Words in the clouds

I have been thinking since a long time about a way of sharing my writings online. I had posted my short stories on issuu, received some positive comments from readers there, which motivated me to rework on my stories and put them together into a short story collection. I have sent it to about ten publishers in Belgium and in France. I knew from the start that I was going to be rejected by most (so far I have received eight rejection letters and am waiting for the last two), but why did I still want to send out my work the "traditional" way, I am not sure. Of course, even if tiny, I still had hope that a professional from the sector would put an "approval seal" on my work. But rejection after rejection (being called Mister in various letters!), having explored what was published out there, seeing the reality of the publishing world at the moment and the very low chances to get short stories published in French... I believed that I still had stories to tell and that I had access to amazing tools to do so.

What I care about is writing, writing more, failing maybe, failing again to hopefully get better at it (failing and writing), and most of all, I care about sharing. What matters in the end? Being read, it's as simple as that. So I have created a brand new website called Des mots dans les nuages where I host my short stories and make these available for download to all, under a creative commons licence. Most importantly, I left a comments section open because I care about what readers would think and I'd like to read their feedback.

Because I write fiction in French and all my short stories are in French so far, the website, as the title "Des mots dans les nuages" (Words in the Clouds") suggests, is also in French and aimed at readers who speak the language. But I still thought it useful to share my experience of "self publishing" here, and I will certainly evaluate and share the process in the months to come.