There was a time (and it hasn’t really passed) when the common wisdom was that writers shouldn’t publish short story collections.
It’s related to the tracking of an author’s sales through the chain book stores. It’s a fact that the audience for short fiction is smaller than the audience for novels. Has been for a long time, but when a chain buyer goes to order a writer’s next book from the publisher, they look at how the previous book did. If that book was a collection and the book before that was a novel, there’s going to be drop. A big drop. As a result, the buyer will base his order on this reduced number, not the last novel sale.
Now, I’ve been told that the chains are not as simplistic about this as they used to be, but it is still a problem. People try to solve it in various ways, some not so successful. Least favorite? The publisher packages the collection in such a way that it looks like a novel. Boy, that will win you friends. Other solutions are to separate your collections from your novels by only publishing them through small presses. Hopefully this doesn’t come back to bite you. The chain could still compare apples to oranges if they look superficially enough. Other novelists have simply avoided collections completely. A writer also can self-publish physical copies through good services like Lulu or awful vanity presses like Publish America, but this violates Yog’s Law.
Now there’s a new route–eBook publications. A few years ago, I would’ve considered this a fringe method at best, but now eBooks, while still a small percentage of overall publication, are growing at a geometric, if not exponential rate as different readers (both hardware and software) take off like a rocket.
I’ve been trading tweets, emails, and even video conferencing with people who are striking out into this territory. In SF, Nebula and Campbell nominated author Tobias Buckell is trying it with his previously published collection Tides From the New Worlds (Wyrm Publishing, April 2009).

You can get it for Kindle (hardware or software) or through the iBooks store. (In iBooks you’ll have to search but Tides or Buckell will bring it right up.) In the iBooks store you can also download a free sample that includes the entire first story, but as he’s only selling it for $2.99, don’t stint yourself. Reviews available on Toby’s site here and here is a brand new third-party review of the eBook edition.
It’s a very favorable review but it does complain about some typos which brings up an interesting thing about eBook editions. They can be FIXED. In the case of Amazon and, I believe, iBooks, after the author fixes the typos the reader can download the corrected edition with no further cost. This will probably be an iterative process as the typos become fewer and fewer.
I’ve been discussing this subject with Toby and others prior to bringing out eBook editions of Jumper, Reflex, Wildside, Helm, Blind Waves, and Greenwar. Out of curiosity, could you let me know what your favorite eBook platform is either in the comments or email?
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I have deliberately avoided discussing the evils of DRM in this post. I will talk about DRM versus distribution in a later post.