If you’re anything like us, then you’ve heard writers complaining for years about the demise of markets for short stories. Now, all right, yes, it is true that the heyday of hundreds of printed fiction magazines is over. Only the very strongest such as Space & Time Magazine have survived, but I strongly disagree that there is a lack of demand for shorter works of fiction.

Remember this truest of facts … nothing disappears without being replaced by something else. That’s evolution, dudes.

The novel still outsells single author short story collections and multiple author anthologies in printed form, just as always. But a savvy writer realizes that short stories (5,000 words or less) and novellas (5,001 to 59,999 words) appeal to more multi-media markets for fiction than the novel. For those who haven’t noticed, we are living in a multi-media age, one that seems to become a bit more “multi” with every passing day. In order to sell more short fiction you have to think in terms of appealing to editors in other mediums that might be willing to use your fiction.

To create top selling short stories a writer needs to think of a short story in terms of an episode. Write a series of short stories using the same universe and main characters. And, despite the popular notion to the contrary, these stories do not need to be written in chronological order. Unless, of course, you were thinking that Robert E. Howard’s Conan wasn’t a popular character.

What working in a chronological progression does allow you is, at the end of a group of, say fifteen to twenty short stories, is to create a very exciting book that can be published as a “novel.” By way of personal example, we did this with our forthcoming “novel,” Where Angels Fear. We first sold the stories to many different magazines, websites, and anthologies. Then we wrote more unpublished stories to fill out the story arc and sold them as one complete work of art — one with a beginning, middle and end. Just like any other novel. Each short story or novella appears as a titled chapter, leading to that most wonderful of situations, selling the same short story twice.

Episodic fiction can also be sold as a comic book series. You have to rewrite the short stories as comic book scripts, but then you could sell the short stories to a book publisher as a comic book tie-in. C.J. did this with his hit Moonstone Books comic Lai Wan, Tales of the Dreamwalker, which is now an anthology from Marietta Publishing as well as a comic book series.

Also: don’t forget the very popular Manga publishing companies and the best selling graphic novels that dominate the comic industry today. Any novella you’ve done is most likely the perfect length for a graphic novel.

Television producers are always on the lockout for new TV series, as well. Short stories or novellas can be rewritten as screenplays for television. Author Wendy Webb wrote a series of comedy mystery novellas for Marietta Publishing (Last Resort, Bee Movie, and Mean Cuisine). Each is subtitled “A Beluga Stein Mystery.” Wendy sold these to Fox TV as a series. Talk about selling something twice!

A good long novella is the perfect length to convert to a movie screenplay. Novels are actually too long for the standard two-hour movie.

Another point to consider is the fact that the gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry. Like Hollywood, they are always in need of talented writers to create role playing games and video games. Most of the larger hit games have book series to tie-in the game and inspire game masters. Many game tie-in book publishing companies are actually owned by the game companies such as Chaosium, Black Library and Lucas Books. Gaming companies publish short stories, novellas, and novels depending upon the game. Two great examples of bestselling gaming book series are Halo and Warhammer.

The bottom line is to think outside the box of print media. In many ways, it is actually easier today to start a writing career than ever before, thanks to the never-before availability of Internet publishers. Their online magazines may be just the ticket to the building of both your credits and writing skills. Then you will be ready to submit stories to the cream of the online crop — Baen’s Universe and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.

You have to start somewhere. The “where” is not important.

Getting started is.

Once you reach that pinnacle where you have a publisher that you are working with consistently, don’t make the mistake of thinking you can relax. No, now that you’ve sold a book, and a second book, it’s the time for you to pitch a series to them. Publishers like talented and dependable authors that write books that sell — we all know that. So how do you become one of those authors?

One of the best ways to become a solid, continually selling author is to write a series. Now, even if you only write short–and you think you don’t have a novel within you, don’t worry–just write those tales with the same main characters, but write them in a consecutive (chronological) order. And, that doesn’t mean you must write them in order. You can write them out of order, but just make certain there is an order. That something happens. That the characters grow.

Understand, because of the shrinking of global boundaries over the centuries, all entertainment has begun to suffer from over-exposure. It used to be that people didn’t have the time to take in a lot of entertainment. However, these days, the available storylines get used up at a tremendous rate. For example, who hasn’t seen Dickens’ A Christmas Carol ripped off by a sit-com? Or It’s a Wonderful Life? The old show Quantum Leap stole the plot of a different movie almost every week. And yet, people are entertained and don’t complain.

Why?

It’s because it isn’t so much the plot of a particular story that concerns the audience so much as what the author does with it. Boy meets girl. A classic. But, who are our boy and girl? What obstacles stand between them? How will they conquer them? Friends, classic sit-com, lasted ten years. Went off the air at the top of the heap. And how did it start and how did it end? They told us we should be concerned over whether or not Ross would get Rachel. And then they spent a decade making us wait for the answer, telling hundreds of little stories along the way.

Now, back to our point.

When you write these short stories, it is best you get them out in front of the public, not just save them up for a book. You get out there and work at selling them to online and offline magazines and themed anthologies to get your name in front of readers. When you hit around 70,000 words, you begin thinking of a couple of story ideas that would help make a boffo ending. Then, when you’ve reached 80,000 words in the storyline, you have a collection that reads like a novel. Then you have something to pitch.

And here’s the big secret — pitch it as a novel! The first short story becomes Chapter One, the second story Chapter Two and so on. Why do this? Because novels sell better than short story collections and bookstores are more willing to carry a novel over a short story collection.

