Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime

Short stories for Amazon.

edited January 2017 in Writing
As my health has been majorly affected recently, leaving me depleted of energy, just wondering if I concentrate on a few short stories(a few pages in length perhaps) could I upload them onto Amazon? Do they accept such stories and what sort of market is there for these?
Tagged:
«1345

Comments

  • Lydia, every three pages of short story you write is three pages less of your novel/script.

    With the greatest respect, you seem to be like a chef with a tabletop of ingredients all ready to go, but you won't follow the recipe to achieve the best result.
  • It takes as much energy to write a short story as it does to write a chapter. Possibly more, in fact, because you've got to encapsulate an entire story inside that shorter form. Writing short stories is not the easy option you seem to believe it to be - it's a polished art form in its own right.

    Don't waste any of your efforts on either. Get yourself well and then go back to the project in hand.
  • You can upload them, but the chances of many people paying £1 or more to read a short story by an unknown author are pretty slim. Would you do it?
  • C2C2
    edited January 2017
    I must admit I do on occasion by a £1 short, most of the time there isn't a review, some are good reads, and only one so far was absolutely abysmal, I gave one star for the cover and title, best part of the book.

    If you have takers that like your work and then you have nothing, in the near future, coming behind your short story to keep them following you this is where you might fall down as a serious author, maybe.
  • Getting on with things. Few books on how to amplify characters emotions and develop their personalities to give them more complex ones that would lead to more possibilities with plot. Need to develop a decent plot first before I start putting pen to paper. They said that Martina Cole's are 'dialogue heavy'. This could be the best way forward, especially as the reader suggested that my tale was more suited to a film script. Try that..
  • I have just this minute finished posting an Amazon review for From Story Idea to Reader. That book has three and a half excellent pages of 'characterisation' qualities. Even if you buy on Kindle, that section alone is worth the investment!
  • I'll check that out. All these insights into writing techniques and how to gain followers are really forming a plan in my mind now. Think I know how to proceed now so I shall be spending some time today setting out those plans so I know what and how to do things to make some headway..
  • That's great, Lydia. Sounds as if you are getting close to forming a concrete 'action plan'. I just hope you get the 'mix' right!

    As a tip, make yourself a rota that you can stick to. Apportion your hours to writing, research, reviewing, and social promotion - and try to stick to it.
  • Very good strategy, PET. I'll do precisely that. Some writing and researching every day and add some text and images to my social media sites too.. brilliant..
  • The secret to writing is just to write really!
  • That does help quite a lot.
  • Wondering about the story idea I am writing. Should I have my main character as a working class carpenter? With a middle class best friend whose girlfriend the main character falls for? The idea being the cointrast being between the two backgrounds, being part of the allure for that character. Would this prove of interest to a reader..?
  • If it's written convincingly, yes!
  • Just read the interview with Kit de Waal, the working class writer. I know I've said this before, but it is perplexing me a bit as it is clear my experience of working class life, seems vastly different to others, including my relatives. So wondering how accurate I could portray such backgrounds?

    Perhaps I ought to make that character an accountant to fit in more easily with my understanding of etiquette in polite society rather than the rougher end of the scale? It's the elevated state in life where my mind hangs out...So that would be truer to my writing perspective and more amenable for creating situations. More believable too..
  • Just read the interview with Kit de Waal, the working class writer. I know I've said this before, but it is perplexing me a bit as it is clear my experience of working class life, seems vastly different to others, including my relatives. So wondering how accurate I could portray such backgrounds?

    Perhaps I ought to make that character an accountant to fit in more easily with my understanding of etiquette in polite society rather than the rougher end of the scale? It's the elevated state in life where my mind hangs out...So that would be truer to my writing perspective and more amenable for creating situations. More believable too..
  • Just pressed once, so no idea what happened???
  • If your experience is different, then that is what will make your story interesting and original. Readers may not have previously come across the particular context that you are familiar with and you can play on that.
    No one wants to read same old, same old...

    As long as you create a convincing set, an enthralling plot and realistic characters, then you have a story. That is the formula. The details and the execution are up to you.
  • edited January 2017

    Perhaps I ought to make that character an accountant to fit in more easily with my understanding of etiquette in polite society rather than the rougher end of the scale? It's the elevated state in life where my mind hangs out...So that would be truer to my writing perspective and more amenable for creating situations. More believable too..
    Carpenters……rougher end of scale?
    Accountants…..polite society?

