Here are a few reasons why short stories make such ideal reading:

• Short stories have a smaller file size, making it faster to download direct to the device
• Readers on digital devices keep their actual reading time short; in contrast to hardcopy books where readers would read for a much longer session at a time

As you may know, the Sixty Minute Story is based on the average reading speed of 250 words per minute, and so an average reader could read around 15,000 words within a single hour.

Why a short story?

Just like their larger and longer cousin the novel, short stories are a canvas for expressing a writer’s ideas, style and techniques. Both have the potential to be the same. One is just longer than the other.

There is a major difference. Short stories don’t sell on their own.

• Rudyard Kipling’s short stories were published as a collection called The Jungle Book.
• Charles Dicken’s short stories were published as short story collections such as Sketches by Boz, The Mudfog Papers and The Uncommercial Traveller.
• The Mark Twain short stories were also published as collections, such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories.

Each short story has the potential to be amazing. But of course commercially, it would not make sense to publish a short story of its own.

It seems that the short story (in the past) would only make sense if it was published as a collection of works. Either a collection by a group of authors, or once the author had enough short stories worthy of being published in a collection.

The Sixty Minute Story is designed so that any short story can be published without having to be part of a collection or anthology.

• The small form makes it great for downloading fast.
• The internet provides the perfect channel for distributing your short story.
• MeeQi.com means you can instantly publish your short story. Plus you can use MeeQi to offer your short story as a free download or set a price and sell it to make money

How to publish your short story

Here is all that you need to publish your short story as a Sixty Minute Story for millions of readers who have an iPhone, cellphone or e-reader:

• A story with a maximum of 15,000 words
• The story in three key formats: epub, pdf and plain text

How many words?

As the appeal of the SMS is that it can be read by an average reader, in full, within sixty minutes; your short story must have a maximum of 15,000 words. There is no minimum number of words.

Why three formats?

It is in the interests of both the readers and writers that the short story is be available in three key formats (epub, pdf and txt) so that the short story will be readable on all the e-reading devices and so that the reader is sure to be able to read it on their preferred device.

The epub is a free and open standard for e-books, defined by the International Digital Publishing Forum. There are many tutorials on how to manually create an epub of your book but the easiest tool is found on http://www.2epub.com where you can upload a file and it does the conversion for you.

The pdf is a widely-accepted and widely-used file format. Many tools to create a pdf are available but you may find that it is included within popular word processing software.

A plain text file is, you guessed it, a simple file containing just plain text. You can create a plain text version of your short story by pasting your content into notepad and saving it with the file extension txt.

Do I need a cover?

No, a cover is not needed. A cover image helps your short story stand out, but if you do not have a picture to use when you upload your short story, the MeeQi website automatically creates a cover using your book title and your pen name. You can return to upload and update the cover at a later date.

A video tutorial

This video shows you how to publish your own Sixty Minute Story.

Questions?

If you have any questions please use the comments area where we will post help and tips.

I have traded my longer larger novels in favour for small bite sized stories and so far, short stories which I can read within sixty minutes get thumbs up from me.

Best of luck with your short story.

I hope myself and millions of readers out there get the chance to read it soon!

Each new read can:

• Exposure you to new ideas and writing techniques
• Develop your vocabulary
• Introduce you to new writing styles
• Plant the seeds for story and writing ideas

With MeeQi giving away a free short story every day, 2010 brings a great opportunity for you to add reading inspiration to your day.

Be inspired by masters of the past

The free short stories which will be available to download will cover a diverse range of genres and styles by an equally diverse range of authors.

Here is a taste of the inspiration which 5 authors will promise to bring in 2010:

Jack London

You may recognise the Jack London name made famous by novels such as White Fang, The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, and The Iron Heel, however arguably, the true genius of Jack London lay in his incredibly well-constructed short stories.

The Jack London sixty minute stories will inspire by showing you just how effective and powerful the short story form can be.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain was an immensely popular American author and humorist.  The keen wit and incisive satire of the “greatest American humorist of his age” led Mark Twain to produce classic short stories of satire and equally classic quotes such as “Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest” and “If you have nothing to say, say nothing”.

