Literary Success Literally From Nowhere
I've published a few stories here and there, mostly with very small publications or online-only outfits. Many have offered very little in the way of compensation, which is all but expected in the bush leagues of writing these days. One such place was Every Day Fiction, a site which provides flash fiction (less than 100 words long) to readers daily. As one might expect, this leaves them hungry for content and without much of a budget to pay authors.
I submitted a piece called "Beloaralsk" to EDF during summer 2008, while I was in limbo between graduation and my first job. I was anxious to build my resume as a writer just in case it wound up being a primary career. Not much came of it but a few rejections and EDF's one acceptance, for which I was paid a total of three dollars. I wrote "Beloaralsk" during a monthlong flash-a-day challenge which turned out to be a really fruitful period, with a lot of those ideas being developed into longer pieces or revised into publishable stories. It's the story of a Russian boy and his seafaring grandfather, with a slight twist at the end, and is readable in full, for free, at www.everydayfiction.com/beloaralsk-by-alex-watson/
And for a long time, I thought that was the end of it. A small, obscure story, a small obscure paycheck, and a small obscure resume item.
Until this came out of left field: a representative from academic publisher Pearson posted on my blog, asking me to contact them about a reprint. I did so, only to find that the rep wanted to offer me $500 for the rights to "Beloaralsk" in an academic context.
I feared that this was a "give-up-all-your-rights-forever" type situation, but actually, and I quote, "You retain all rights to your story and can do with it as you wish, including licensing it to other entities for publication." So there is literally no downside.
Best (or strangest) of all, I literally did nothing to earn this. The story was out there, they found it, somehow, and they made an offer. The story was published on an obscure site years ago and somehow someone from the publishing company stumbled on it. Still, despite a rough day at work, despite just coming off of two days of sick leave, that was enough to put me in a good mood.
I submitted a piece called "Beloaralsk" to EDF during summer 2008, while I was in limbo between graduation and my first job. I was anxious to build my resume as a writer just in case it wound up being a primary career. Not much came of it but a few rejections and EDF's one acceptance, for which I was paid a total of three dollars. I wrote "Beloaralsk" during a monthlong flash-a-day challenge which turned out to be a really fruitful period, with a lot of those ideas being developed into longer pieces or revised into publishable stories. It's the story of a Russian boy and his seafaring grandfather, with a slight twist at the end, and is readable in full, for free, at www.everydayfiction.com/beloaralsk-by-alex-watson/
And for a long time, I thought that was the end of it. A small, obscure story, a small obscure paycheck, and a small obscure resume item.
Until this came out of left field: a representative from academic publisher Pearson posted on my blog, asking me to contact them about a reprint. I did so, only to find that the rep wanted to offer me $500 for the rights to "Beloaralsk" in an academic context.
I feared that this was a "give-up-all-your-rights-forever" type situation, but actually, and I quote, "You retain all rights to your story and can do with it as you wish, including licensing it to other entities for publication." So there is literally no downside.
Best (or strangest) of all, I literally did nothing to earn this. The story was out there, they found it, somehow, and they made an offer. The story was published on an obscure site years ago and somehow someone from the publishing company stumbled on it. Still, despite a rough day at work, despite just coming off of two days of sick leave, that was enough to put me in a good mood.