Tampa Book Buzz

how short are short-shorts?

…Between 200 and 2,500 words long, according to www.shortshortshort.com.

I must admit that I had never heard of short-short stories (also known as flash fiction or micro fiction) until an e-mail from Bruce Holland Rogers turned up in my in-box. Rogers is an award-winning author who runs a pretty unique literary service. For $5 a year, he sends subscribers three short-short stories each month via e-mail.

He has over 600 subscribers in 60 countries so far, and his stories are translated into multiple languages each month. The French-language version of this service is set to launch in January.

Rogers has received some pretty impressive awards and nominations, is a published author, and twice a year “auctions himself” to the highest bidder.

Besides being smart enough to e-mail the bigger literary blogs (yes, I know it’s surprising that there are literary blogs more well known than Tampa Book Buzz), he was savvy enough to include a comment about TBB in his e-mail to me, which showed that he took the time to look at my blog. That’s smart marketing.

Sample stories and a description of the service can be found at www.shortshortshort.com. At only $5 a year, I think this will help me knock out some of my holiday shopping (gift subscription notices sent by request).