Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 6 Comments

Traditional Publishing, Self Publishing, or Hybrid? A Poll

A couple of weeks ago, I reblogged Lara Willard’s post about the different choices a writer has to get published. Even though I decided that traditional publishing was what I wanted, I’d still like to know what the other side has to offer, because deep down I haven’t rejected the idea of self publishing something. However, since I’m not yet published (either self pubished or trad published) I’d like to know the pros and cons of each.

So I turn to you. What is your take on this? Why did you choose the publishing path you chose? I’d really appreciate it if you took the time to answer. Please feel free to reblog this (in fact, I’d be very happy if you did), or talk about it to as many of your writer-friends as you can. The more people answer, the clearer the picture for me and others will be. So far, the options I know about are the following:
A) Self-publish
B) Traditional Publish (either through an agency or through a small press. I think we can all agree that vanity presses should be excluded)
C) Hybrid

If I’ve missed any other option, please comment. You can select more than one option.

I chose

 

 

C) to be a Hybrid writer because:

Please specify in the comments.

As I said, I don’t really know the benefits of either option, which made it very hard for me to come up with questions that will cover as many probable answers as possible, other the almost cliché “I wanted the best of both options.” So, for you, the hybrid writers, I would appreciate it if you could take the time and answered in the comments section.

After a few weeks I intend to return to this post and discuss the results.
Thank you all for participating. Please feel free to reblog this.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 5 Comments

Thoughts on the upcoming publication

It’s been a while since I wrote a short story. The reason is I’ve been busy with life and drafting the next novel. I’ve also been editing my synopsis, my query letter, trying to find more agents that might be interested for a story like The Darkening, etc. The list goes on and on.

So I’m really excited that one of my older short stories is only five days away from publication. This coming Friday the 22nd, Bride of Chaos will publish my story, Whisps of Memory, in their 12th issue of 9 Tales told in the Dark, along with eight more stories. As the title of the publication suggests, this is a collection of horror stories, and the genre may not be something everyone likes.

But thinking about this story and how long it took to get published, how many magazines I had to research through The Grinder before I found one that was a good match, I couldn’t help but notice how few magazines there are out there compared to the number of writers. And again, to a certain extent, I think it comes down to the fact that magazines and small presses need our support to survive. I talked about the importance of these presses and magazines in an older post, so I won’t bore you by repeating myself. But I will stress the need for these markets to carry on doing what they do. A few weeks back I learned that yet another magazine, one that had published one of my stories in the past, closed permanently. The main reason was lack of readership, which of course resulted in lack of funding.

If you’d like, talk to your friends and families, ask them if they can spare the money to occasionally buy an issue from a lesser known magazine. This upcoming publication also needs our support. Just to be clear, I’m not trying to make you give me money by buying the issue my story’s included. No. I was already paid for my story, and I intend to return some of that money by buying the issue, just like any other reader. There are no royalties involved or any other form of gain for me, except knowing my story will reach an audience (you can check their submission guidelines if you don’t believe me). What I am saying is that it’s important you help and support small magazines, so writers like us – all of us – can continue publishing our works and experiencing that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. You know the feeling I’m talking about. I know all of you experience it every time you publish something, be it self-published or otherwise. If you still think I’m trying to make you buy this particular book, go to amazon, type “magazine” in the search bar, choose your favourite category from the list on the left, and buy whichever literary magazine you like. Who knows? You may come to like some of the stories there, perhaps even discover a writer whose style is closer to what you like.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 5 Comments

Published short story

I got published for the first time in 2014. That year was great for me, and totaled three short stories published in webzines. Loved them all, and it saddened me when two of those magazines ceased their operations. I think there’s a kitten whimpering with its head hung for every literary magazine that closes. For some of you, three short stories are nothing. Okay, maybe most of you craft that many in a day or so. But for me, short stories aren’t all that easy. I prefer coming up with longer narratives, stories where I can delve into some world building, deeper character arcs etc, so three were just fine 🙂 Lets not forget I had only started writing a year before that.

I had high hopes for 2015, and I kept whoring my stories left and right, as Faulkner once said. Alas, 2015 sucked! I probably collected more rejection emails from that year than a seamstress has pins in her arsenal.

2016 on the other hand, seems to be a promising one. “Seems” is the keyword, as always. Bride of Chaos will publish a short story of mine for its 9Tales Told in the Dark series, sometime around April. Have a look at them, and if you like horror, fantasy, or sci-fi consider supporting the magazine. I’ve already stated my opinion on literary magazines in a previous message, and I stand by what I had said back then.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Published yet again??

Hello dear readers!

You may wonder why there are question marks on the title of this post. Here goes.

Shortly after I had finished polishing up the short story titled “The Darkening” (I mentioned it on last week’s post) that will appear on Voluted Tales, I wrote another short story (though longer by far compared to any other short story I had written), borrowing certain elements from my country’s mythology. The story takes place in our current timeline but it features two rather prominent characters from Greek mythology, Hades being one of them, ruler of the Underworld.

