Thursday, December 16, 2010

I'm In It For The Money

I don't know about you guys, but I intend to make a living at this thing. I like the idea of having a profession that's easy to explain. So easy in fact, that you don't have to say "I'm a writer, I write stuff." People just assume you're interesting at parties unless you give them some reason to think otherwise. And then they'll think you're some sort of heroic misanthrope, which is just as good.

I tells ya, I like to think of Art as including a monetary component. Somebody's got to pay for my Creative leisure, and if it must be me I'm going to have to earn some money being Creative. Fortunately, I can see a path forward towards that. It's going to be exciting.

This qualifies as more of a Business-side post. I've already seen a big change with 10 short stories up instead of a mere 5 (and it's only been couple days... Sheesh.) I want to get the number up to at least 50 short stories ASAP and see what happens from there. Of course, I'll be sending forth short story manuscripts to the usual markets as well, because a broad churn propels all boats.

I have no idea if that nautical metaphor is accurate, but it's better than no metaphor at all.

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By the by, I was going to write a walkthrough post for basic Amazon DTP Publishing since I couldn't find one anywhere else, but then I ran across Simplified Guide to Building a Kindle Book. Apparently it was posted sometime after I figured out all the formatting by trial and error for the first wave. Sucks for me. Still, pretty clear. Something else that may help is HTML Tags Supported, if you want to get fancy (you probably don't).

Hard numbers, then, on how long it takes to get a short story formatted and up, assuming you start with a clean Microsoft Word document and have done it two or three times before:
Cover - 15-25 minutes. (Not counting actually going out and taking the picture)
Smashwords - 5-10 minutes (Premium Catalog inclusion took less than a day)
Amazon DTP - 10-15 minutes (DTP Publishing time about 24 hours)

So...negligible. And no special skills needed. You could do it today with Cover Art, that simplified guide, and a short story at 99 cents.

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Whatever else is going on in this image, it's too crowded.

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250 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long to Die"
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*132

2 comments:

  1. What short stories do you recommend for reading, by chance?

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  2. Currently, my personal favorite e-magazines are Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Daily Science Fiction. Can't go too far wrong with Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld or Fantasy Magazine, either.

    For Classic short stories: "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" (Ursula K LeGuin), "There Will Come Soft Rains" (Ray Bradbury) and "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (Harlan Ellison).

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