Publishing a Short Story

[MJRevell]

Is there anywhere that publishes short stories, in book form, and on their own - rather than in a magazine or as part of a compilation?

If a story wins a prestigious prize, or has been published in a magazine or something of that nature, are there any companies who would publish it (ideally with illustrations; perhaps with the writing itself spread over many pages)? Or would it have to be a self-published little project?

 

[daalex]

Well, I haven't heard about any such projects... perhaps the more "senior" people on this board (and, no, I'm not referring to venerable old age here) can chime in?

Since I've yet to get anything professionally published, it's been the least of my worries

david

b: Must Write SF
t: Twitter / daalex51

 

[chopper]

usually, as far as i know, any anthologies of short stories that are published these days will announce that they are open to submissions months beforehand. or else the editors of such anthologies will commission direct from authors.

s

 

[neilwilliamson]

I don't know of any publishers who do this as their core business, I'm afraid.

If they don't exist you'd be talking about a publisher taking on a special edition project, and in order to do that they would have to be pretty darned convinced that they'd make money on it. In other words the author would have to be a very big name, and the story itself would more than likely have to be very well known as well. For example, a special anniversary edition of a classic short story might have that kind of appeal, mainly to collectors.

If these conditions don't apply to your story, I think you'd be looking at doing it yourself. I have friends who do this at Christmas time, and they make nice alternatives to the traditional cards.

 

[MJRevell]

Has anyone used Lulu recently?

I'm tempted to self-publish a short story to both keep as something for myself, but also to give as a gift. However, if I do go this far, it would be nice to try and market it as well --

Do they still give an ISBN for free? What do they offer you before you start having to pay for the different packages?

 

[Scarfy]

Lulu currently offers a Published By Lulu service which will assign you an ISBN for free.

The ISBN is, however, owned by Lulu and the distribution is strictly limited to Amazon.com only and nowhere else.

Self Publishing - Lulu.com

 

[mygoditsraining]

I'm tempted to self-publish a short story to both keep as something for myself, but also to give as a gift. However, if I do go this far, it would be nice to try and market it as well --

Do they still give an ISBN for free? What do they offer you before you start having to pay for the different packages?

If you want to self-publish for distribution and sale (not through lulu) then you will need to pay for an ISBN and also copies for the legal deposit to the British library (if distributing in the UK).

However, if it's a private small circulation printing as a gift and memento for people close to you, you could just add a Creative Commons Licence note to the start of it and have it bound at a printer's office.

As I understand it, short story anthologies are few and far between, and tend to be associated with a cause, course or collective releasing work exclusively by authors associated with them. Mind you, this is just what I get from trawling the internets - if you wanted a more thorough view of the landscape you'd be best digging through the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook and making some phonecalls to check.