Selling Short Stories

Anyone got any experience of selling short stories to magazines/web sites? Any idea of what word count is preferred or what to charge?

You fucking inept monkey

http://www.theshortstory.org.uk/magazines/advice.php4

No idea, good luck.

You fucking inept monkey

http://www.theshortstory.org.uk/magazines/advice.php4

Cunt.
I've googled lots of stuff on the subject, but I've found that first hand experience goes a long way. There's lots of insider tips that you never find in books or web sites - that's what I'm fishing for here.

Ta for the link anyway.

You fucking inept monkey

at least he'll have a job next week :)

I'll take one. dibs

I have a writers handbook - its out of date now but you check it out in the library/waterstones that lists places who publish and has tips on content. there's a new one out each year.

Will you split?

Will you split?

Only for massive cocks

i think you get f*** all from most article/story websites and they have a load of w*** rules like structure and key word density so they can show up in searches. Maybe better off to find a journal that publishes stories and keep plugging away a la bukowski.

Anyone got any experience of selling short stories to magazines/web sites? Any idea of what word count is preferred or what to charge?

In my experience you should initially aim simply at getting your stories published, rather than trying to make money off them. I doubt you'll find yourself in the luxurious position of wondering what to charge for them. It's not like negotiating an advance on a book deal, and most magazines that publish fiction do not have budgets for paying authors. The most I've receive for a story of my own is 500 pounds, more often payment is just seeing your words layed out nicely. There are some very lucrative prizes, most can be found in James' link above, but entry for these can be expensive. The same listings will guide you on length. 2,000 word stories or short are much more likely to be placed than anything much longer than that.

Check out magazines and journals which do not charge for submitting stories and in return give you a dozen or so copies of the finished book/magazine. This way you get the satisfaction of seeing your stuff in print but more importantly your story has been published.

The above is important because if you want to put together an anthology of your stories it becomes a much more impressive collection for a prospective publisher if each individual story has already been published, won a prize, whatever.

I'd be wary of giving away your material to online 'magazines'. No print publication will take a story if it has already been aired elsewhere, even if only electronically.

When you agree any terms with a publisher make sure you retain copyright of the story. Specifically you should stipulate that the publisher only has rights to print your story in this particular publication, and also insist on the following phrase being in any agreement. 'All rights not specifically mentioned in this Agreement are retained by the author.'

You want to make sure that if you hit the big time, publish a collection, or write the theatre version that you own the rights to do so. There are some real crooks out there, even in the seemingly mild-mannered world of publishing.

That'll be 15% of all future earning please.

tomasito beat me there. The only thing that I would suggest, particularly if you are aiming to get airings of the Reprographics work, is to out it out in free mags. For instance, Sheffield has a free ma called Now Then. I'll be approaching them if my endeavours with graphic novel work reach something approaching satisfactory and I can complete a whole story arc. A free mag may be interested in serialising your stories to another audience, particularly if they can print it a bit before you put it on the blog.

Alternatively you can go down the self publication route. A friend of mine once did this to the tune of about £2.50 a book of her short stories and hawked them around indie bookshops for sale or return. She priced them off at £4.50 each and ended up having a couple of editors call her about inclusion in some compilations. Admittedly one did insinuate that her's was marginally better fller material than some other stuff that was going down the bog roll route.

I have been selling yours for the last two months. Making a killing.

I have been selling yours for the last two months. Making a killing.

Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Cheers for all the advice folks.

I'm writing a lot of other stuff, not just the Reprographics stuff. As Tomasito says, it's more about getting published in some form or another - saying that, a few quid in the holiday fund wouldn't go amiss.

An only marginally relevant link for you: common misconceptions about publishing

Reading it now - interesting stuff.
Thanks, Moth. Every bit of info helps.

Yep, thanks for that link - looks good.