The Importance of Writing Short Stories

By Stephanie Burkhart 

Break out the thesaurus and find an hour or two this month to get the juices flowing on that short story you always wanted to write – May is National Short Story Month. 

There are several different kinds of shorts. Flash Fiction shorts are usually 1,000 words or less, and depict a “telling” moment. 1 or 2 characters may be involved. 

A short story usually falls between 1,000 – 7,000 words and again, is centered on a “revealing” moment. With a short story, you can place that revealing moment in the beginning and play out the consequences, or at the end after a strong build up. 

A novelette comes in between 7,000 – 20,000 words. This length allows a writer to focus on one main character and the story. 

A novella is between 20,000 – 50,000 words. Like a novelette, the story is most effective when the focus is on one main character and one plot. 

Parables and fables are some of the earliest known “shorts.” Going back about 150-200 years, Washington Irving, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe not only mastered the craft of short story telling, but defined the era of writing a short story focusing on plot, character, and consequences. 

In the early 20^th Century, magazines like Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and Saturday Evening Post, created a demand for short stories and paid well – so well that F. Scott Fitzgerald took to writing short stories to pay the bills. 

The popularity of the short story tapered off a bit in the past 50-60 years, but has recently resurged after finding a new audience.

With the introduction of ereaders, downloading stories has never been easier. What short stories provide is a quick read with a satisfying ending. - at least, most are satisfying, but ereaders totally invigorated the market for short stories. How? Short stories usually command a lower price point making then a good impulse buy. Sites such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, are popular places for readers to feed their ereaders.  

Strategies employed by authors using short stories include using the stories as a “free” giveaway when readers sign up for e-newsletters or as a reward for winning a contest. Shorts can be used to promote a novel, or written to help keep the joy of writing alive. An author might consider using the Kindle Select Program. While you do give Kindle exclusive access to publish the short for 90 days, the 5 free days offered can help get sales off the ground. Due to their length, short stories have proven to wet a reader’s appetite for more works from an author. They’re a great way for authors to break out in a very competitive publishing world. 

Question: As an author, do you write short stories? Why or Why not? Do you find them helpful in promoting/marketing efforts? 

Reference for this blog: “Writer’s Digest,” May/June 2015, “Short Strategic,” by James Scott Bell, pages 23-27.

Author Bio: Stephanie Burkhart is a 911 Dispatcher for LAPD. She served 11 years in the US Army and 7 years overseas in Germany. She adores coffee, enjoys coffee and likes taking walks.  She's also the den leader for her son's cub scouts den.  Her published children's stories include "The Giving Meadow," "First Flag of New Hampshire," and "Brady's Lost Blanket." 

FIND ME ON THE WEB AT:

WEBSITE:

http://www.stephanieburkhart.com

TWITTER:

http://twitter.com/StephBurkhart

FACEBOOK: 
https://www.facebook.com/StephanieBurkhartAuthor

GOOD READS:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4031660.Stephanie_Burkhart

YOU TUBE CHANNEL:
http://www.youtube.com/user/botrina?feature=mhee

PINTEREST:
http://pinterest.com/sgburkhart/

OWFI Writing Contest Winners from 4RV

Cynthia Henzel with new release and Vivian Zabel, publisher

     The Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc (OWFI) holds a writing contest and a conference each year. During the Saturday night banquet at the conference, the 1st Vice-president announces the winners. With that background, let's visit the 2015 OWFI Conference.

     Several of us arrived at Embassy Suites in Oklahoma City beginning April 30, with others following May 1, when actual sessions began. We had staff  and authors attend from Texas, Arizona, and Oklahoma. I'm not sure who traveled the farther, Holly Jahangiri from Houston or Cynthia Henzel from Tucson. Jacque Graham, Renee' LaViness, Vickey Malone, Jen Nipps (our new assistant to the editor-in-chief), Nikola Marshall (a new acquisition editor) and I represented the editorial staff and board. Authors attending included Janet K. Brown, Jim Laughter, Tony LoPresti, Cynthia Henzel (whose first novel with 4RV made its debute), and Holly Jahangiri, as well as me.

     When winners were announced at Saturday's banquet, some 4RV authors received awards.

Cynthia Henzel with her 1st place certificate and check

Cynthia Henzel took first place in Middle Grade Unpublished Book . Hopefully she will give 4RV the opportunity to publish the book some day. She participated in the author autograph party for Young Adult books with her new release Myth Rider.

