Dragons playing poker
Almost a year ago I decided the way forward was to set up my
own publishing company. At the time it was for tax reasons and with a modest
goal of publishing one of my own books and possibly progressing from there.
Then I had a dream. Not an asleep, dragons playing poker, while I did their
washing, kind of dream, but one where I was fully awake, thinking ‘What if?’
‘What if there was a site on the internet doing for the
short story what Amazon has done for books and Apple has done for music?’
‘What if all the stories that have appeared in magazines,
and for which the authors still have the rights to other publishing, could be
dragged out of drawers and made available to the public?’
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The best place to download short stories to read at your leisure
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‘What if I were to create something unique for the benefit
of my fellow writers?’
I did some research and could find nowhere that was
providing short stories for download in multiple electronic formats AND which
edited stories and only took the high quality work.
There are two reasons for a gap in the market. One, there is
no market and Two, no one got there first or had the range of skills to plug
the gap. I’m a writer, whose background involves a law degree, an accountancy
qualification and having headed up IT departments. It’s not a normal background
for a fiction writer, but it’s a great starting point to set up a company
offering an internet based product.
I dreamed of launching with 100 stories from at least 25
authors and growing from there. Within days of our launch we had contracted our
74th author and our 250th story. We’ve had to reject
quite a lot along the way. As far as we can, we send back advice on where the
writers need to improve. We’ve had odd instances of toys being thrown out of
prams, but how else can a writer get it right next time if no one tells them
why they missed the mark?
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Rosemary
J. Kind Managing
Director Alfie Dog Limited |
I haven’t stopped dreaming. If you disregard the large
warehouse I drove past the other day which I imagined carrying the Alfie Dog
Limited logo and being stocked with the real books we will be publishing, I
have three dreams at present. I am dreaming of sales exceeding 1,000 downloads
a month. Our early sales suggest that this is well within our grasp. I am
dreaming of our Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter ‘followers’ exceeding 1,000 then
10,000 and so on. Social Media is better than any other form of communication
to get to a wide fan base. Finally, I am dreaming of paying out royalties to
our authors. When I do that, I will feel I have done something really
worthwhile. I’m dreaming of doing it by the end of our first royalty period and
then maybe I will be able to relax just a little bit and turn my attention to
the dragons playing poker.
