I was working on a project today that required me to say how many short stories I’ve sold. The answer is 30. I’m sort of staggered. That’s a lot of stories.
Meanwhile, I realized that I badly needed to update my bibliography, which has been ignored since my bilbiofly plugin broke. I kept hoping that there would be an update, but alas, no.
This led to two further realizations.
- There is a pre-order sale on Shades of Milk and Honey at Amazon right now, so the hardcover is only $16.49 instead of $24.99 Edited to add: 1-31-10 Amazon has removed all Macmillan books, including mine.
- I’ve sold stories that start with every letter of the alphabet except I, K, M, N, O, Q, U, V, X, Y and Z.
Clearly, I need to consider my next titles carefully.
A check on my spreadsheet reveals I’ve sold 31 stories (though nowhere near as many pro sales as you). But my letter distribution is:
A3; C2; G2; H1; I3; S2; T12 (10 of these begin “The”); W6. Only 8 different letters (to your 15). I have never even submittted a story beginning with a letter between I and S in the alphabet!
If you extract out the ones beginning with “The” (like iPods do) then they break down to D1; F2; G2; H1; L1; M1; P1; U1.
I only had one story that started with “The” but I extracted that from the title when alphabetizing. I wonder if I gravitate toward titles that start with the letter “C” or if that’s random coincidence.
I definitely gravitate to the letter W because I use question-style titles a lot (not actual questions, but titles that beg the reader to ask the question – e.g. “What The Sea Refuses”, or “When Winter Came” or “Where No Wind Blows”). What was Kipling’s quote? “I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.”
And I made a mistake above, my “The” sub-breakdown should have a B in it at the expense of one F.
I actually do pay a lot of attention to titles that grab me (and titles that seem to grab editors), but ultimately a good story can survive a crappy title, but the reverse is very unlikely to be the case.
The stories I’ve sold start with A, B and C. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never thought of renaming all my other stories to D’s and E’s before sending them out.