I have decided to ask three short story writers – one in the UK, one in the US and one in Australia – what it’s like to publish a short story collection.
If you’re a short story writer, as I am, I’m sure you’d love to publish a collection of your stories. A volume of brilliant words containing nothing but your creative genius? Sounds fantastic. Well these three lucky writers are getting to do or have done just that:
US author: David D Levine
UK author: Tim Lebbon
AU author: Joanne Anderton
Congratulations David, Tim and Joanne! I can’t wait to read all about it. I wonder in particular if your experiences will differ country to country…
David D Levine
Let’s start with David D Levine. Hello, David. Firstly, some stats. Please could you tell us:
The title of your collection: Space Magic
Its release date: 25 January 2013
Published through: Book View Café
One-sentence description: This Endeavour Award-winning collection pulls together 15 critically acclaimed science fiction and fantasy stories that take readers from a technicolor cartoon realm to an ancient China that never was, and from an America gone wrong to the very ends of the universe.
Great! Now let’s get stuck in…
1. Congratulations! It’s quite an honour to be asked to put together a short story collection. How did the opportunity arise for you?
After selling about 25 short stories, I thought it was time for a collection. I asked a friend who was a small-press publisher if she’d be interested, she requested a proposal with a certain word count, I selected the stories and sent them in, and she bought it!
2. How many reprints and how many originals will be included in your collection, and do you have a favourite story?
14 reprints and one original, “Falling Off the Unicorn.” My favorite of them all is “The Tale of the Golden Eagle,” the only story I’ve ever written that made me cry.
3. Do you have an overall theme or message for the collection?
I selected these stories to show off my range: fantasy and science fiction, comedy and drama, and a variety of voices. The name Space Magic hints that it’s a mix of SF and Fantasy (and is also a tip of the hat to The Jetsons).
4. To give us an idea of how long this collection has been in the making: which of the stories did you write first, and in which year did you write that story’s first draft?
The oldest story in the book is Nucleon, which I wrote in January of 2000. Despite the fact that I wrote it before I went to Clarion West, it won the James White Award and is one of my most reprinted stories. It will soon be translated into Hungarian!
5. You’ve been writing short stories for a long time now. How many years into your writing career did you write that first collection-worthy story?
Depends on how you define “writing career.” I was a prolific writer in high school and college, but then I took 15 years off because my day job was technical writing and writing fiction was too much like work. I started writing fiction again, after a career change, in 1998, and wrote Nucleon two years later.
6. There are lots of writers out there who would love to publish a short story collection. Do you have any advice for them about (a) the writing of their stories, and (b) publishing them?
The best advice I can give about writing short (or long!) fiction is to be true to yourself. Don’t try to write what you think other people will want to read, write what you want to read! Then seek out a publisher who has published something similar.
“Space Magic” by David D Levine
7. What do you anticipate will be or has been the hardest part of getting your collection ready for release? What will be/has been the easiest part of the process?
Formatting the collection from Word files into EPUB and MOBI was surprisingly easy (I used Scrivener) but producing the 15 separate short story files was much more work than I’d anticipated. Dealing with all the ebook stores, especially Apple, has also been terribly time-consuming. And publicity is very hard for me!
8. Which short story writer do you admire most and why? How have they influenced your own short story writing?
For years, my favorite writer was Larry Niven, who combined clear prose, interesting plots based on physics and astronomy, and fascinating aliens. I’m also a big fan of writers such as Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, and George R. R. Martin, who flitted back and forth between SF and Fantasy.
9. What promotional activities do you have planned for your collection?
It will be promoted via the Book View Café website and blog, by the members of the Book View Café collective individually, and I’ve been doing a number of blog interviews like this one. I’ve also made a promotional video for the upcoming anthology The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, which I hope to piggyback on for some Space Magic sales: “Letter to the Editor”.
10. What’s next? Please tell us about your next writing project.
I’m working on a novel set in an alternate English Regency with airship travel to Mars and Venus. Arabella, born on Mars, was recently hauled back to Earth by her mother and finds England stifling. When she learns her evil cousin plans to travel to Mars, kill her brother, and inherit the family fortune, she disguises herself as a boy and joins the crew of a fast merchant ship in hopes of stopping him. But pirates, mutiny, and rebellion intervene. Will she reach her brother in time?
Wow – sounds amazing. Good luck for that, and thank you for joining us here today!
What about you, dear reader? Do you have a short story collection you’d like to publish and, if so, what interested you most about David’s answers? Let me know in the comments below. Next time, we’ll ask the same questions of our UK author Tim Lebbon.
