Experimental idea - input wanted (Twisted Shorties)

You know I thought about a book of unfinished stories, uneditied. I know my stories need a lot of editiing. But then I think some of mine would lose something if they were editited.

I love your work. I'm lousy at grammar, so what the heck. Maybe an edit on spelling???? That wouldn't cause a loss in your story.

I agree with Pam Larry. Your stories are delightful and always leave me wanting to read more. Your doggie stories (can't remember his name) would make a wonderful children's book series.

Sounds like too much work. Lol.
I prefer my romantic fiction.. Shorties are fun. But, I am totally focused on my own writing.
Good luck, though

You should be focused on your own work. You're writing a great story.

I would be happy to be involved with this if there is enough interest. Thanks for bringing up the idea, Pam.

Debbie, this is rather exciting. I'm already receiving positive responses.

I'd like to see this done but I'm not a writer.

I love your posts, Betty. Not to worry and thanks for the support.

Thanks and your welcome Pam

I think its a great idea. Would need a good editor, but we have plenty of those.

Hopefully a better editor than I. Would you contribute?

Definitely food for thought, Pam. I wonder if Sheila Deeth would be interested.

I just asked her and posted a link.

It is a good idea, but there is an issue of copyrights. You'd have to ask someone who really knows, unlike myself. :)

I copyrighted my one an only published book. It cost a bit, but you have a great point. Maybe there's someone here that knows how to copyright over the internet. I did it by snail mail and what a pain. It took 6 months to get the certificate.

I may be wrong, but I think the copyright sign is good for 1 year without the certificate.

No, I meant Gather may have some copyright rights, plus each author....I don't know how that would work.

Yikes, I hadn't thought about that. Thanks, JustMe. It's now on my list of things to deal with.

Unless the story was contracted to Gather, I believe the the authors have the copyright (copyright in North America is automatic to the author). What you need is is something like a non-exclusive one time right deal for distribution.

I just emailed Gather, even thought I don't expect an answer. Thanks, A. F. What you said makes a lot of sense.

What rights Gather has to content posted here should be in the Terms of Service statement (if you can keep your eyes from glazing over while reading it).

In the TOS, Gather specifically says they, as a corporation, have no right to any of the posts on the Gather side. Don't know about the Skywriting or whatever they're calling it now. We retain our ownership of all rights.

Chuck responded to my inquiry and Len is correct. We retain full rights. So, no problem there.

Actually I've seen similar things like this done on Goodreads by different groups. In fact my Coffinhop group on Facebook is currently putting together an anthology for charity.

That's so cool, A. F. If Connie hadn't cajoled me into WWE, I'd have more time to figure out Goodreads. I know you're doing great things on it.

A. F., are you worried about the contributors to your anthology signing a contract?

It's not my anthology (although I do have a story in it), but since the book is being done by fellow authors (Coffinhop is a group of horror writers) and all proceeds go to charity, I'm not worried overly about a lack of contract. It's all being done openly on Facebook.

Hey Pam,

From my own experience, with Amazon Kindle you may have to price the book at 99 cents. (They used to do a lot of free ebooks when they were first building their inventory, but I haven't seen that option lately.) I'm not sure if it's the same with nook. Lulu.com is another site to look into that might let you do an ebook for free--they feed into the iTunes bookstore and nook as well.

As far as copyright, I believe each of us has a non-exclusive agreement to publish with Gather (meaning they have permission to display our work on their site, but we still own it and can publish it elsewhere, etc.) That shouldn't be a problem as far as books.

Whoever organizes an anthology of a lot of people's work however would have to deal with getting everyone's permission (I'm not a lawyer, so you might want to consult one for the specifics--whether it has to be a signed contract, etc.), and if there's money to be made (even if it's down the road) the major sites are going to ask for tax information, how the profits are going to be divided, etc. I don't mean to make it sound like a headache--it's a cool idea--but that's about the extent that I know about it.

Hope that helps! :)

Smashwords is a good choice for free ebooks. I've used for two of my freebies.

They seem like a good company, too--think I have an account with them but just never got around to using it (right now I'm mainly using Amazon's KDP and Barnes & Noble's PubiT directly and Lulu.com to cover people with Apple products.)

Thanks, Patricia and A. F. - it helps a great deal. The accounting nightmare was one of my first concerns. I didn't know, however that Amazon changed their policies.
It's only fair that the author retains their ownership.
As far as a contract, I'll give a lot of thought to that. Perhaps other Gatherites will have suggestions.

I have received many books from Smashwords both free and paid.

It's a great idea....we have some wonderful GAther authors....and so many winners of different contests.