    Wow.

    Fairly wide brush you are painting with there. As someone who has set up my own business, run it for 12 years and had the privilege of including clients that range from scaffolders, plasterers, builders, joiners to MD's with multi million £ turnovers, I would never be so condescending in my appraisal of their jobs. Also, just because someone is a carpenter - usually the term "joiner" is used - or an accountant it does not denote that they come from either "polite society" or "the rougher end of the scale".

    In fact, one of my biggest clients owns a multi million company and is a lovely chap - despite coming from one of the roughest areas in our locality and being "rough and ready" around the edges.

    Similarly, my own accountant - a lovely chap - comes from working class background and has built up a successful business employing a dozen people. He started from his tiny back bedroom 12 years go. And he is the most altruistic, kind and sincere person I know - always looking to help others.

    Does being working class exclude someone from being polite or prevent them being able to mix in polite society? Working class means exactly what it says… they work. Often in a variety of occupations, not all of them of the traditional, manual variety.

    Personally, both my parents are from working class background, both served in the army before undertaking roles in a variety of mediocre paid jobs. My maternal grandfather was a labourer, and sometime painter and decorator, from the rough side of Glasgow. My fathers mother was "in service" to a large country house before she married my grandfather and later became a dinner lady at a local state school. I myself, began work at 15 in 1984 and worked 40 hours a week for £20 pay. When I left my last job in 2005 to set up my business, my annual pay was a little over £15k., a figure that my daughter, in her first job after graduating university last year, has already far exceeded.

    Despite my working class background, my grandparents and parents have taught me to be polite and instilled in me the values that allow me to be part of "polite society". In my turn, I believe that I have passed these simple traits onto my daughter.

    Being working class does not equate to being "rougher".

    But, I digress.

    Having read your various posts on several topics, I truly wonder what it is you are seeking from other TB members on this forum.

    Stop trying to analyse and decode writing and attempting to slot it into neat, compartmentalised containers.

    Just write.

    **Rant over**

    If any forum members think my comments are not valid and inappropriate, then please let me know and I shall take my leave of this forum.

    Gavin
  • So fortunate that you are new to the forum, Kramer. Our mice and keyboards have wept with tears over providing exactly the same advice over recent months!
  • New, maybe, but equally as frustrated!
  • We've evidently had different experiences. Maybe because I am a woman. I'm not quite going to see things from your angle. As an individual, my experiences are going to be unique to me and not easily transferable in understanding to another's experiences. It's good to get another perspective, though. So thanks for that..
  • Sweet zombie jesus
  • *Agrees. Puts head in hands and starts rocking slowly back and forth*
  • Welcome to the club. :)
  • Not sure it is a club I particularly want to be a member of.
    Anyway, I am off for my tea/dinner now.

    (Tea = working class)
    (Dinner = posher)
  • Noted that distinction. The difference in meaning. Shall we leave it at that for tonight?
  • 'As an individual my experiences are going to be unique' - and that's it in a nutshell, Lydia. That's what you should be investing in your writing, not this pseudo class distinction stuff.

    I am beyond tired of reading this same thing, over and over - 'How do I write working-class fiction?' Now you've moved on to 'I'm a woman so I'm different' - none of which is at all relevant. You write from who you are and what you see and think and feel - you do not say, I'll write like that other writer does.

    Every single writer puts themselves out there in their work. I don't see how it's possible to avoid it. What is coming over constantly is that you don't want to do that; you want to put someone else out there instead. In that case, you will never write anything worth reading, because you keep putting up imaginary barriers to your own creativity.

    '...my experiences are going to be unique and not easily transferable in understanding to another's experiences' - yet that's exactly what you're trying to do when you say you're reading this person's working class prose or that person's working class play so that you can emulate them. You've just said that it's not possible.

    If you won't listen to us, listen to your own words. I've just hit saturation point, so I'll wish you well, and walk away.
  • Someone said that America has an official line on equality, which is different to the actual reality. This is evident in their movies.

