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Who writes short shorts?

OK, I’ve never heard of anything like this before, but Bruce Holland Rogers writes short shorts and sends them directly to you.  Seriously:  he writes short short stories and sells subscriptions by email.  For $5 a year, you get yourself three short short stories every month.  Even this notoriously arithmetic-challenged blog can figure out that’s 36 stories a year, emailed to you every month, for five bucks.  You can check out sample stories and a description of the service, if you like, and Bruce says he’s happy to grant trial subscriptions for review purposes.  He also promises to answer questions about the service—why he started it, where he publishes his stories after they’ve been distributed by e-mail, and how he deals with the peculiarities of the genre.  And you should have questions, because even though literary works have been sold by subscription before, all the way back to Virgil’s innovative Augustan Priority Remuneration plan for each book of the Aeneid (which gave rise to today’s so-called “A.P.R. financing” deals), I don’t think there’s been a literary production-and-distribution system quite like this one, ever.

And in the More Information Department, there’s a very nice (and informative) review from Infinity Plus.

Posted by on 12/14 at 10:07 PM

  1. There goes free access to Theory Thursdays.

    Posted by  on  12/15  at  12:06 AM

  2. I really will revive Theory Tuesdays one of these days.  But I was just looking ‘em over from back in the summer—you know, when things around here were happy and carefree—and I realized that those suckers ran three to four thousand words.  They were anything but short-short.  Which provokes the obvious question:

    WTF was I thinking?

    I do plan a Raymond Williams installment before I take off for the “holiday” break (known in my house as the Break of Ba’al).  And it will be free and open to the public.

    Posted by Michael  on  12/15  at  12:12 AM

  3. Hitherby Dragons writes very good short-shorts, for free, although once you start reading them you’re clearly going to want to shell out money to buy printed versions.

    Posted by  on  12/15  at  01:31 AM

  4. But will he write feghoots?

    I’ll admit that until I clicked the link, I thought this might be one of Andrei Codrescu‘s jokes about literary life, with the writing career dwindling from Dickens to short-shorts.  It’s an interesting idea.

    Posted by Sherman Dorn  on  12/15  at  06:38 AM

  5. Break of Ba’al? You’re obviously one of thos Ba’alists, probably allied to Baathists, who are now engaged in a vicious war on Mithramas!

    Posted by  on  12/15  at  09:49 AM

  6. Bah… Don’t pay for literature!  I just keep rereading ‘The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg’ over and over.  I hit myself in the head with a hammer each time so it won’t stick in my long-term memory.

    At least I think I might do that.

    Posted by  on  12/15  at  10:27 AM

  7. I think it’s terrific--anything that gets money directly into the hands of writers is always a good thing.

    It will keep us corporate enslaved-to-salary drones dreaming of a way out.  They’re just dreams, but if don’t have dreams all you end up with is nightmares.

    Posted by paradox  on  12/15  at  11:11 AM

  8. Anything that gets money directly into the hands of writers is always a good thing.

    Yeah, that’s what I figured.  And because Rogers works by email subscriptions (as opposed, say, to telemarketing or going door to door), I thought a little shout out on a sometimes-literary blog might help.

    Don’t pay for literature!  I just keep rereading ‘The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg’ over and over.

    Don’t do that, Njorl!  Keep rereading If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler instead.  Much funnier than a hammer, and far less painful.

    Posted by  on  12/15  at  12:20 PM

  9. Huh.  I’m taking a writing workshop this spring with Rogers (in Crete!).  Maybe I better subscribe.  Thanks Michael!

    MKK

    Posted by Mary Kay  on  12/15  at  01:38 PM

  10. Crete?!? Did you mug someone, Mary Kay, and do they have anything left over for me?

    D

    Posted by Murph  on  12/15  at  08:35 PM

  11. Murph:  Nah—it’s not really that expensive.  I mean it’s not cheap but the workshop costs include all housing on Crete for that period.  And I have lots and lots and lots of frequent flyer miles.  My husband is a 100K flyer on United and I’m Premier Executive myself.  Yes, we do travel to damn much. 

    MKK

    Posted by Mary Kay  on  12/16  at  01:50 AM

  12. The novelist and short-story writer Caitlin Kiernan is doing something similar, only it’s subscriptions to a monthly “erotic vignette” series that I think arrives in hard copy rather than by e-mail(http://www.caitlinrkiernan.com/faq.html); she’s been marketing it through her blog and limiting it to a maximum of 120 subscribers.  This makes the continuities to various limited-edition or small-press or zine-type publication choices clearer; I have the impression that a lot of people in that zine kind of community sell art/writing by subscription, sometimes for online stuff though more often not.

    Posted by Jenny D  on  12/16  at  03:25 PM

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