I've been looking for contest winners. That's exciting to hear.

This is beginning to look like a maybe we'll do it thing.

Susan has a list of all the winners from poetry month.

What a good idea! I'd recommend using Smashwords--they can put the book on Amazon for you, plus lots of other places, or so I'm told. I've just started converting some of my Lulu books to Smashwords and I'm enjoying working with it.

I love the idea of having short pieces in a gather book. I compiled my drabbles and dribbles into two books on Lulu (and will convert them to Smashwords soon). I plan to compile my drips into a third but that wouldn't stop them going in something else would it?

We self-published a book of stories from our local writing group a few years ago. We just put some formal words at the front about all rights remaining with the authors--can't remember exactly what it said. We weren't putting the book on sale, so no legal issues...

I hadn't realized Amazon's not doing free books anymore. But Smashwords is :)

Thanks, Sheila. I'm so impressed with the Gather writers, it seems a shame to not put something together. I've bought a book from Smashwords and it sounds like they're becoming popular.

I wonder how many of us will be willing to contribute.

I'm so glad you didn't run into any issues on your group book and the idea of a statement up front makes a lot of sense.

The books that become best sellers are truly compelling books....

Kathryn, do you think this is plausible?

Very nice

If I do this, would you be a contributor?

yes

I think this is an excellent idea, but 500 seems like a small # for bestseller status...

August Lady, this is appearing to be a possible idea. I have no idea what would take to make a best seller. How many do you think?

I've been tossing around numbers and one of the questions is how many of us can get our friends to actually sit down and do a review?

You can't just count on friends, it should involve an online networking/marketing effort. But it starts with an idea, which becomes a vision, then implementation, which is the hard part.

Bestseller has so many random definitions these days. 500 reviews would be a pretty amazing achievement.

500 reviews would be more than enough to get up onto bestsellers lists. The first book in my series is up for free, and it has been on the bestsellers lists for its genres on Amazon for two months now. It has less than 40 reviews.

Pam - I won't see the response to this. Send me a message. I can help by giving you pointers and helping you know where to put the thing and how to get it up for free across the board. My first book is up for free on Nook, Smashwords (and all the sites they send to) and Kindle. The amount of downloads I get on it (around 25 to 100 a day on Kindle alone) keep it up on the bestsellers lists for children's books.

Compilations of short stories work really well. I'd be interested in adding to it, but won't have anything ready for a while.

Either way, message me. I'm a pro on all things self-publishing. :-) (Got five books out - soon to be six - so I should be!)

And I think this is a great idea!

And also, copyright isn't such a big deal to mess with. You'd just tell all the authors they'll retain their copyright - so can use their short stories elsewhere as well. By national (and international) law, anything an author writes is automatically copyrighted. You'd have to have all of the authors agree - possibly in writing - that their story will be used in this compilation.

One thing to consider: royalties. It's too difficult to figure out how to split royalties. (And the book won't be free right away, so you'd probably get downloads.) Again, message me. :-)

"The amount of downloads I get on it (around 25 to 100 a day on Kindle alone) keep it up on the bestsellers lists"

So, your book is on the bestsellers list for the amount of downloads, not reviews.

Just do it. Give an invite to various authors and ask them to write maybe 3 stories, with only one or none of these selected by Queen Pam (buy a Tiara for this, please). You'd have to ask each person to accept what is known as a Commonlaw Copyright, before you could publish it and you'd have to file the paperwork or, if you publish these works and sell them on Amazon for $0, the author's would have no Copyright protection because shipping costs make this a national commerce activity. There are other Copyright avenues. You have a good idea, but it involves paperwork. Unlike USA Copyright filings, I believe Commonlaw Copyright free. I have the web site somewhere. I'll see if I can find it.

Please go to creativecommons.org and look at their Copyright mission.

Thank you, William. I'll go to it. There's lots to think about before I decide to do this. Your feedback is wonderful.

An interesting idea - quite how to put that into action is another matter - tricky too - but nonetheless challenging - some good ideas and replies too - good luck with it and let us know what you have come up with PLEASE :-)

Thanks for sharing and submitting to
The Surreal Circus.

I will let everyone know where it goes. Lots to think about and I'm hoping for more feedback and suggestions.

An excellent idea. You can count me in.

Lots of research to do, but I'm getting excited. We'll see where it goes.

This sounds like a great idea, Pam. Let me know if I can help in any way at all!!

It's beginning to sound plausible. I'll be making other posts and doing more research. I won't hesitate to ask for help, Patricia.

I'm in.

I pity the editor. This is a tough job so we need a tough guy. Ah-hem, Len?

