One of the great things about self-publishing and eBooks is that you can publish stories of any length. I was able to keep Lyon's Legacy at novella length instead of padding it out to a novel (although some reviewers have mentioned they wished it was longer, I feel the story says what it needs to say). Although there have always been markets for short stories in speculative fiction, I like being able to write them without worrying about finding a market for them. Short stories can also help flesh out series. My Catalyst Chronicles series has a short story between Lyon's Legacy and Twinned Universes, and I plan to write another one (though it might be a novella) set between Twinned Universes and Catalyst in the Crucible.
At some point, I plan to assemble my short stories into a collection. This will be a better value to my readers and also allow me to put them out in paper. My main concern right now is how many stories to include. I was originally planning to wait until I have thirteen stories out and put them into a single collection, but now I'm debating on putting out smaller collections. Story length will be a factor; another possibility might be doing some themed collections (for example, a collection of my SF or Catalyst Chronicles stories, another collection of stories set in my fantasy world of Challen, and another collection of miscellaneous fantasy stories.)
If anyone else has put out a collection, how did you decide the number of short stories to include? Were they all previously published, or did you include a bonus story?
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I would look at overall (word) length of the collection rather than number of stories.
ReplyDeleteI haven't done it, but check with the short story master, Milo James Fowler. He's had dozens published and put out several books of his own.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, overall length is definitely a factor.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, Alex.
I did a short book of home-made fairy tales, but the purpose was different. I used three simply because those were the stories that were ready to be seen when I decided to use this as a formatting test prior to putting up my novella.
ReplyDeleteI have three shorts to publish but they're all of different genres. I wouldn't know what to tell you.
ReplyDeleteHugs and chocolate,
Shelly
Sandra, I'm going to release a short story collection for my series too. I think I'm going to look at total word count for the collection…I think, lol! Thanks for stopping by, it's nice to connect on these Indie Life Hops.
ReplyDeletenovellas and short stories are awesome--doesn't require so much commitment.
ReplyDeleteI'm so pleased to find this linky of indie authors. I think it's important to know what's going on in the world of indie publishing (and I hope to join it soon).
ReplyDeleteNew follower; great post! :-)
Nice to meet you, Lexa!
ReplyDelete