Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.
A: Fifty-word-long stories.
Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?
A: Lately I've been following EveryDayFiction.com and RayGunRevival.com quite a bit. I like the way they do things, and I especially appreciate the variety on EDF.
Daily Science Fiction publishes a lot of really good stories, and has a new one every day, which is definitely something I can get behind!
Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?
A: I love the classics, so Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, and Jonathan Swift are all at the top of my list. For more contemporary authors, I'm a big fan of Orson Scott Card, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and a whole lot more.
Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?
A: Fifty-Word Stories is unique because I publish a mixture of my own writing and reader submissions. There are a handful of other sites out there that post 50-word stories, but none do it as consistently as I do at 50WS, and I find the quality of the submissions I receive to be quite high, compared to the rest of what I've found out there.
Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?
A: Make sure to do your word count and meet the exactly-50-words rule! That's the whole point, you see.
Your story should go somewhere; your characters should do something. The reader should feel like something has taken place, either within the events of the story or within the reader's own eyes. Accomplishing this is the whole challenge of the 50-word format, and I'm sure you'll find it as rewarding as I do!
Also, be sure to read through the guidelines on the Submissions page on FiftyWordStories.com. Keep things PG, etc.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: There are so many different ways to write a good 50-word story. You can go for humour, deep emotion, wonder, or whimsy. The ideal story should have a purpose or intention, and should clearly convey that to the reader.
Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?
A: Most people don't make big mistakes when they're submitting, but I do appreciate when people include some information in the Subject line of their email to help me identify their story when I'm sorting things.
Also, every now and then someone sends in a "50 words or fewer" story, not realizing that it's supposed to be exactly 50 words. Don't make that mistake!
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: Cover letters aren't necessary. You're free to include some publication credits as part of your bio, though.
Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?
A: The beauty of 50-word stories is that they're so short; it's easy to read them all the way through a few times before I make my mind up!
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: When submissions get really busy, I'll short-list several and sometimes bring in a second opinion on which are the best, but more often a story either makes the cut the first time I see it, or it doesn't.
Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?
A: Ideally, I spend an hour or two once each week going through the week's submissions and sorting them into "Stories To Use" and "Stories Not To Use." I send responses to the writers and let them know whether I intend to use their story or not, and I try to schedule stories in advance so that I can let the author know when to expect it to go live on the site.
Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?
A: I couldn't run FiftyWordStories.com without all of the modern publishing technologies. The site is built on WordPress, I do almost all of my marketing and publicity using social media, and I sell my books using local print-on-demand services, as well as through the Kindle Store. I never would have been able to gather the kind of audience the site has without all of these tools, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to promote it or make it anywhere close to profitable!