magnet—a giveaway for subscribers to her e-mail newsletter—Matty published each on the major online retailers as a $0.99 (US) e-book. She also contributed one to an anthology published to raise money for a local library. But she believed there must be more that she could do with this work … and she knew just the person to ask.

      Matty followed Mark Leslie Lefebvre’s Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing podcast, and she sent Mark a request to devote an episode to sharing his knowledge on this topic.

      Mark's own writing journey began with short fiction. His first short story appeared in print in 1992, the same year he started working in the book industry. At the time, the common wisdom for writers was to build their chops selling short fiction to establish a name and a track record that would encourage an agent or editor to take them on for a full-length book. After a decade of selling stories to various markets, and with digital publishing beginning to offer new opportunities for writers, Mark collected several of his previously published short fiction pieces and poetry into One Hand Screaming, a collection that he independently published in 2004.

      “One Hand Screaming” by Mark Leslie

      Since then he has published novels and non-fiction books and has edited short fiction anthologies. But he has never lost his passion for short stories and continues to release them in a multitude of ways.

      The information Mark shared in his podcast about the opportunities for creating income and connecting with readers using short fiction led to an in-depth discussion between Matty and Mark that was too valuable to keep to ourselves. We agreed that an expanded version would be a great resource to other authors, both novelists and short story scribes, traditionally published or independently published.

      What is Short Fiction?

      This book will follow the guidelines of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America to define short fiction:

      Short story = up to 7,500 words

      Novelette = 7,500-17,500 words

      Novella = 17,500-40,000 words

      (SFWA considers anything over 40,000 words to be a novel.) This book will consider anything under 40,000 words to be short fiction.

      Why Short Tack?

      Anyone who has attended one of Matty’s talks or read one of her articles on writing and independent publishing knows of her fondness for the nautical metaphor. It captures the idea that writing is a craft in both senses of the word, one that can be honed in a craftsman-like way, not one that requires the fickle muse to strike. The publishing experience is certainly a voyage, a trip that requires the person at the helm to adjust continuously for conditions, battening down for bad weather and capitalizing on the perfectly angled wind when it comes. And we as authors owe it to our readers to send them off on their journey in a well-built, seaworthy vessel.

      The nautical metaphor continues to work for the topic of this book: how to make the most of our short fiction.

      Wikipedia defines short tack as to tack several times in rapid succession when sailing upwind in a narrow waterway. We’ll see in this book how the rapid release of short fiction can help you make the most of opportunities posed by the always-changing winds of the marketplace.

      A national champion sailing instructor says, From a racing perspective it is generally faster to make several short tacks over a distance of a racecourse. Here is why: while moving up the race course a sailor has the opportunity to read and react to shifts. There are ALWAYS wind shifts, no matter how small. Replace wind with market in that last sentence, and you’ll get a preview of how authors can use short fiction to test the waters of new opportunities—several short tacks—rather than with one larger work.

      The website Skipper Tips advises, If your engine dies one day—and you can bet it will—the ability to ‘short-tack’ could be vital to know. We’ll discuss how you can use short fiction to get unstuck in a longer work.

      And Sailing World recommends the short tack when you’re sailing toward more wind, getting a better lane, or sailing towards a significant gain, such as favorable current. We will definitely be exploring how you can take advantage of today’s favorable currents for short fiction.

      So what is that current?

      Read on.

      Why Short Fiction … and Why Now?

      Through the first half of the twentieth century, there was a significant market for short fiction—Colliers, Scribner’s, Cosmopolitan—and significant names writing for it—Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Asimov, Chandler. Kristine Kathryn Rusch estimates that there were 12,000 slots available per year in the traditional short fiction publishing market. However, by the end of the 1950s, this market had collapsed, and the remaining short fiction players were largely focused on genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and, to a lesser extent, romance).

      There followed a period where short fiction authors had only a small, genre-limited, and highly competitive market to which to pitch their works.

      Then the digital revolution arrived, and two changes led to a surge of new opportunities.

      One was the lower cost to short fiction publishers to

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