Be Your Own Gatekeeper: Indie Publishing Your Short Fiction

The traditional short fiction market simply can’t accommodate the many excellent short stories that deserve to reach readers. But with an indie mindset, you don’t have to rely on gatekeepers. Instead, you can take control of your publishing journey, connecting directly with readers who will love your stories, turning them into fans, and generating income from your work.

Matty Dalrymple, author of Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction, shares how to unlock the potential of short fiction.

Walk away with practical strategies to turn short fiction into a powerful tool for building your author brand and income. This is an OnDemand webinar.

What You Will Learn:

• How to publish short fiction as standalones, collections, and anthologies
• Cost-effective strategies for editing, proofreading, and cover design
• How to maximize story value by publishing across multiple platforms and formats
• Income opportunities like patronage and monetizing short fiction via audio and video
• Ways to connect with readers using short fiction as reader magnets, funnels, or social media promotions
• How short fiction can aid market research and foster community engagement

Who Should Attend:

• Authors whose short stories have stalled with traditional magazines or anthologies and want a proven indie path to reach readers directly
• Novelists aiming to add steady revenue by releasing stand-alone shorts or boxed collections between full-length books
• Writers looking for cost-effective ways to edit, proof, and design covers without sacrificing quality
• Creators eager to maximize each story’s value across ebooks, print, and even audio platforms
• Email-list builders who plan to use short fiction as reader magnets, funnels, or social-media giveaways to grow an engaged audience quickly
• Market-curious authors who see short fiction as a low-risk laboratory for testing new genres, pen names, or tropes before committing to a novel

Instructor:

Matty Dalrymple educates and advocates for writers as The Indy Author. She is the host and producer of hundreds of episodes of The Indy Author Podcast and has spoken on topics related to writing and publishing at events such as the Writer’s Digest annual conference, the Alliance of Independent Authors’ SelfPubCon, Author Nation, Authors Guild webinars, International Thriller Writers’ CraftFest, and many more. She writes nonfiction books for writers, and her articles have appeared in Writer’s Digest magazine, Indie Author Magazine, and ALLi’s The Indie Author magazine. She serves as ALLi’s Campaigns Manager. Learn more at https://www.theindyauthor.com/

Matty is also the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers, beginning with ROCK PAPER SCISSORS; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels, beginning with THE SENSE OF DEATH; and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts. She is a member of International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. Learn more at https://www.mattydalrymple.com/

She is the principal at William Kingsfield Publishers. William Kingsfield was the pen name of Matty's father, T. W. Dalrymple, who inspired her love of writing.