    Thus, it seems the best thing to do is research and adapt my writing towards that which conforms more with the accepted formula.

    Therefore I need to search out on tumblr etc those professions which reflect those people, like police, nurses, teachers, creative's etc. I'd have more chance of reaching the right type of followers that way to engage with and win over to some sort of subscriber's list, eventually. . Go mainstream.

    Just wondering if I should change my main character in the book format to an actual male figure, as opposed to a female, lesbian one I was planning on. Any advise on this..?
  • Oh, Lydia, how many times do we have to say it?

    It's your story, your characters - write the ones you want to write, that work for you. How can anyone else advise on your main character based on nothing but gender and sexuality? There is no formula - there is only you and your words.

    I won't be responding again - I am quite worn out.
  • Oh, Lydia, how many times do we have to say it?
    Over...and over...and over...and over...and over...

    And in between each one..."You're right, of course. I must try and avoid crackpot schemes to get followers. So back to the writing and continue onwards." comments from Lydia before a week later...ANOTHER question that's the same as the last but worded differently because Lydia is a special woman, and other people are terrible...and blah blah blah. I reached my exhaustion limit a long time ago and right now I don't give a monkeys if this even gets me booted from the forum. Get off your damn high horse, Lydia. And if you want to write...WRITE!! FFS
  • I seriously can't even tell if you're a troll or not, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.


  • Just wondering if I should change my main character in the book format to an actual male figure, as opposed to a female, lesbian one I was planning on. Any advise on this..?
    Always happy to help; you could capture both worlds if you create a transgender male to female, who develops a penchant for lesbianism. You will go on to show, in reality, how the new 'transgender woman' continues to be driven by the male's sexual desire.

    A host of opportunity will later present itself with pre-and post-op conflict, and the inner turmoil experienced by the tragedy of the transgender female wanting to revert back to male.

  • If BR got booted off for expressing the same sentiments as fellow TBers, there would be a mass walkout!!
  • You know, Lydia, the nicest thing we could see for your next post is a link to a completed story which you have had the conviction and drive to write.

    Good luck.

  • If BR got booted off for expressing the same sentiments as fellow TBers, there would be a mass walkout!!

    You better believe it... :x
  • If lydia added up all the words she's loaded onto here, plus the words the rest of us have wasted trying to help her, she'd have enough for a book.
    I am another TBer who will not indulge her self absorption any further.
  • If lydia added up all the words she's loaded onto here, plus the words the rest of us have wasted trying to help her, she'd have enough for a book.
    I think you're being kind, Lizy. I'd peg it as a trilogy!!

  • :)) Me - kind? Wait till you know me better.
  • Editing my script right now. Shaping up inicely, methinks. Realise now, with all these threads, as you so kindly have pointed out(again...!), i WILL need to do some research in order to get it to the level I wish and desire the right 'consistency' to hopefully create some waves with some potent words. The dream... So wish to please...?
  • :)) Me - kind? Wait till you know me better.
    No thanks. I've already felt your wrath!!

    :D
  • Been checking the Amazon website for single short stories. Not sure if that is the only way to get a novella accepted onto there? What if they refuse the story? Can it still be published? Worried there might not be an outlet for it, once written...
  • Amazon don't refuse novellas. A novella isn't a short story.
  • Lots of novellas are self-published via Amazon, but they're not in the short story bit.
  • The short stories on Amazon are less than 30,000 words. If my tale is around that length, or less,does that make it a short story? Therefore, in order to ensure this can be published on Amazon, without the need for their acceptance or rejection, the tale would have to be more than 30,000 words?
  • Hi Lydia.

    My way of thinking is that you are way beyond a short story. I think others have indicated Novellas start at 20,000. Perhaps have a look at the following link:
    https://kdp.amazon.com/community/message.jspa?messageID=615988
  • edited February 2017
    I agree with TN. Really nice thing to say
    You know, Lydia, the nicest thing we could see for your next post is a link to a completed story which you have had the conviction and drive to write.

    Good luck.


    To those of you venting exasperation why do you even bother? If you could show an inkling of kindness, like TN has effortlessly managed, that would at least be a smidgen to making this world a better place to live in.

Sign In or Register to comment.