The Best of CaféLit 12

 

How we came to publish this one

We publish a “Best of” CafeLit book every year. For this book I chose all of the stories. I tried to keep a balance across the months. I also tried to keep a balance of long and short, darker and lighter stories and of new authors and old favourites. The aim was to publish about 3000 words for each month. It took quite a while to choose but I got there in the end.    

The title

The title is generic.

Some notes about the process

Every CaféLit story is given a short copy edit before it goes on to the site. I then put all of the stories into a camera ready PDF and asked the writers to check their own stories. We made alterations according to the feed-back form writers and also gave it a technical proof read. A second PDF was produced and this was also proof read by an in-house editor.   

The cover

The cover is the same each year. However, a new colour is carefully selected each time. Our designer has a set of suitable colours he’s working through. There are about five left. I wonder what will happen then?     

Some notes about style

There are surely as many different styles as there are different authors in the book. Isn’t that part of the beauty of such a collection as this.

Who we think the reader is

Certainly these stories are for readers who like to be intrigued. The stories are very mixed so there should be something there for everyone. And a typical reader should be consuming the story at the same time as they consume their favourite beverage.         

What else

We are using Amazon KDP for this book. It makes distribution to other countries a lot easier. It’s also slightly cheaper to produce unit copies. It is a little harder to get these books into book shops but possibly they’re not the sort of book that would go into bookshop. It would be lovely to see more cafes using them.

Review copies

It’s always great if you can buy the book and give us a review. Just click on the link to be taken to our bookshop. If you would like to review and you are strapped for cash, just get in touch for a free PDF or Kindle file.         

 Find in our bookshop 

 

Up Close

You really get up close and personal with writing during Edit 2 stage. This was my time spent today and lots of images go round and round in my head! Personally I have started performing my poetry, making YouTube videos and I have joined my local poetry group Moor Poets. This is a huge step for me as I am really enjoying the reading aloud having never done so before.

Writing on holiday?

After a busy personal period which continues I had a #SuccessfulSunday

Allison’s first edit is complete (thankfully I finished this earlier this week, gone). Today I submitted a short story into a competition. I was thoroughly immersed in my characters and lost track of time. When that happens when writing, editing or reading it’s special. It’s how it is when I’m in full flow. We talked about this recently at my Writing Group, Stories@Dogberry here in Okehampton, Devon and all of us could relate. Since childhood I could become immersed in this creationism.

Then later today I uploaded four more chapters of my online book to my website. https://amandababerauthor.wordpress.com/author/amandababerauthor/

There are many competitions out there to enter folks, go for it! Gill here (owner of this blog and our awesome author, and publisher extraordinare) regularly keeps an eye on opportunities. Slowly I’m working on entering more and my Writing Group is making me write more; its purpose! Then there’s the list of writing festivals and events in the south west I’m compiling too.

Keep writing everyone! Here I am writing on holiday two years ago!

Anthologies of short stories – the finances

You’ve probably read a lot about the young adult novel on this blog. My other love is the short story anthology. They’re reasonably quick to edit. Usually we’ve found the ones with a strong structure so the first edit is minimal. It’s just a matter of getting the writing right.

I also love reading and writing short stories and have several published myself. But it doesn’t make me rich.

Even big names earn little 

I’m published alongside Richard Adams, Anthony Browne, Alan Gibbons, Virginia McKenna, Michael Morpurgo and Lauren St John. Yet I couldn’t live on my earnings from my short stories. I also note an anthology full of big names has rarely been taken out of our local library. I do get royalties every year but earn far more from my novels and teaching resources. Also, I get a good ALCS payment for my academic work and good PLR on some of my educational resources. Yet the short stories bring in very little.  

Some strategies

There are a couple of things you can do to increase your returns.

1. Get more stories published. Obvious really? Perhaps target certain publishers with certain types of stories. For instance, I sell all of my near future ones to one publisher, human interested to another and ones that resemble this you have in women’s’ magazines to a third.
2. Purchase author copies from your publisher. They’ll often offer a huge discount.  Then sell them on at full price. Offer to do readings with a friend. Find a venue that will hire you a free space as you’re creating footfall.  

Short stories are fun and deserve to be out there. And you deserve to earn a little more from them.          

Rights and Short Stories

Most writers of short stories will sell their stories several times over. I use the word sell slightly ironically. Very few writers or even publishers make a lot of money from short stories – unless they’re really well-known and put together a single author collection.