Holly Jahangiri with her 2nd place

Holly Jahangiri received 2nd place in Flash Fiction with her story "#2 Pencil." She also participated in the author autograph party for children's books with Trockle and A Puppy, Not a Guppy.

Vivian Zabel with her 2nd place award

Vivian Zabel took 2nd place in Blog/Column with her blog entry "How to Describe Deep Emotional Pain" and Honorable Mention for her Memoir/Nostalgia Article "I Don't Want to Know."

     We had an enjoyable time, learned much to help with our writing and publishing business. Hopefully, next year we'll have more 4RV people enter the contest, attend the conference, and bring home awards.

Back up your data

A couple of weeks ago my laptop died. It refused to power up. No warning -- suddenly there was a message about the battery being low, even though the power cord was plugged in at the time. Then the machine switched itself off and refused to come back on.

There was nothing wrong with the power cord  -- I have another laptop that belongs to my day job, and it uses the same one -- but there it was -- dead.

This was the laptop that I used for my writing. I used a tool called Scrivener. I love it, but using it means that whatever I'm writing pretty much exists only on my laptop.

However, I'm paranoid about data loss, so I regularly compile (produced a .doc or .rtf version of my novel) and save it somewhere. I had a  onedrive disk mapped onto my laptop, and thus it's accessible from anywhere. I did this regularly, about once a day.

I had two novels I was working  on in scrivener, and thus I have current .doc versions of both of them. When I replace my laptop, I can import them back into scrivener, which will be something of a pain, but doable. In the mean time, I can turn on track changes and continue to work on them.

So what should you take away from this? Back up your data. Use Onedrive, or Dropbox, or something else, but make sure you have copies of your work. You never know when you're going to need it. 

Selling Online - Ecommerce Shopping Cart Basics

If you’re selling anything online, you’re considered part of the ecommerce business arena, and you absolutely need an electronic shopping cart. But, how does it work and what type of cart do you need?

An electronic shopping cart is simply a software program or code from a shopping cart provider that you can use on your website. This program or code allows visitors to select products and make purchases directly from you.

If you’re selling anything online, you’re considered part of the ecommerce business arena, and you absolutely need an electronic shopping cart.

Webopedia explains that there are two basic forms of shopping carts. “Shopping carts can be sold as independent pieces of software so companies can integrate them into their own unique online solution, or they can be offered as a feature from a service that will create and host a company's e-commerce site.”

So, you can either use a standalone piece of software on your own Web server or you can use code from an e-commerce shopping cart provider/service. Either way, you’ll be able to sell from your website.

Along with its convenience, allowing you to sell digital and tangible products from your website, research shows that using an ecommerce shopping cart increases sales.

In 2009, PayPal conducted an internal study of 79,000 small merchants. It was discovered that adding a shopping cart increased their PayPal volume an average of 19% over a two-year period.

That’s a pretty nice sales increase.

It’s important though to realize that the shopping carts themselves don’t process payments. It’s the service you use that allows the payment process to go through.

The Simplest and One of the Cheapest Ways to Sell from Your Own Website

I’ve used PayPal for quite a while now and can attest that it’s easy and effective.

With the PayPal ecommerce shopping cart process, you create the shopping cart yourself. The instructions are simple to follow and you have a choice of using a single item Buy Button or a Drop-down Menu for multiple products or services. And, as with all services, there is a fee. PayPal charges 2.9% and .30 cents per transaction. That’s not bad for all you can do with this service.

 The PayPal system also has everything you need to customize your cart:

•    Tax
•    Shipping
•    Discount and coupon codes
•    Payment options
•    Tracking
•    Invoicing
•    Testing before you go live
•    And, more

In fact, PayPal is so popular a number of ecommerce shopping cart services have partnered with PayPal for their payment process. And, you can accept payments with your mobile device through another of PayPal’s services.

If you’re a WordPress user and want a plugin that uses PayPal, you can checkout:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-e-commerce-shopping-cart/

Other Options

If you like the PayPal system, but would rather not have your customers sent to its site during the purchasing process, you have options.

PayPal has partnered with several shopping cart services, such as Cashie Commerce and 3D Cart. Using another service has its benefits, one of which is keeping the buyer on your site through the purchasing process, but there’s a drawback to it, an additional cost.

These services charge a monthly fee, along with a percentage of each transaction. This is on top of the PayPal fees. So, be careful when looking into this process. Be sure you’re making enough sales to warrant the additional costs involved.

