How many novels have you read in the past three months? If you ask this question to a group of people, the average number will be 3. Three novels, per person in the last quarter.
How many short stories have you read? Ask this question to that same group and you will be greeted with blank stares.
Short stories, something that can be read while waiting for a load of laundry to finish, somehow does not get consumed during our busy lives. One might think that they would be more popular than novels considering the frantic pace of society, but one would be wrong.
The problem isn't in the time it takes to read, it's in the availability. One simply cannot walk into a bookstore and purchase a short story to read. One cannot simply sit back and enjoy a single short while sipping that first cup of coffee in the morning. One cannot do these things because the shorts are not available for purchase.
Pocket Novels are going to change all of that.
The individual short is coming back. Before this year closes, they will be available in multiple locations in North Carolina with plans for expansion into other cities and states beginning early next year. My goal is to do two things.
First, I wish to reestablish the short story as a viable product to be distributed alongside novels and collections.
Second, I wish to open a new avenue through which budding authors can make a little money, have their stories read, and build up a fan base. Getting published is difficult, nearly impossible. I'd like to open another door.
Also, I wouldn't mind it at all if the project got so big that I could quit working for the man and spend my working hours at a computer, selecting stories, designing covers, and even being frustrated over distribution details. At the end of the day, all my work would count for something. I'd be growing a business I could call my own, not filling the pockets of some person I'll never see.
The plan is complicated. It's big. It's going to be difficult. But I welcome the challenge of starting and running a business like this. Without challenge there can be no satisfaction. I intend for this project to do big things. I don't believe there is any other way.
