How do I Market a Collection of Short Stories?

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Eighteen months ago I decided to expand my writing horizon and learn how to write short stories for no other reason, than to see if I could. Playing around with voice and structure, I was inspired by lots of different things around me and let my imagination run wild on the page.

Some of my stories were leveraged from real events which I suppose many writers do. I read somewhere that writers should write what they know. Historical fiction for me is not necessarily what I know but what I’ve found out. My short stories on the other hand are closer to what I know or have observed.

Now that I have a collection of short stories what do I do with them? One of my stories has been published in the Monash Writers Group Anthology while another was short listed in the Lane Cove Literary Awards.

I’ve published one novel so why not publish a collection of short stories. The process is similar. It needs an editor, a snappy book cover, an ISBN, formatting etc.

But the marketing is quite different. My novel fell neatly into an historical fiction niche. Where does a collection of short stories fall? Who reviews short stories? Who are my readers? How do I get a readership in amongst all the books that are published daily?

If anyone has successfully marketed a short story collection, I would love to hear from you. In the meantime, I’m getting read to publish and take the leap into another new round of learning.

17 thoughts on “How do I Market a Collection of Short Stories?”

  1. kathycecala

    Are you planning to self-publish or find a traditional publisher? Short story collections can be hard to market either way, but it can be done; I think that niche is becoming more popular among readers.

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  4. Barbara

    I think short stories are hard to market but I love that you are doing it. You will help create that market like we all do with our books, (well some better than other lol). I look forward to you sharing the process.

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  5. ashutoshrg

    That’s inspiring to know, since I started writing short stories only a few months ago. It’ll be of much help to me too, if I get to know about publishers and the audience etc. For short stories. Great job. 🙂

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  6. Day's Lee

    I published a short story collection with Smashwords because the publishers I queried said short story collections are hard to sell. Even though sales have not been great, it was a good learning experience. Have you entered any in contests?

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