Are you writing short fiction?
Perhaps you’re wondering where to post your material, like the writer who asked: “Should I post a short story on my blog, or on Medium or Simily? If I it post on my blog, no one will see it. A couple of authors are posting to Simily.”
My humble opinion: instead of asking where to post, start by asking about the results you want when posting your material.
Short fiction: what results do you want?
The writer said: If I it post on my blog, no one will see it, so I assume she wants readers.
A tip: you’ll get readers if you post fiction to your blog occasionally. Your blog’s readers adore freebies. On one of my blogs, a short story I posted in 2018 gets more reads, month after month, than any other post.
I asked another question: why she wanted readers. Did she want:
- Validation?
- To promote a novel, a novella, or…?
- Fun? If you’re writing as a hobby, that’s great—you don’t need any other reason.
- To make money? Short fiction can be profitable.
She wants to make money with her fiction, so my default answer for that is: publish your story to Amazon KDP.
Get paid: should you publish on Amazon, or elsewhere?
You can publish your short stories and novellas on Amazon—that’s the simplest solution. Although you can’t expect instant success, you’re building a business.
To put it bluntly, short fiction sells. As I suggested in this post on writing short stories and novellas:
A rainy afternoon’s work could sell more copies than your most recent novel. Today, readers are happy to pay for short fiction; it gives them a quick hit of entertainment in their favorite genre.
Alternatively, although publishing platforms like Medium and Simily don’t pay for stories outright, they do pay for reads. Medium pays in a couple of ways.
Publishing platforms update and change constantly—why not experiment?
A simple solution: experiment
Many authors get excellent results publishing their short fiction as ebooks. On Amazon KDP, you can choose to sell your ebooks, or opt for Select, which means your content is available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers, and you’re paid for reads.
Almost certainly, you’ll be paid more than you will on a platform like Medium. However, the competition is greater.
After experimenting, my own solution is to publish on Amazon and the other online retailers, with the occasional story posted to a blog.
Think about the results you want; then make your choice.
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Copywriter and marketing pro Angela Booth maintains a busy copywriting and ghostwriting practice. Fascinated by online marketing, she wrote one of the first business books for internet marketing, published by Allen & Unwin. She’s been an enthusiastic blogger since the late 1990s.
