On Self-Publishing

I went on a new adventure last week. It occurred to me that two of my short stories that were published in the last ten years included some dark back story for two of the main characters in Speaking of Murder.

My story "Reduction in Force" describes revenge after corporate layoff and was published in Thin Ice, an anthology of mystery and crime fiction, by Level Best Books, 2010. The main character is Lauren Rousseau's sister, Jackie, who is an important secondary character in Speaking of Murder.

"Obake for Lance" was a short story about murderous revenge published in Riptide, an anthology of mystery and crime fiction, by Level Best Books, 2004. This story describes a dark incident in the past of Lauren's best friend, Elise, who plays a pivotal role in Speaking of Murder.

The rights to both stories reverted to me a year after publication. People who read Speaking of Murder have asked me when the next Lauren Rousseau book is coming out. It won't be out anytime soon, despite being mostly written, because I need to keep writing and promoting the Local Foods mysteries around the demands of my day job and daily life.

But it occurred to me that these two stories are directly related to Lauren and might satisfy some of the hunger of readers. So I read my writing colleague Kaye George's booklet The Road to Self-Publishing and cleaned up the formatting.

With the help of Kaye's booklet, I figured out how to publish the stories for most formats through Smashwords and for Kindle through Amazon. And while it requires some careful attention (that is, don't start doing it at night if you're a morning person), it really isn't that hard.

Through the unfailingly helpful Guppies I found a cover artist, Stanzalone Design, who uses open-source stock photographs and adds the lettering, which makes her covers very affordable, so I commissioned a cover for each. Which I love!

I also realized that Obake was the wrong word to use in that story. The real name of the triangular rice-dough pastry filled with sweet bean paste is Yatsuhashi, so the newly published story is called "Yatsuhashi for Lance."  It's up on Amazon and is already #25 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Travel > Asia > Japan and #77 in Books > Travel > Asia > Japan > General. Cool! (We won't worry about the fact that it isn't nonfiction...) It should be up for Nook, Kobo, and Apple formats before the end of January. 


I also liked the cover for "Reduction in Force" since it takes places in a software company and tea plays a critical role in the revenge. It's up on Amazon, too. 

This exercise gave me confidence in the world of self publishing, even though I have "non-me" publishers for all my books so far. I can track sales and let people who ask know that there is more of my writing out there they can read. For a mere ninety-nine cents! I'm not expecting to get rich on a couple of short stories but I like having them available. And you never know...

Have you self published anything? Do you order short stories for your ereader?  If you don't have an ereader and a story isn't available in paper, would you buy it and read it on your PC?

Burning Bridges Anthology

My story, "The Importance of Blood," appears in the new Burning Bridges anthology, edited and compiled by Heath Lowrance.You can buy it on Amazon for 99 cents at http://amzn.to/JulkGb, with all proceeds going to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens. It's also available for free in all eformats from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/155449.



Some of my regular readers here might remember that it appeared I had a publisher for Speaking of Murder at the end of 2011. It became clear to me that the publisher was not being honest with me on several accounts and I cancelled my contract (for example, two days before the reputed publication date I still had not seen edits of any kind, which had been promised for weeks). It soon turned out that he had not been honest with most of his authors and the majority quickly also withdrew from the press. 


In the "every cloud has a silver lining" department, many of the authors drew together to share information. We then agreed to publish a short story collection as a symbol of our having moved on. Burning Bridges is that collection.


I really like Heath's introduction to the collection and quote part of it here: 


"All the contributors DO have something in common, however—they’ve all been burned by a publishing experience that was unfortunate, but could have happened to anyone. Instead of compromising their integrity, though, each one of them lit a match, threw it over the shoulder, and shot away as the flames caught on the bridge behind them.


I had the honor of putting this thing together, more as a compiler than an editor, and I’m proud of the diversity and power of these stories. You’ll find that there’s no real theme to it; rather, it’s an object lesson about how writers who are truly committed to what they do can put the past behind them and  ontinue to put out solid, uncompromising work.


And not be afraid to burn bridges behind them."

My alter ego, Tace Baker, also has a story in the collection: "An Idea for Murder." 

So stop by Smashwords or Amazon and take a look. All the stories are a great read.