A use for the old stuff.

The publisher I sent the book to hasn't responded yet. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. I can't interfere in the process for some time yet because you have to allow a publisher three months at least. It's not a speedy business, this writing.

While waiting, I have perused my collection of old short stories, those that have been published and are now offline. It's not really worth trying to sell them again - short stories earn little or nothing first time out, and it's much harder to sell second rights on them. Not really worth the effort.

So what to do with them? I thought I might put up a collection on Lulu. It'll cost me nothing and even if it doesn't sell, it's a handy backup for all those stories. Rather than have them only as bits on a disk, they could be tied together in one small book.

This naturally excludes any that are in real print. There's no point competing with myself by reprinting stories I've already had printed elsewhere.

I don't expect the anthology to be a blockbuster, I don't expect it to start the cash rolling. I don't even expect it to sell. It's just a useful way to store those old stories so I don't lose them.

For the real-publisher work, I'll need to learn a little about marketing. There will be mistakes at first. Well, let's be honest. There will be spectacular blunders at first. I'd rather not apply those blunders to any book that manages to get real-published.

So I'll use that anthology to practice on.

When I have at least some idea of what I'm doing, then a collection of the horror articles for AlienSkin could be the next Lulu project.

It's either that, or let them rot on a hard drive forever.