Self publishing short stories/essays, where to begin?

[ビンス]

Hello /lit/, I have some questions about publication and I was hoping maybe some of you have some answers.

I hate writing books, not sure why but I just do. I love writing essays and short stories though. I want to get some of my stories published but I don't have enough to make an anthology. Do any of you know if its possible to get just a single story published, and if so, where?

 

[Voicedrew]

@Eden

Start a website!!!!111

Many option, all good, join webring(s), syndicate with RSS.

 

[№56]

Thesis: self-publish your stories and essays on their own, either as pamphlets in the real world or as posts on a personal website.
Antithesis: send your writing to a journal or magazine, either print or electronic, that accepts submissions from amateurs.
Synthesis: create your own journal or magazine based on a theme that appears in your own work, collect submissions from other people, and publish them alongside what you've already written.

 

[ビンス]

Thank you all for the advice, I think I'm going to start my own website!

 

[Eden]

Sorry for the slight delay in responding to this:
Bear Blog
Mataroa
Smol Pub
Ichi
Neocities
thoughts.page
omg.lol ~ Reasonable (imo) full website service (and more) for $20 per year
Obsidian Publish ~ At $8 per month ($96 per year), I consider it too pricey to be worth recommending (especially if you're just starting out, unsure how you feel about things and have never used nor desire to use Obsidian). But I have met plenty of happy people using it.
micro.blog ~ At a (starting) $5 per month ($60 per year) I also consider it too pricey but here it is.

Deciding can really depend on how tech-savvy you are. Not much: you may enjoy paying so that you can just focus on what you care about: WRITING! a little: you may just want a free service that holds your hand a little. pretty-savvy? you gain a lot more control over presentation and autonomy that many people enjoy having / take pride in. Good luck and feel free to respond / ask questions. I don't know them all intricately but if you're not techie a lot of us here on Agora are.

 

[RisingThumb]

Thesis: self-publish your stories and essays on their own, either as pamphlets in the real world or as posts on a personal website.

I agree with this point. As an addendum, collect all your stories together and publish it all as a complete work or anthology when you have enough of them.
As for how to create the book? LaTeX. LaTeX rocks! I use ChatGPT to help me with formatting LaTeX docs

 

[ビンス]

Sorry for the slight delay in responding to this:
Bear Blog
Mataroa
Smol Pub
Ichi
Neocities
thoughts.page
omg.lol ~ Reasonable (imo) full website service (and more) for $20 per year
Obsidian Publish ~ At $8 per month ($96 per year), I consider it too pricey to be worth recommending (especially if you're just starting out, unsure how you feel about things and have never used nor desire to use Obsidian). But I have met plenty of happy people using it.
micro.blog ~ At a (starting) $5 per month ($60 per year) I also consider it too pricey but here it is.

Deciding can really depend on how tech-savvy you are. Not much: you may enjoy paying so that you can just focus on what you care about: WRITING! a little: you may just want a free service that holds your hand a little. pretty-savvy? you gain a lot more control over presentation and autonomy that many people enjoy having / take pride in. Good luck and feel free to respond / ask questions. I don't know them all intricately but if you're not techie a lot of us here on Agora are.

Thank you for the suggestions! I already reserved my neocities domain, I really just need to get better at html and what not. I think I'll make something bad looking but functional and improve it as I go.

 

[Voicedrew]

Thank you for the suggestions! I already reserved my neocities domain, I really just need to get better at html and what not. I think I'll make something bad looking but functional and improve it as I go.

Feel free to use chatGPT if you feel stuck.

 

[Digital Cheese]

Make a website, Neocities.ORG lets u host one for free and u get like 1GB of space (50GB if u pay, plus you'd be allowed to upload anything). You can also use GitHub repositories, but depends on if you trust GitHub or not (but if you have a custom domain, you can disable the forcing of HTTPS which is what I did for Venith.NET so DSi/Wii users can also use my site).

If you need HTML/CSS knowledge, its pretty easy and you can find stuff on W3Schools.

HTML Tutorial

W3Schools offers free online tutorials, references and exercises in all the major languages of the web. Covering popular subjects like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, SQL, Java, and many, many more.

www.w3schools.com

CSS Tutorial

W3Schools offers free online tutorials, references and exercises in all the major languages of the web. Covering popular subjects like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, SQL, Java, and many, many more.

www.w3schools.com

 

[Razzle Dazzle]

I have three stories I wish to publish:

1. My autobiography, been writing it for over a decade.
2. A screenplay against Japan's Black Companies; Rage Against the Machine
3. A couple of fanfics or two.

 

[Ross_Я]

Start a website!!!!111

I mean, this frankly looks like the best option. As I'm looking into all the variants, your own Wiki site seems like a good idea. Either that, or finding somebody who could help me to get into self-hosting - then I won't have to worry about somebody taking my stuff down because I've shared something copyrighted accidentally. Or not accidentally.

 

[nsequeira119]

A few years ago, I sent around 3 of my sci-fi short stories into some of the big magazines on the coast- I forget which magazine I sent them to, exactly, but it was one of the ones that's been around for decades, and I had to format the stories correctly with spacing and indents and all that crap, and join a queue- and then, after a month of waiting, I just got rejected. So I gave up on that. Since then, I've started a small sci-fi magazine locally for Denver artists, because there are a lot of good Denver sci-fi authors who I feel deserve a shot to see their work published, at least in some capacity.

As for me, I've resorted completely to self-publishing. I write the stuff, format it so that it'll look good on basically any printer, then I go to the library and print off as much as I can reasonably get away with. I staple and glue my stuff like there's no tomorrow, and then I put some away in my private stock, which I bring to sales and expos, and I leave free copies around in cafes and bookstores from time to time. It works remarkably well, provided the content is good quality and catches the eye of whoever stumbles across it. That's the way to go these days- publishing houses are a scam, like record labels. They just screw you over and inhibit your potential.