How to Self-Publish a Short Story for Beginners

How Much Does It Cost To Publish A Short Story?

The cost to publish a short story can vary depending on the number of pages, cover type, and other features. For an average novella (50-70 pages), you should expect to pay $1-$2 per page in printing fees.

Good quality printing may run upward of $3-$5 per page. Cover design can also affect the cost significantly.

If you simply wish to self-publish an ebook of your short story, however, the costs will be significantly lower.

How Do You Self-Publish A Short Story?

You can self-publish a short story in a few ways but the main two are:

• by printing it on-demand
• publishing an ebook

For the former, you'll need to find a printer that offers this service and upload your manuscript file (.doc for Microsoft Word documents) and any cover images (.jpg, .png or high-quality .pdf).

Once you've done that and the order has been finalized, your short story will be printed on demand.

For ebook publishing, there are a number of different ebook publishing platforms available to you. The requirements are a lot less stringent than when printing on demand.

For most platforms, you can upload and even sell your ebook for free.

One of these platforms is the giant, Amazon!

Amazon KDP offers a print-on-demand and ebook (Kindle) service for self-published authors.

How Do I Self-publish A Short Story On Amazon?

It is very easy to self-publish a short story on Amazon. The first thing you need to know is if you are using the print-on-demand service, then your short story needs to be a minimum of 24 pages for Amazon's printers to approve your listing.

You also will need a cover file (.jpg, .png or high-quality .pdf) to upload your manuscript and set a price.

To get started, sign up at Amazon, then log in to your account. You will need a .mobi file for Kindle and an epub file if you want it on other ebook reading devices such as the Nook or Sony Reader.

You can download the Kindle Ebook Creator or use a free conversion tool online.

Once these are done and uploaded to Amazon (remember 24-page minimum), you will need to set a price and save your work.

Now you can preview the cover of your book.

If you are using Amazon's print-on-demand service;

• Upload your manuscript file (.doc)
• Upload a cover file (.jpg or .png or .pdf)
• Generate a free barcode or upload your own
• The Amazon KDP team will then review your work before it goes live on the site.

Do Short Stories Sell?

Short stories do sell quite well, and in a variety of genres as long as the quality is good. The only caveat is that it can take more time for them to find an audience.

Short Stories are less of a commitment than investing in a full-length novel. However, publishers have reported that "paper short" (which they define as any work shorter than 100 pages) might be the next frontier for digital publishing.

The main thing is finding your audience and finding an angle that allows you to consistently produce stories for that audience while growing it.

I would recommend starting with short fiction or working on a series of short fiction stories and seeing how that goes before moving up to publishing a full-length novel. 

Where Can I Submit Short Stories For Money?

As an author of over a hundred published stories, the answer to this question is tricky. My answer might sound biased, but I think there are so many great platforms to submit stories nowadays that it makes the question irrelevant.

Besides Amazon's Kindle Unlimited Program, which lets you post your story free of charge and get paid for every time somebody downloads it.

There's Wattpad, where users can upload their original work for people to read online for free or as a premium service with upgrades available at $4.99 USD per month.

That leaves sites like Medium and Tumblr both popular hubs where authors can post work they're proud of without high barriers between publishing and reading content create a variety of potential audiences just waiting in the wings.

However, you cannot sell them on those two platforms; instead, you use those platforms to grow an audience and sell them on your own platforms like your own blog or website.

In my opinion, this is the best way. As you are completely in charge and keep 100% of the profit.

Using platforms that already have solid traffic and niche audiences is a great way to kickstart your marketing.

How Many Pages Should Be In A Short Story?

By name, a short story in literature is any piece of prose fiction that could be read in one sitting and typically has fewer than 20 pages.

The average range for this type of work would be between 2000-8000 words or less (although it can vary greatly). Generally, anything more than 8000 words is considered a novella.

After novella-length stories, you are in the territory of novels.

Novel-length means the work has at least 50,000 words; anything less would be considered either a novella or long short-story (if it's around 20,000 words).

Short Story Publishing Vs. Low Content Publishing

If you are interested in publishing short stories for money, you may also be interested in publishing low-content books.

When it comes to self-publishing, there are a lot of options to choose from. If you're primarily interested in making money, then you'll want to consider low content publishing.

Both can offer a great return on investment, but there are also some key differences that you'll want to be aware of.

Short story publishing generally requires more work upfront, as you'll need to write and edit your stories before they're ready to be published.

You will also need to build up a fanbase and momentum for the upcoming books in your series.

However, once they're published, you can potentially earn a lot of money from each individual sale as well as your repeat customers and excited fanbase waiting for new releases - it is, for the most part, a long game.

Low content publishing, on the other hand, requires less initial work, but the books published are not necessarily books you can build a name off of.

I have published hundreds of low-content books and they pay well.

Of course, you can always publish both short stories and low content books to maximize your earnings potential! Whichever route you choose, self-publishing is a great way to make money from your writing.

I would also suggest using our book writing calculator to work out the time it would take to produce a few dozen short stories. This way you can plan your moves accordingly.

Two resources you may find useful:

• List Of Low Content Publishing Ideas And Examples
• 100 Free Low Content Book Interiors

Write a Short Story Collection

To go a step further, especially if you want to expand your skills and build a fanbase, you could write a short story collection.

This is different to a series, as the collection would all be in one book, but they could still all be linked.

Writing a short story collection can do wonders for building your skills up and showcasing your writing ability. It demands you to write in a wide scope of different genres, styles and tones, which is great for building your versatility as a writer.

If taking this route, you will need to do the following:

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1) Brainstorm Ideas for Your Collection: Before you start writing, think about what kind of stories you want to write. What themes and topics interest you?

What kind of characters will you include in your stories?

Decide on a few ideas that you can use to create your collection.

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2) Develop Your Characters: Once you’ve chosen a few ideas for your collection, take some time to develop your characters. Think about their personalities and motivations. What makes them unique? How do they react to different situations in the stories?

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3) Outline Your Stories: To make sure your stories flow, take some time to outline each one. What is the beginning, middle, and end of each story?

What plot points will you include?

What will the climax be?

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4) Write Your Stories: Once you’ve outlined your stories, it’s time to start writing. Try to write a bit each day to keep up momentum.

Don’t be afraid to make changes to your stories as you go along - creative writing often requires reworking and editing.

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5) Edit and Proofread: Once you’ve finished writing your stories, it’s time to edit. Read through each one, making changes where needed.

Be sure to proofread your collection, looking for grammar and spelling errors.

You can then format and submit the collection on Amazon as you would do a novel or any other book.

You will of course need a cover and the manuscript to be correctly formatted.

Last update on 2022-09-04 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API