Keeping it Simple

No matter which ecommerce shopping cart system you use, simple is the way to go online. You want the essential features in a shopping cart without making it too complicated to use. The process needs to be easy to use with clear instructions.

If you haven’t yet taken the ‘sell on your own website’ move, get started now. Simply do an online search for carts or you can check out PayPal.

Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Karen Cioffi is a writer and online platform instructor. Her latest e-class is Get Website Traffic with Inbound Marketing. It's 4-weeks and is through WOW! Women on Writing. Click the link for details.

~~~~~

Shout Your Qualifications on Your Subscriber Opt-in Landing Page

By Karen Cioffi

All writers, including authors and freelance writers, must have a website. It’s just the way it is. And, it doesn’t matter whether you write fiction or nonfiction – you need a website.

Everyone from Writer’s Digest’s Chuck Sambuchino to Jane Friedman (formerly with Writer’s Digest, now an editor for the Virginia Quarterly Review) to agents to publishers, all adamantly proclaim the need for an author website, even before your book is published.

While a website is mandatory, another must-have is a separate landing page to entice visitors to subscribe to your mailing list.

Having a separate landing page for your email opt-in offer is just a good marketing move. The primary purpose of this separate page is to avoid visitor distraction. On a regular author website or freelance writer site there are usually too many options, which translate into distractions for the visitor.

Think about it.

Do you have a Home page, About page, Reviews page, Events page, Awards page, Excerpts and Illustration pages? Audio? Video? Do you have ads or other sidebar content?

These are all distracting features. They may have their purpose, but they are counterproductive in regard to focusing in on building your subscriber list.

When it comes to building an email list, your site must be focused – NO distractions – NO visitor anxiety. It should have clear call-to-action content with a simple opt-in process.

This page should fully explain the benefits the potential subscriber will get if he opts in, and it should also include what your qualifications are for offering this particular information, for claiming to be an authority in your niche.

Let Your Qualifications be Known

People need to be persuaded into subscribing to yet another mailing list and into buying what you’re offering, so you need to make the YES decision and process as easy as possible. Conveying your qualifications for writing your book and the book’s merits are part of this process. For example, if you write fiction:

•    Do you have a ‘big name’ publisher?
•    Did your book win any awards?
•    Is your book a best seller?
•    Do you have positive reviews and feedback?
•    Are there book illustrations you can share?
•    How about a brief excerpt?
•    Do you have a book trailer?
•    Do you have good sales numbers?

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the Frugal Book Promoter, suggests you also “include a pitch or logline for that piece of fiction that will intrigue your Web site visitor” and “include praise (blurbs) for it.”

Even your social networking numbers matter (e.g., number of Twitter followers, number of Facebook connections, and so on).

If You’re Writing Nonfiction

Getting a bit more specific as to your actual qualifications for writing the book, particularly if you’re writing nonfiction or offering freelance writing services or products:

•    Did you take special training (e.g., classes, ecourses)?
•    Do you have a degree or certification in the topic?
•    Do you have ‘good’ clips?
•    Do you have great testimonials?
•    Have you won awards?
•    Do you belong to relevant groups/clubs?
•    How in depth was your research?
•    Do you teach the topic?

Whatever gives you authority in your niche, whether fiction or nonfiction, be sure to include it in your list.

Sites claiming to be an expert in a particular niche are a dime-a-dozen. Let the visitor know you and your book are the ‘real deal.’

Karen Cioffi is a writer and online platform instructor. Her latest e-class with WOW! Women on Writing is Get Website Traffic with Inbound Marketing. Click the link for details.

~~~~~

Check out Experiment 38

by Charles T. Suddeth

new from 4RV Publishing http://4rvpublishing.com/

and read this review by Deb Hockenberry:

Eighteen – year – old Emily has a job and a boyfriend for the first time in her life. She’s never been allowed to go anywhere in her life, except to school and back. Why?

When Nate takes her to the movies, a green SUV follows them. The two occupants even follow them in. When they go to the amusement park, there’s the SUV. This time it’s two occupants stalk them through the park. Even through the tunnel of love. Who are these men and what do they want? Emily has nick – named them Igor and Weasel. She also has weird flashbacks of these two goons when she was little. The SUV will not leave them alone and Emily and Nate’s lives are even threatened. Not to mention the lives of Nate’s friends.

