Writers have always had to help market themselves, through signings, book tours, and interviews. So it’s fine, though it does sound like an awful lot more work these days, especially if you self-publish.

Selling out to me means writing crap or formulaic work simply to make money. That’s different from writing a story that comes from your heart and then persuading people that they want to read it.

I should be free Thursday night next week, though maybe not until late, which could even be nine Pacific time (eleven, central time and ten Mountain!). If we can interact through the WEB site, it’ll make it all easier, won’t it?

I’ll do what I can to help out, though I don’t have visual talents. Editing, for example.

I’m not so sure, James, about the idea of having a theme, other than that we met here. Maybe it could be a broad theme, such as loss? Does anyone have any other ideas?

It’s great that you’re willing to take on the WEB site. I should be able to chat any night next week, except Tuesday, but somewhat on the later side (*I’m Pacific time). If we have to go for small group chats, let’s just do it.

I sent a form from your web site. Hope that’s okay, Angie. My email is spidermoon_nm@yahoo.com, if you want to reach me directly.

Hard to believe, Angie. I’m interested! 🙂 I’ll look at your form and fill it out today.

This is a great discussion, which touches on issues many of us will face when we deal with editors. I wondered initially if the editor was trying to make the story more generic, to fit expectations and be more publishable, but reading the whole back and forth tells me that it wasn’t that. Instead, I loved Angie’s comment about telling the editor the feel you’re looking for before they even start reading the piece, and I love the way you’re now collaborating to create the story you want and learn to be a better writer. Good going, James.
I suspect it’s always hard to get that first set of edits on a story. It often feels to me as if my baby has been murdered, but, when I take a step back, I see that there’re a lot of helpful comments to address. Sounds like you’ve found that place, James.

Very interesting, Margie. No one can work in a vacuum, can they?

Just bought it. It looks really good. Enjoyed your short story “The Tinker,” as well.

Truly, James, I’ve been dreading the marketing part. I’ll be self-publishing that first book, so it’s all on me to get people to read it. But I like connecting with people, so if that’s all I have to do, well, maybe I’ll get through it all right.

Lee, If we use TwitChat, can we keep it private? When we’re discussing publication and editing, I’d rather not have the whole world able to listen in.

Story Cartel Alumni was using Google+ community (and just recently moved over to Facebook). It works better than this forum, which gets really difficult to follow, as Margie pointed out. It would be an easy solution for communication. I’m eannstanley@gmail.com, if you want to send me an email over there or add me to your circles.

I’m really busy for the next couple of weeks, but things should calm down after that and I can do more to help out.

*I like the idea that we each read everyone else’s stories and help edit them. Maybe poets like Stephanie can have several poems. It would be fun to intersperse stories with poems to break up the flow.

*What if we had a 12,000 word limit on stories? Would that be a good number?

*When I read anthologies, I prefer if the bio is right with the story (at the end, preferably, so I can jump into the story first), so I don’t have to hunt for it and get the info about the author right away. It helps me connect more strongly to both story and author. What do others think?

*It’s also fun to have a few sentences about the inspiration for the story.

Hi James, I just skimmed this and it looks good to me.

As for communication, could we set up a private chat room? WordPress, if that’s what you’re using, has a plugin for that, although I don’t know how it works, or if it works well or not. – Actually, I just looked at wordpress.com and it doesn’t have chatroom capability. Perhaps we could set up something like this forum, which is open only to members?

• This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by  Ann Stanley.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by  Ann Stanley.

I like #2 better, but #1 is fine, too.

Hey Margie, That sounds wonderful! We’re going to have an amazing book.

So glad you’re coming along on this project, Angie.