Someone recently enlightened me about the site. It says you can self publish any story there and make your own cover art as well and others will be able to read and acknowledge your work. It sounds very good to the point that I feel there must be a catch. Is that a good source? Will that be considered a success? If not, where are other places I can publish my stories? I've been doing a lot of sitting around and it's time I start working towards this dream of mine.
If it's a popular site then it'll be a good way to establish your name, but judging from the title, I'm guessing you won't make any cash from it.
Have you tried Smashwords? No harm in putting yourself out there. Just make sure you've gone over your story and had other people look at it. I've seen a lot of stories on Smashwords - freebies - that needed, not a good editor, just a plain editor. You won't rack up any fans if the work is sloppy.
100% in agreement with peach -- let other's look at it before you make it public. I don't worry about my short stories -- many publishers will only work with you on a short story project ONLY after you're a proven author. Where on the site did you find the details? (can self publish any story there and make your own cover art) I didn't see a submission or publish link... This is what I see when I read the FAQ: I'm an Author, how can I make my book available on eBooks.com? eBooks.com does not deal with individual Authors however, we would be happy for your Publisher to contact us on your behalf. For more information, check our Author's page.
Someone from this forum told me about it. And if you go to the main page it gives you options and one says publish.
I created an account and as far as I can tell, ebooks will only work with publishers. If you find the options link for publish, let me know. Thanks.
Hmmm.. Very strange. Took me to this url: https://www.free-ebooks.net/ then when I selected publish, took me to this url: http://www.foboko.com/ Not a big fan of sites that url jump...
At the risk of starting a self-publishing debate, I want to point out that if you publish your stories in this way, they will be far, far less marketable if you decided you'd like to sell them to someone, like a magazine. And they won't count as a publishing credit.
How else will I get my stories recognized then? I'm seeking anything that'll get them read and noticed.
A question is, what kind of traffic does ebooks dot com get? Up until this post, I'd never heard of it. But there are free stories on Smashwords (as has been mentioned) and Amazon. They get traffic, which means potential eyes on your work. You can even possibly earn some small amount of money if you set a price of 99 cents instead of free, but that's up to you, if you desire to self-publish. And remember, just because it's published doesn't mean people will read it. Another option would be to submit the short story to magazines, ezines and anthologies seeking the type of stories you write. It's not a guarantee and, depending on the market, may not pay well. There are even some ezines that don't pay but do publish works. Again, that would be a question of how many potential readers do they reach. It really depends on your goal, not only short term for this story, but possibly long term with it, as well as the future you hope to strive for as a writer/author.
All of that information sounds great but the problem is I don't know how to go about submitting to magazines and agents. I live in Arizona so I don't know too many agents that live here. If so, how do I find them? Do I google "agents in phoenix"?
To the best of my knowledge, geography doesn't matter for agents, and it matters even less for magazines. I like the blog Author! Author!: http://www.annemini.com But I'm not published, so I have no personal knowledge as to whether her advice is right. I can say that it seems to be consistent with the advice of the most trustworthy-sounding of other sources I've read.
If you're looking to submit only short stories, you don't need an agent. Actually agents don't represent short stories, even to the best-paying magazines. Okay, you may find examples but the only very few I've come across are well-established authors, and that was only via reading an article about agents. Why not? There is no money in it for agents. Agents generally earn about 15% of an authors take. They develop relationships and knowledge about editors and major publishers, to find the right fit for the novels they represent. They then negotiate the contract. Those are the main duties, but agents do more than those two things. See, with many publishers, unsolicited manuscripts (slush) are not accepted. That is a whole 'nother' topic. With stories, you find magazines that appear to be a good fit (genre/content), read their guidelines (format, and how to upload) for example, and submit your story to them. The read part of it (or all of it if they like it) and will accept it or reject it. There is a lot of competition, so rejection is common, even for good stories. You have to persevere and not give up. Some of my stories took 8 or 9 tries to find a market. Some people tried many more times, and sometimes a story never finds a home. While you're waiting for a response, which can be days, weeks or months, you write more stories. Most markets allow simultaneous submissions, meaning you can submit to more than one market at a time (just let them know if you've accepted another market's offer). That also means you should probably keep a small list or spreadsheet listing the basics like title of your story, market sent to, date sent, response date and response. Most people start with the highest paying market that their story generally fits and work their way down. The largest paying generally have the largest exposure/readership, and that appears to be the point of your effort, Annihilation. So, how do you find markets? A lot depends on your genre. There is Ralan's Webstravaganza (http://ralan.com/) which is good for fantasy, SF, and horror. They have all levels of markets for stories (from pro-paying- 5 cents and up per word) down to markets that pay nothing or contributor copies. Magazines, ezines, anthologies. They also have novel markets as well. There is duotrope, which used to be very popular. Maybe it still is, but they charge a fee (like 5 dollars a month) for access. They cover all genres, and have some stats on response time and % of acceptances, based upon user provided data. In any case, you do not need to be in the same state or the same country as the market you're submitting to. It is all done online these days (or virtually all done) with respect to submissions and such. Contracts may signed and mailed. Contracts and clauses in contracts are another issue, but again, that's a whole 'nother' topic, which probably has been discussed on this forum a few times. Hope that answers your questions and concerns. Again, good luck moving forward. Terry
There is also a market search website that is meant to take the place of Duotrope. It's called The Grinder or The (Submission) Grinder. If you google or yahoo search that name, you'll get the website. It covers all genres and lengths and payment categories.
I am writing all of this information down as notes because out of all of them one must work. Where did you first go to get your manuscript noticed?
My first sale was with a now closed market, The Sword Review. My first short story publication, back in 2006, which garnered me 1/2 cent per word, and then it was part of Double-Edged Publishing's yearly anthology, which earned $0.25 per copy sold. If I recall, it sold less than 100 copies. It was a while ago. I believe I searched Ralan's to find the market, if I recall.