We have done this with our forthcoming book Where Angels Fear. It was written as a series of short stories and novellas in the Blakely & Boles universe which is an urban fantasy. We sold most of the stories to a number of different magazines and anthologies and then capped the lot off with several unpublished stories so that the loyal fan still has a reason to look forward to buying the book. The collection reads like a very fast paced novel as a result. It also has a fan base ready and waiting for it to come out because of the readership gained from the separate short stories being published as our creative ambassadors.

We also created a side character in the Blakely & Boles universe that became very popular. The character is Donna Fargo and she was the first female Sheriff of Waycross, Georgia. She met Blakely & Boles in the third story (now Chapter Three) of Where Angels Fear and learns firsthand about the supernatural world around us. Eventually she joins the Blakley & Boles team during the course of the stories. Why do we mention this here? To point out the simple fact that as you create your universe, you never know where it will lead you. Donna has grown in both stature as a character and in popularity with the public to the point where now, one day we may have to do a solo Donna Fargo book!

Bruce Here: Unlike my very talented co-author, I have never written a novel before. Now that Where Angels Fear is being published it is time to begin writing the first novel in the series. C.J. and I have worked out a rough storyline and we are using the working title, The Canyon of Madness. I am reading a Dean Koontz novel for inspiration (I’ve read all of CJ’s) since Koontz is a master at writing novels that are very hard to put down. He hooks the reader at the beginning of the chapter and ends a chapter with a mini cliff hanger that makes you want to turn the page and keep reading.

C.J. is very good at doing that with his novels as well, so I want to live up to his standards. Right now C.J. is very busy writing a new comic book series with William Shatner as well as his second novel in a series for TOR. As a result the first draft of the Blakely & Boles novel is up to me. Wish me luck people.

Or, better yet, start making your own luck. Get started on tying those miscellaneous shorts you’ve completed into a novel of your own!

BRUCE HERE: I am working as an editor/book packager on an anthology for Padwolf Publishing entitled Barbarians at the Jumpgate. The settings will probably all be science fiction and fantasy oriented with a touch of horror being okay, but those elements aren actually necessary. The theme is any less civilized or less developed group attacking a more advanced civilization or group, or defending themselves against the same. This can mean military, political, religious, biological, or any other means the authors can think up. As an editor, I hate to limit an author imagination by being too specific with the theme.

The first group of stories I read through proved to have five dynamic, sure fire winners which I bought immediately. Other stories that were submitted did not fit the theme or did too much telling and not enough showing. In other words the narrative voice was used too much which kept me from getting into the meat of the tale.

Another thing which I liked was the absence of very many spelling or grammatical errors. Authors should make note that most stories being submitted today contain fewer errors than ones in the past thanks to more advanced software.

C.J. HERE: Note to all you tech-heads depending on your spell check. Now, I do the same but only for the spelling. Don’t run spell check and then send a story off, thinking that it’s swell. Read the damn thing over, will you? Spell check identifies misspellings, but it doesn’t know if from it, as from is, there from their and well, I could keep going, but you get the idea. Trust me, boys and girls, nothing will make an editor sigh quicker than one of these mistakes. You have to understand, finding errors like these give the impression that one doesn’t care. And that, believe me, is something you do not want tacked onto your reputation, not even in the back of someone’s mind.

Writing stories for anthologies is a great way to get your name out in front of the public. And, after all, single author short story collections have to grow from somewhere. Also, having a short story get good buzz is a great way to inspire ideas for novels. As well as to inspire publishers to come asking you if you’ve ever considered doing a novel based on that popular short story, or series of stories.

Hint: You should always think of each short stories as a sample of your work, and not just a random sample, but as the sample that might ultimately reshape your entire career (or at least lead more readers to purchase additional samples of your work).

Also, all of you should consider several things before submitting to an anthology. Who is the editor and do they have a good track record? Who is the publisher? Do they pay their writers? Is the theme strong and marketable? And, most importantly:

Will being in the anthology help my career?

Avoid anthologies that are general collections of stories without a theme. In other words, if it is just a collection of horror stories with no central idea to link them together, it probably will not sell well in the marketplace. The only exception would be if you had nothing but household brand name authors in the anthology to help it sell. Even then sales of a generic anthology will be lower than one with a cool theme. But it can hurt you to be in a collection with big names (especially if your story is really good and the big mucky-mucks coasted on their laurels).

Putting together an anthology as the editor is a also great way to get a short story or two of your own out in the marketplace. If you can come up with a really interesting idea for a theme and get some brand name authors to agree to be a part of the anthology, you can then pitch the product to small and independent publishers.

Major publishing houses do not generally purchase many anthologies these days. If they do, they use book packagers to put together the whole thing and hand it to them on a CD-ROM ready to go to the printer. Sadly, the major publishing houses focus on media tie-in products almost exclusively. A major publisher will rarely publish a single author short story collection unless it is from a huge brand name author like Stephen King.

BRUCE HERE: At Marietta Publishing one of my most successful books has been a single author short story collection entitled The Occult Detectives of C.J. Henderson. Yes, my incredible co-author again. He is too humble to tell you that, but the book has done amazingly well, consistently for years now. What I saying here is, don be afraid of trying your hand at short stories. The majority of the tales in C.J. book grew out of several of his novel series. Yes, it nice to have novels out there, but stories based on the same characters help promote that series. And, there nothing wrong with a collection of your stories that just won stop selling.

So remember, if short stories aren your thing, perhaps you could still give them a try. And, if they are your thing then get to work, get them organized, and then get out there and find yourself a good small or independent publisher to publish it.