Short Stories Don't Sell?

www.shortfirepress.com

Received wisdom holds that short stories don't sell. Many of the magazines and markets that once offered new writers a place to start no longer exist. And if your name is not Alice Munro, don't get your hopes up for getting a collection of your stories published.

Enter Shortfire Press, which launched in 2010 and specializes in short stories, publishing them in digital-only formats (Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPad, and PDF). You can download stories from the Shortfire website, or, if you have a Kindle, you can buy their titles from Amazon (US and UK sites).



Priced at $1.50 (99p) per story, expanding your literary horizons won't cost you much. And you can download a free sample of any story. I like their pricing philosophy: Attract readers and pay authors.

We believe both that writers should be paid properly and readers should not have to spend a fortune to find new writers, and our prices reflect that. Short stories will be priced at 99p each to provide the best of both worlds: a competitive price for the reader and a fair return for the author. Shortfire Press works on a no-advance, profit-share basis. (http://www.shortfirepress.com) 

It's an exciting concept—the Independent calls it "iTunes for the written word"— and one I hope succeeds.

Shortfire does accept un-agented submissions. Check out the guidelines and spend some time sampling their titles (free samples, right?).

—Kathy Lyon