About us
Bluethumbnail.com aims to be a showcase for writers with solid, genuine talent who find it impossible now, with publishing in the hands of massive conglomerates, to get their work into print.
‘Into print’, as we used to know it: however, the world is changing.
Just as the music business has been convulsed by downloading, with new artists using YouTube in order to build up an audience, now the arrival of e-books and high speed mobile broadband might make the big publishing houses into dinosaurs too.
If the future lies with the internet this has to be good for short stories.
Conventional publishers see no profit in books of short stories unless the author is famous. This leaves you with magazines which have their own agendas, and short story competitions for which there are plenty of entries but only a few lucky winners.
Our site will give talented writers a chance to find readers worldwide: readers who can’t always find the cash to splash out on lots of books and readers with limited time, who’d enjoy a good short story.
For this we need your help-
-the help of interested readers, willing to post their comments
-and from the writers themselves, to pay a small membership fee, to enable us to give you the sort of site you deserve- a site that changes week by week, with plenty of visual content and other exciting input as well as the best in new fiction, to keep bringing back your readers.
There are plenty of sites 'for writers'; or rather for 'writers' communities' where people can post their photos and boast about what they might do. But if you're a genuine writer you don't need to hide in these precincts. You want to hone your skills, not only by finding readers but by picking up on their feedback.
It takes time to learn your craft. It takes time to build up a name. It takes even longer and much more luck to make a career out of writing. But this is our hope- that over the years, bluethumbnail.comcan benefit from the rapid growth in e-publishing to start charging down-loading fees for the wonderful stories you write. We will then be paying royalties and you will start earning from writing.
In the meanwhile, you have a shop window. Post stories; post your portfolio, link with your own blog or website; make contact with other writers, but most important- find readers. And find out how they respond to the story you’ve worked so hard on- essential information for anyone hoping to find a literary agent or publisher wanting to market your work.
Bluethumbnail is the creation of Philip Wooderson and Mariel Hacking. Philip is a published author; Mariel is Director of the Limnisa Centre in Greece where they run creative writing workshops every summer.
