Self-Publishing a Short Story

I now have "an award-winning short story." By its very nature, it is unpublished. Almost every single contest, conference, workshop, and literary dilly-o requires the submission of "unpublished work." As I just got this award and there's a massive lead time on journal submission, journal reading, journal rejection or acceptance, and then possible journal publication, it's likely this short story will remain that way for at least half a year or longer.

I read an excerpt from this short story at a packed house at the Key West Literary Seminar.



Afterwards, several people asked to read the short story in its entirety. One of the KWLS staff members said he, too, got many requests from others to read my short story. I told him to let me get settled back home, have another looksy at it, revise it again, and I'd email it to him.

Then, I attended Margaret Atwood's workshop and there was a discussion about my unpublished "award-winning short story."

"Put it out as a Kindle single," she said. Over the course of the four days with her, I continually got the impression that she was a big supporter of DIY writing careers, including doing some self-publishing.

I seriously considered it, but then realized that should I offer it as a Kindle single, it would be published and no longer a viable submission option for this year's round of conference applications. I decided I'd wait. Try "traditional" publication methods for six months and see what happens. Come August, I decided, I'd see if I'd take even more of Atwood's advice.

Then I saw this from Matt Debenham. He had an unpublished award finalist short story that he decided to put out as a single. I'll be following this "experiment" of his closely.

Anyone else consider self-publishing a short story? Does it being an award-winner or contest finalist give it more clout?