I am considering having a Smashwords offering sometime this summer most likely. It would be a short story compilation with a couple of other works thrown in also. I would include my 2 Act Play, A Granny’s Park Christmas.
Several reasons for thinking of going the Smashwords route. For one, a couple of the stories have already been published (one will be next month) and I have full rights to do whatever I wish with them. Although I still have two stories under consideration, the whole short story market for magazine publishing whether online or not, is so jammed up! I mean, it isn’t unusual for the magazine people to have to wade through 1k stories a month! Another thing I have considered is that quite a few of these literary online magazines are the work of students, not that I have anything against them, but sorry, they are not professional editors.
And my final reason is that I want a platform for the stage play. I have submitted this work to all of the viable sources since 2007. And there are only a bare few sources who publish and distribute plays. Most of these sources require a production before they will consider the work. I’ve tried marketing to theaters and didn’t get far, they only talk to agents. Tried the agent route and they want a production in hand before they will look at it. Personally, I believe the play is new and different from almost anything I have seen or known about for a Christmas production. It is not a musical, it is not a retelling of some other work, and it is not a religious theme (although it is G rated for the family), and there is not a Santa in sight. It’s simply not the same old thing you see every year from live theater (good Lord, how many Christmas Carols, and Night Before Christmas, and Wise Men plays can you stand!).
So, I think I will keep my submissions active for the couple of short stories I have already submitted. If they get rejected then I will include them in the Smashwords project. If they get accepted I may yet include them depending on when they appear. But I am about 80% set on this idea. I’ll keep the price under $2 and see if anything happens.
Thoughts?
William Baker-author 
I honestly had not heard of this before and I am really glad to have found your blog. I just looked at other the site and I am even considering it for my future projects, should it come to publishing. I have been considering a poetry ebook and I definitely think I would use that for publishing that book.
I think it’s important to have options and it sounds like you are trying all of the available routes you have open to you. I say stick to what you wrote, should you need to do it. I will definitely keep up with this and I would love to hear in the end what you decide to do. Good luck!
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I think it’s a good idea. I went with Amazon because I liked the royalty charts, but the world is moving rapidly toward self-publishing and the days of the traditional agent/editor/publisher are severely numbered. Good luck.
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