Young Writers Society

This has been on my mind for a while, and I am very curious to see if anyone has ever published a collection of their own short stories and if they have been successful at all.
My problem with writing is that it takes me months, if not years to think of a weak storyline with hardly any creativity, and the stories go nowhere. I'm not very good at coming up with long, elaborate stories that are totally original (because I get a lot of ideas from other books, which is why I love to write fanfiction.)

However, I love to write short stories, and I do know that there are authors who have published a collection of them. What I want to know is, is it a good idea to do this, or will it be a failure because no one really knows who you are enough to care?

Hi BrokenSword. I really do believe that short stories are the way to go if you want to get published. A collection at this point may be a stretch, but it certainly is not out of the question. For the majority of people, it is far easier to break into the market with smaller pieces sold to magazines, anthologies, etc. than to try and write a huge novel. Personally, I have also thought about a collection of short stories, but individual sales would probably be the best path. Who knows? You could even publish a collection of stories you sold to magazines.

I think authors that do publish a collection of short stories are normally ones who are pretty well known.

Trident's right, many authors publish in magazines first - something perfect for short stories...

And then there are other anthologies - ones with different authors but based on a similar concept, theme or topic. The great thing is that there are many prominant ones by young writers, I think it's Scholastic that have done a few (mystery, horror, love and lies has I think been done allready). Just search around - they're in teh form of contests and are advertised on the publisher's site.

I 'd say that a short stry collection cvan be pretty good.

I've got one published but that's along with my poems as well, and yes it has worked OK.

Try giving a nice title to the collection and you'll do fine.

All the best—go on with the idea!

Yeah I've had a few short stories and poems published in anthologies. Just search the web and send them off to the different competitions. One sec, I'll check who did mine...

I have a ghost story in one by youngwriters. The website is www.youngwriters.co.uk and I think they do themed anthologies for short stories. I have poems in several anthologies run by anchorbooks and I have a feeling that they have some for short stories too so send a few off to them. The website is given as www.forwardpress.co.uk.

Those two look to be about the best so give it a go and I suppose if you're feeling particularly ambitious you could try a whole collection.