Marie at 1 Write Way

How I Self-Published a Short Story

Recently a friend asked me to write about my experience with BookFunnel. This post will go beyond that since my experience is tethered to the publication of my short story, Love Me Tender. (For background on the story itself, read my post, Mother’s Day: Remembering My Mom and A Story to Give Away.)

Please note that the links provided in this post are not affiliate links; that is, I won’t get a commission or other compensation if you click on them.

I decided to self-publish Love Me Tender for two reasons: (1) the story is so personal that I simply didn’t want to deal with rejections any more; and (2) I wanted to test the waters of self-publication. I’ll be 67 next month and, although I’ve had a few publications over the years, I no longer expect or hope to become a traditionally published author. Time is running out. If I want to be read, I’ll need to do the publishing myself.

But how?

Vellum

I did not want to work with Amazon, not for a short story anyway, and I wasn’t interested in learning how to do book design. Whatever I did, it had to be easy-peasy. I did a little online research (this article by Parrydox was particularly informative) and settled on Vellum software for creating ebooks and paperbacks. Two things sold me on Vellum: (1) the ability to set up and view my short story in ebook form before buying the software; and (2) the possible ease in uploading my story to stores such as Amazon. I say “possible” because I haven’t yet used that feature of the software. Early days.

So I formatted, revised, and reformatted my story using Vellum and generated several different formats. Vellum essentially held my hand the whole way.

Now what? How am I going to get my story into the hands of readers, or at least their electronic devices?

BookFunnel

I recalled getting emails from authors who needed ARC reviewers, and that most of them used BookFunnel to provide the ARC. So I went to BookFunnel. For a $20 annual subscription, I was able to upload the required ebook and print formats to make my story available–for free–to readers. I tested it and, frankly, it’s kind of cool to see my short story on my Kindle.

BookFunnel does offer more than just a place to pick up a free ebook. You can require readers to provide their email addresses and develop a subscriber list. And BookFunnel has its own “bookstore.” But, again, early days. If I decide to self-publish my novels, it might well be worth using more of BookFunnel’s services.

Now, what about readers who don’t use electronic devices to read? For me, there’s still nothing like holding a printed book in my hand. I tried formatting in Word, thinking I could print a few copies myself.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Lulu

Then I remembered Lulu. No, not the singer.

I mean, Lulu, the online self-publishing book and ebook company. I had heard of Lulu through NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) years ago. Lulu held my hand as I uploaded my print file and reformatted the cover design to fit its specifications. I’ve since ordered several copies of my story to mail to family. It was not cheap but it was worth it. Lulu also has a bookstore and, holding my hand again, I was able to add my story to their bookstore in case anyone wanted to purchased a copy.

I could price my story as I wanted as long as the price was above Lulu’s printing costs. I have no interest in making money off Love Me Tender so I set the retail price at a few cents over the printing costs.

So, in a nutshell:

  1. Vellum.pub to create the ebook and paperback formats
  2. BookFunnel.com to provide the formats to readers for free
  3. Lulu.com to provide printed copies at cost.

Since the publication of my short story on Mother’s Day, 15 copies have been downloaded from BookFunnel. More than I expected since the only “marketing” I’ve done is through this blog and a couple of social media sites.

The responses from friends and family have been both gratifying and validating. If Love Me Tender is all I ever publish, I can be happy with that.

Early days.

So, dear Reader, have you self-published? What was your experience like, as far as getting your work into the world?

Do you think I was trying to make it too easy on myself? Be honest.

Any thoughts about making one’s ebooks available for free? On some platforms, there is endless (i.e., ad nauseam) discussions about why we writers should be paid for every single word we write. I understand that if writing is your livelihood, but if it isn’t … .

Thank you for reading. I leave you with an oldie-but-goodie of Junior (RIP).

Marie A Bailey

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38 responses to “How I Self-Published a Short Story”

  2. I have not self-published, and it just seems to be way too much work for me–though I may have to look into it, if I ever want to get another collection published. I appreciate that you took the time to explain what you went through.

    Such a wonderful photo of Junior! ❤️

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  5. Thanks for this, Marie. I might have to look into BookFunnel for my next project, esp. in terms of getting ARCs out there for early reviews.

    I’ve given away a lot more copies of my books than I’ve sold (as many as 3000 for Occasional Soulmates!), but it has never yielded much in the way of feedback or Amazon reviews. I’m thinking of pricing my books at $100 a copy just to make a point, but what this really boils down to is that it’s damn hard to get people to read our stuff. And to engage.

    Still, it’s always fun to prepare a book for publication, from formatting the text to designing the covers, and all the rest. I should have gone into the production side of publishing!

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  11. Thank you, Marie for sharing this valuable information. I have self-published most of my books through Amazon and now with my latest novel I am considering going another route. Who did your cover?

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    • You’re welcome, Carol! I’m glad you find the info helpful. I used Canva to do my cover. I picked a design I liked and added the book title and my name. It took a bit of finessing to size the cover so the Vellum software would accept it. I used a trial subscription to Canva in order to use that particular design. If I keep publishing, it might be worth having a full subscription ;-)

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  12. Thanks for the reviews of the services available.

    I’ve only self-published in the sense that every blog post I put out there into the world means I hit the publish button.

    Any thoughts about making one’s ebooks available for free? I suppose it depends on how determined you are to make money off your writing. I don’t do much with my Kindle, preferring a paper book in hand, so free or not I wouldn’t be reading what you wrote.

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    • Yeah, that’s the kicker, Ally. It costs $ to print books, but I have thought about giving away x number of books for free if anyone has a real interest in reading them. Having people read my work is more important to me than making $ :-)

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  13. Thank you for this info, Marie. I’ve self-published 2 novels (1 w/ an audio version), a “writing how to,” plus an audio short story collection, plus 1 traditionally published novel and 1 traditionally published anthology. Plus, you know, the hand-bound novel that I did as an art project with a friend. So, that’s all over the place isn’t it? I found self-publishing so much work. I’ve finally gotten at least 2 (maybe 3) novels ready for publication, and I’m totally at a loss what to do. Low chance of getting accepted by small presses; so much work to self-publish. Here I float, stymied. So I’m most impressed with your decisive action.

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    • Thanks, Ellen. I am impressed with all that you have done! Self-publishing is a lot of work, but I wonder if being traditionally published (or rather the effort to be traditionally published) isn’t harder. So much work goes into trying to get an agent or publisher to just take an interest, and then it seems that, these days, most publishers expect the author to do their own marketing anyway. But then, with my short story, I was keeping my expectations low, and I was willing to buy copies of the story to send to family members. If I self-publish again, I might have to change my strategy :-)

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