They try hard to escape the SUV and find that Nate’s car has been bugged with a GPS. This results in a high speed chase through the mountains of North Carolina, a kidnapping, and an attempted murder or two.

Emily’s mother has died when she was little. Or did she? And what of her father? Why is he letting all this happen? Is he really her father?

Your new adult will just love this action packed thriller in your home library. As soon as one of questions is answered, another arises.

If you’d like Experiment 38 for your home library, you can order it in several ways. You can order it from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Experiment-38-Charles-Suddeth/dp/1940310024/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424035214&sr=1-1&keywords=experiment+38+%2B+charles+suddeth

4RV Publishing http://www.4rvpublishingcatalog.com/charles-suddeth.php

Barnes and Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/experiment-38-charles-suddeth/1121211605?ean=9781940310022

Or your favorite online bookstore.

If you would like to learn more about Charles Suddeth and Experiment 38 just visit his website http://ctsuddeth.com

Deb Hockenberry

and you can read more about Deb  on her website: KidzTales http://www.debhockenberry.com

New 4RV Release: Brady's Lost Blanket

I'd like to announce my latest release with 4RV Publishing, out this month: 

Brady's Lost Blanket!

Brady is a sensitive young boy who takes his blankie wherever he goes. After traveling with his parents to visit his new cousin, Brady accidently leaves his blanket behind. Can Brady learn to get by without his blankie?

SHORT ESSAY ON BLANKIES:

I was one of those young kids who grew up with a blankie.  My blankie was blue and soft and I loved to rub the silky part against my cheeks. When my blankie was close, I felt very confident and secure. However, I think there comes a time when one "outgrows" a blankie and it's time to let go. Unfortunately, letting go can be hard to do. Learn how Brady lets go and takes his first steps growing up in my new children's story.

5 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR STEPHANIE:

#1: What inspired you to write the story?

STEPHANIE: One of my husband's relatives mentioned their grandchild had a blankie and was having a hard time without it.  I drew on my own childhood memories of having a blankie.  I think letting go of the blankie is the first step in growing up.

#2: How long did it take?

STEPHANIE: It took about a week to write the story. I have to thank 4RV Publishing for publishing Brady's Lost Blanket.  It took about 2 weeks back and forth with the editing.

#3: Did you pick the illustrator?

STEPHANIE: No, I did not.  4RV Publishing selected the illustrator.  I think Bridget McKenna did a great job with the illustrations.  They have a very whimsical feel and compliment the story well.

#4: What makes this book special?

STEPHANIE: Brady's Lost Blanket has a message for all young children who become attached to "something" (be it a blanket or something else) because they want to feel secure. It's okay to let go of our "security" nets and move forward.  It maybe a little scary at first, but once you go without it, you learn you can live without it.

#5: How long have you been writing children's books?

STEPHANIE: About 5 years now. My first children's book, "The Giving Meadow" was published with 4RV Publishing in 2010. It has a great message about sharing and caring for young children as well as telling about Caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly. It's perfect for Easter as it helps young children understand Jesus' story.

Author Bio:

Stephanie Burkhart was born and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, but now calls California her home. She currently works for LAPD as a 911 Dispatcher. Stephanie has been writing since she was five, when she crafted homemade comic books on the kitchen table. Her previous books with 4RV Publishing include: The Giving Meadow, and First Flag of New Hampshire.  Stephanie enjoys coffee, adores chocolate and is currently the Den Leader for her son's Cub Scout Den.

BRADY'S LOST BLANKET is available in print from 4RV Publishing.

BUY LINKS:

4RV PUBLISHING BOOKSTORE: http://www.4rvpublishingcatalog.com/burkhart.php

AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/Bradys-Lost-Blanket-Stephanie-Burkhart/dp/1940310040/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1423445945&sr=8-8&keywords=stephanie+burkhart

BARNES & NOBLE:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bradys-lost-blanket-stephanie-burkhart/1121138037?ean=9781940310046

This is the first stop on my blog tour! 

FIND ME ON THE WEB LINKS:

FIND ME ON THE WEB AT:

WEBSITE:

http://www.stephanieburkhart.com

TWITTER:

http://twitter.com/StephBurkhart

FACEBOOK:

https://www.facebook.com/StephanieBurkhartAuthor

GOOD READS:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4031660.Stephanie_Burkhart

YOU TUBE CHANNEL:

http://www.youtube.com/user/botrina?feature=mhee

PINTEREST:

http://pinterest.com/sgburkhart/