For now, at least!

Here is the situation. I published The Baby Box through Matador Publishing Co. Enjoyed the experience; learnt a great deal. First on the learning curve is that I probably ordered too many copies, asking for 500. For sure the books are still selling and opportunities are still presenting themselves to me, see event details at the end of this blog. To get back to number of copies. I now think that 300 would have been more sensible. In other words the advice from Matador was correct. I learnt from other aspects of the process but the details are personal to me and will stay that way.

I now have a collection of stories, written over several years. Stories take longer to write than novels and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. They grow slowly and you can’t hurry them up. So here I have them, 10 stories on the theme of death. Not written from experience you might say. But yes, in a way they were. You don’t get to the age of discretion without experiencing death at second hand. If you’re a writer you make notes, scribble down your thoughts, the surprises, the pain and the peculiar sense of relief at the funeral.

The bottom line is that now I’d like to get these stories off my hands, deleted from my lap-top files to prevent me from endlessly re-writing, in other words on paper in a book.

I’ve researched Indie Publishers who accept short stories. The limitations to their preferences are from subject matter to whom the authors are. I’m a woman so subject to a certain degree of prejudice (did you know that it’s a fact that there are more women writers than men, but more male writers are published?) but have no other qualifying labels in the BAME group. Have a quick look at the requirements of Indie Publishers and you won’t find a ‘we’re interested in short stories, please get in touch’ profile anywhere.

Except for one publisher who shall remain anonymous. And the deal is? No advance payment. Royalties only. Authors receive free copies of their book but no indication of how many. I checked their website and the ‘Terms of Publishing’ are too vague. It seems a high probability that I’ll lose control of my stories for very little.

Novels are grown-up friends. Stories are children. Nurtured, loved, and worried over. I’m not giving them away to anyone. It’s back to self-publishing and probably with the company I’ve worked with before and trust.

Come to Chichister University on Wednesday 18 March – next week – from 4-5pm for a Publishing Panel Event on Self-Publishing. I’ll be there with Dave Swan (Chair) Janet Denny and David Hailwood both former students on the Creative Writing MA. As I am.