This particular story is the only one that I have deleted and re-written more than five times so far and in most cases due to the ending. I never seemed to be satisfied with the way the story ended. After a while, I just gave up (shocking, I know) and decided that I would either get it published as it was or that it would simply never make it and perhaps I could get back to it at a later time when I would self-publish all those short stories that no one wanted. I hoped that as the years would go by, I should be able to spot the mistakes and refine it even further.

Luckily, while searching for a magazine to send some other short stories that haven’t been made public yet, I came across a magazine that in its submission guidelines stated they were interested in stories with ancient gods. You can understand my excitement when I saw it. I thought to myself, if this magazine turned me down as well, then the story was doomed to be for ever rejected, an outcast of sorts. Well, the good news is the editor of the magazine wants to run the story for their autumn issue. The bad news is that it needs polishing up. She offered to send notes and suggestions, provided I was ok with that. Obviously, I replied that I would be more than happy to look over anything she sent. I thought this would be a great chance to see how magazine editors think and point out things that annoy them in a story (the instances where one can learn new things are so many after all!).

The problem is that it’s been almost a week since then and I still haven’t received her notes and suggestions, to the point where I’m getting worried she may had second thoughts about the whole thing. I asked a friend of mine, who is far more experienced in the matter – since he has been published so many times – for any insights on what this delay might mean. So, the plan is to send a follow up email tomorrow and ask about the notes. If she says no to the story, well, no harm done I guess, though I wouldn’t mind having another story published 🙂

In other news, the novel progresses steadily. Word count indicates that I wrote just over 6700 words this week, which is not great but considering the alternative of not being able to write anything at all (I just shuddered at the thought), it’s ok-ish :/ Grand total so far is 48000 words, so I’m a little under 43% of what the final word count for the 1st draft should be.

Hopefully, next week I will have some good news to share with you, namely another upcoming publication. Cross your fingers for me please 🙂

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 4 Comments

Published again!!!

So many things happened in the past week and all of them great!

I have good news my friends; I’m going to be published again. Voluted tales, a literary magazine, has honoured me by accepting a short story of mine and it’s scheduled for publication before the end of the year. I don’t have a definitive date yet but once I have one I will let you know and give you a link to the story itself. For the time being, if you are interested in taking the time in checking the magazine out, their web address is at here.

I’m very excited about this acceptance, as this story is dearest to me and also the one that sparked the novel I’m currently working on. I spoke about it here. It’s the one short story I have worked the most on and it’s also the very first one that I ever sent out to magazines, not to mention that it’s also the second story I had ever written in my life (the first one was just so I could practice some exercises I had read about and I needed a completed story). As a result it’s also the one that has accumulated the most rejections. I was lucky enough for some of them to be personal rejection letters, which had very helpful comments that I later used to improve not only that story but also the ones that followed. It was thanks to this story that I managed to be published earlier in the year by Beyond Imagination. So you can understand how partial I am to this story.

Over the past months that I have been trying to find a home for it and ending up getting rejected, I very often thought about hiring an editor to help me pinpoint the mistakes I was unable to see. It would have been of great help to me to see how proper editing is done and see the small details he/she would add and make the story shine. I think it would have helped me considerably, cause I would have learned something new. Guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for that to happen but at some point down the road (not too far down the road, mind you) I hope will have the chance to work with such a professional. I think I can learn things from it.

In other news, the novel I’m working on progresses somewhat slower but hasn’t stopped. Writing on a cellphone is not easy (my eyes can testify to that, lol). I finished two more scenes, so that’s about 6200 words in total. It’s not great but it’s not bad either. Currently I’m stuck because of my nemesis, the dialogues. I can never seem to get them right or at least good enough. If you have any insights to offer with material on how to write good dialogues, please share 🙂

I also came up with an idea for another story (whether it will be a book or short story or something in between is something that I haven’t decided yet). Never before had I ever felt the need to wake up because of an idea getting lodged into my head (no, it wasn’t a dream), but it was enough to get me out of bed and start taking notes about it, while my eyes were still closed. To be honest, I hadn’t had a new idea for a while (I have taken notes on many things and ideas since I started writing) and this one was god-sent. The only bad thing is that I can’t (or rather, I shouldn’t) work on it any more, until the current project is finished. Otherwise I’m risking not finishing anything. I am very excited about it though. Seems promising but only time will tell if it will be good enough.

Finally, a friend I came to know through this blog that has supported me considerably during my darker mood swings or when I got discouraged by rejections, has just published her first novel. Her name is Dee King and her book is a YA novel. The author’s blog is here. You can find all the necessary information about the book there. If you have the time or the curiosity, stop by her blog and check her book out. I’m really proud of her. Finishing a book is not an easy thing to do, as I’ve now come to understand 🙂