Evil chirp. He's either avoiding this post or hasn't seen it yet. Maybe we can find a way to lure him in.?? I'll do most of the work. I haven't yet decided, but I'm 99.9% sure I'll go ahead with it. I'll need all the help I can get.

Not avoiding; I've just been tied up on a couple other sites for the past few days.

Other sites? Len, you cannot do that to us! We need you HERE.

:)

the idea girl flies! great idea...I love collaborative working. Need a separate site to put finished work on and a good editor and someone smarter than me. but would love to contribute, Pam

I figure I'll be the compiler girl and put it on my hard drive. I'll no doubt also be the publisher. It looks like we'll be using Smashwords.

Chuckle, when I was younger, my underwriter kept telling me to get back in the box. I just can't stay there.

We're hoping Len isn't avoiding this post. He'd be the best editor in the whole wide world.

agree, he or John B.....can't keep us artists down!! The world is too full of possibilities!! Go girl!

LOL @ "Get back in the box".

LOL

I love the idea and wonder why nobody has ever done it before. As the compiler, you're also, by default, the Editor in Chief.

Now we need a Submissions Editor. Somebody has to write and publish submission guidelines and check each submission to ensure compliance.

My type of editing is probably not necessary unless we're going to edit each submission for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other such stuff.

Somewhere along the line there's going to have to be a (I hate to use this word) lawyer involved for the copyright stuff. We also have to deal with Gather if we're going to use that name in the title or acknowledgments.

Overall, I'm in.

Wow, Len, I'm so happy. I'll probably be the Submissions Editor also - at least in the beginning. I'm pretty sure the other members would help with the guidelines.

As far as an attorney - I sure hope not. It's not difficult to do your own copyrighting. I've done it before. Although, if I remember correctly, we have 1 year to copyright it as long as we all put down the copyright symbol and year.

Hopefully one of us will know how to do the copyright over the internet - I did it over snail mail and it took 6 months to get the certificate.

My next post will be a few questions such as, who wants in and the most important, in order for this experiment to work, how many of our friends do we think we can get to post favorable reviews on Smashwords?

I think this is a great idea. I am going to send the link to a few of the authors on gather.

Thanks, Connie.

I don't do short stories (I have a new novel coming out next year, though, woo-hoo) but I don't think you'll have a shortage of marvelous short stories from many marvelous gather writers!

Peter, you're a great writer. Woo-hoo on your new book! I know there are a lot of Gatherites that love your work.

Peter has published many cool and funky poems here, along with various bits of art: he could be the book's artiste. :-)

I think it's a cool idea -- personally I would avoid the technical aspects because I'm not willing to learn new things, but I'd be willing to contribute!

Woo-hoo. We're going to put together a wonderful Gather author anthology. Thanks, Tracy.

Glad to hear it Tracy.

Ha, ha, ha, this will be interesting to see. At least will be a tangible proof of how much "best seller" lists are worth!!!

Hey, Crin, from the submissions we've already seen, this is going to be a great book. We have so much talent on Gather, it's amazing. So, if this experiment works, it will be worthwhile for the reader.

BTW, were you wanting to submit?

This is the thing:

I don't doubt that the experiment will succeed. I know that it will. My personal opinion is that there was talent, as much as it is today, all along.

What was missing was the vehicle to bring it in the open: "the Internet" with its "social networks".

We are still at the beginning, however the publishing houses the way they are today, and they have been since the beginning, are a thing of the past.

The people who were lucky to make it, were not much more talented than a lot of Gather's contributors. They were just lucky to be picked by a publisher. Even so a lot of those who are lucky are not talented. They are just published...

No matter how screwed up Gather is, it gives a lot of people, including me, people who otherwise would not have a chance in hell to be seen, the opportunity to write, or show their visual talent, or their performing talent. There was a guy on My Space whose only contributions were musical videos in which he was performing. The videos were self made, and the guy was good. There are a lot of visual talent on You Tube. Actually You Tube was started as an outlet for people to display their personal talent, not as a place where every dick and joe shamelessly steals intellectual property...

Now what do I do? Await your email, Pam?

Barbara, await my email. Woo-hoo.

Sounds like a good idea to me ;)

Were you interested in submitting?

yeah...I would be willing to write something :)

Okay, Katryn. I'll be sending you an email.

Neat idea. I didn't know that Amazon published for free. (that is if I read that right). Don't think I have anything that's necessarily "twisted" though. ;p

Amazon did for me. But this anthology is going to be published on Smashwords and my research and A. F. Stewart's input tells me that they have free publishing.