Obscurity is my problem, not piracy

Some readers, agents and publishers still ask me why I give away so much of my work on this website when I’m constantly griping about not being able to make a decent living as a writer. And now there is even less money in writing short stories than there used to be, with many publishers demanding first serial rights globally rather than in their own territories. In other words, I can’t offer a story for publication in the US at the same time I offer it in the UK or Australasia. Since most publishers pay nothing for this privilege, not allowing me to syndicate my work seems a bit rich. So the extravagance that is this website is my prerogative. Being wilfully profligate with my words is my differentiator, my competitive advantage, my USP.

People who want a book want an artefact to own, to hold, to covet. They also know that the same words in a book are nevertheless words of a different kind. Something else I’ve discovered as a result of submitting stories hundreds of times to magazines (and receiving many square yards of rejection slips by return) is that the editors who publish them do so irrespective of the fact that they have already appeared online. Whereas the kinds of magazines with guidelines that angrily state submissions must be unpublished anywhere are generally not interested in my writing one way or the other.

There are precious few markets that pay good money for short fiction in the 21st Century. Many of the stories published on this site have appeared in print magazines and e-zines. When I was lucky, these publications paid me next to nothing for my efforts. But what really make a writer successful are his or her readers. And that reminds me of a quotation from the late, great and almost comically underrated Robert McAlmon, writing about his own writing:

“…as nobody paid it any attention I need not apologise, and can dare to say that much worse had been done before and is being done yet by others.”

Premium content has its place. This isn’t it. Giving away these stories is my way of getting my own back for the much worse stuff in the only way I know how. It’s cheaper than vanity publishing and you don’t have to pulp websites or stack them under your bed. This does not mean I don’t value the written word; this website is a promotional tool and the best way for me to promote my body-of-work is for you to be able to read as much of it as I’ll allow.

I’m very happy for you to be able to read everything here for free and I’d love to hear from you. I’ll send you a PDF file of anything you find on the site if you email me, so you can print it out and read it at leisure. But what would be really encouraging, assuming you find anything here that you like, is if you would order one of my books. Not only would that rekindle an addled author’s faith in human nature, it would help me to prove that the internet isn’t killing book sales so I can get on with writing and don’t have to eat my words (money is not its own reward and words don’t taste as good as food).

Happy reading,