Tips for Writers: How to Publish A Short Story Collection

A friend of mine asked me recently if I'd written a blogpost on the subject of getting a short story collection published. I don'tthink I have, at least not one with much detail, so it seemed like a goodsubject for Tips for Writers.
Let's assume that you've got a collection finished. Let'salso assume that you'd like the book published in the most prestigious place,with the most exposure and the most money for you. That would be one of themajor trade publishers like Simon & Schuster or Random House. The majorpublishers do take on short story collections from time to time if they thinkthey can sell them to the public—the author is a big name, the house is alsopublishing that writer's novel, there is some other buzz about the book or theauthor. But these publishers are of the opinion that the reading public doesn'tbuy story collections, and they may be right about that. So this ambition is along shot, and your chances of succeeding are enhanced if you've also got anovel to sell. In any event, the first step on this road is finding an agent,because major publishers won't deal with anyone but agents, who have become thegatekeepers for the industry.
Getting an agent is a whole story unto itself, and it isn'teasy. I did manage to get an agent for a story collection. She thought the bookwas just distinct enough (I call it a novel in stories) that a publisher mighttake an interest; she loved it and thought they would, too. But they didn't, ordidn't love it enough to publish it. After two years of trying—all the majorpublishers and most of the next tier—she basically gave up.
So if you can't get an agent or if your agent can't sell thebook to the big publishers, you're left with independent, university, and smallpresses. And there are lots and lots of these presses. Finding one to publishyour book is very similar to the agent search. You send out queries, sometimeswith samples, sometimes without, and then you wait. You hope that someone willrequest a full manuscript, and then you wait some more. Someone makes an offer(you hope), and then you let the other publishers know about it and see ifsomeone will make a better offer.
Until those other offers come in, though, you can alsosubmit the manuscript to contests. There are a lot of these contests, such asthe Iowa Short Fiction Contest and the Flannery O'Connor, but the competitionis very tough because there are a lot of writers with story collectionmanuscripts.But then, if you're persistent and your book is good, youwill eventually find a small press to take your collection.
This is essentially the path I followed—twice. With my firstcollection, In an Uncharted Country, I didn't try very hard to get an agentbecause I knew that my book was unlikely to be attractive to bigger publishers.It's a pretty quiet book and my publication credits (11 of the 12 stories hadbeen published in magazines) were rather obscure. So, after a few rejectionsfrom agents (many of whom said, "Do you have a novel?"), I started submittingto small presses. It didn't take long for Press 53 to ask for the book, andbecause they are committed to publishing short story collections I was veryhappy with them. The second book, my novel in stories, What the Zhang Boys Know,I thought had a chance with bigger publishers because (a) I called it a novelin stories and (b) the stories were better. And, in fact, the big houses tookit seriously, but most of our rejections mentioned the fact that storycollections were a tough sell, as if I didn't know that already. In the end,though, I submitted to contests and small presses, and once again Press 53 wasenthusiastic about the book. So it's coming out from them in September 2012.I'm happy about that, and now I can turn my attention to the next book.
If you don't find a publisher, you still have the option ofself-publishing, which is getting easier to do all the time, and if you chooseto make it an eBook instead of a print book, the costs of this approach arefew. I don't recommend this route if you want to have a career as a fictionwriter, however. Keep looking for a traditional publisher, even a very smallone.