I’m very excited that my short mystery set in the 1920s and a mere 700 words was published by Flash Bang Mysteries. The story takes place at the Savoy hotel in London, over a cup of tea. Rose Clarke is a hatcheck girl from Tottenham, who becomes involved with a spy…
The magazine also has lots of great short mysteries, which are fun and quick to read.
Are you a fan of short fiction?
This has been a long week. I’ve had grueling work deadlines and fires. I got my manuscript back from the editor, which means I’m removing characters, fixing backstory and trying to finish all the edits before it is due back.
So I’m really, really happy to hear my flash fiction (~700 word) mystery was accepted for the April edition of Flash Bang Mysteries! They are a quarterly magazine with excellent work. If you check out their contributor bios, you’ll see they have a wonderful mix of well established and emerging authors.
Reedsy is a London-based marketplace for book services – everything from editing to cover design to marketing. What makes Reedsy stand out is that they diligently screen everyone who wants to offer services. They take only around 10-15% of the professionals who apply.
Based on their 15 months of usage, they’ve put together a truly comprehensive infographic of self-publishing costs. It’s nice to see a real budget and explanation of what you’re paying for.
Even though I’m going through the agent route and will be pitching again at a conference, I’m using Reedsy for editing. The consistent feedback is that my book has a strong premise and writing, but there are a few major threads that need to be fixed.
I just started the process with an editor who has years of mystery editing experience – fingers crossed!
Elizabeth S. Craig is my kind of hero in the writing world, she was successful through one of the Big 5 publishers but she eventually went her own way. Her blog is a gold mine of resources from other writers and her own articles.
In this post, she explains her reasons for going with self-publishing. Things like releasing when you want, price control and making more money are excellent reasons.
But my favourite reason is how her idea of validation changed:
“Originally, it did feel good to be validated by a gatekeeper…I was a newer writer and I needed that. Now, I prefer reader validation. It’s ultimately more valuable.”
Faith Allington 