A true master of wit – watch out for the Twain Sixty Minute Stories.

Oscar Wilde

In the late 1800s, Oscar Wilde was a playwright, poet and author of many short stories and penned The Importance of Being Earnest – a play which is still widely performed today.  The short stories of Oscar Wilde will inspire you with unique form of raw biting wit.

Edgar Allan Poe

Strangely curious short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, a name synonymous with mystery and macabre, illustrates the range of the 365 short stories which will be made available to download for free.

The short stories of Edgar Allan Poe will bring humour, satire as well as help you see the boundaries which can be pushed, not only in short story writing, but also in writing culture and genre.

O. Henry

The stories of O.Henry (William Sydney Porter) are as famous for their clever endings as O.Henry himself was famous for his wit, wordplay and warm characterisations.

The short stories of O.Henry – which you can download straight to your mobile or iPhone – will no doubt be inspirational.  After all, with the prestigious award for short stories, the O.Henry Award, named after Porter himself, you will find it hard not to be inspired by this absolute master of short story writing.

Make 2010 your inspired writing year

You can keep updated on the free Sixty Minute Stories as they are released by following us on twitter (@60minutestory).

Each short story will be compiled, optimised and available for reading on computers, laptops, cellphones, e-book readers, and the iPhone and iPod touch; and will be a maximum of 15,000 words long.

We hope to make 2010 an inspired year for you and your writing – and you can start by spending as little as an hour of your day on yourself, in the short stories of some truly iconic authors.

365 short, compact stories which you can download and read on your computer, cellphone, ebook reader and even your iPhone or iPod touch.

Being a story you can read within an hour, the Sixty Minute Story is a great story form which you can zip through:

• During your commute to work.
• On your lunch break.
• As part of your personal ‘me’ time.

All the short stories will be made available on MeeQi and will highlight some of the world’s most influential works as well as some neglected classics by well-known authors of the past and the releases will vary across all genres and many will touch on timeless topics and issues which still relevant and exist in today’s world.

Stories will also be released with useful background information to commemorate important dates in literature.

Here is the first five to be released:

1. The Story-Teller by H.H Munro
2. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
3. A Retrieved Reformation by O. Henry
4. A Dog’s Tale by Mark Twain
5. Man who would be King by Rudyard Kipling

Daily releases

Follow us on Twitter @60minutestory or subscribe to our blog to keep up-to-date with news on all the free stories as they are released.

More about the SMS

Find out more about the Sixty Minute Story and how you can write and publish your own short story on the website: sixtyminutestory.com

The ePub is one of the e-book file formats supported and encouraged on MeeQi.com and there are a number of ways to create an ePub version of your book.

The MeeQi e-book convertor

We are making some updates to our own MeeQi e-book convertor. Which when launched will be available for free to everyone. Where you can upload your book to the convertor, which will then provide you with your book in various e-book formats.
News of this will be released here on the blog.

Here is a quick list of websites and resources

Tools

• Stanza Desktop – http://www.lexcycle.com/
• Calibre – http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/
• Feedbooks – http://feedbooks.com
• ePub Tools@Google – http://code.google.com/p/epub-tools
• eScape – http://www.infogridpacific.com/igp/AZARDI/eScape%20-ODT2ePub/
• eCub – http://www.juliansmart.com/ecub
• Sigil – http://code.google.com/p/sigil

Tutorials

It is also possible to create an ePub manually yourself and a very good tutorial for this can be found at:
http://www.jedisaber.com/eBooks/tutorial.asp

Quickest and easiest to use

• Lib2Go is perhaps the easiest online epub tool we have found – http://www.lib2go.com

The Sixty Minute Story is a new story form, designed for our modern day lifestyles – where the entire story fits neatly within a single hour.

As life gets busier and faster, its important to make the most of the small segments of time we do have and the idea behind the Sixty Minute Story is to both:

• Inspire and help authors to write a short story to publish, and to get their short stories read by…
• Encouraging new readers to pick up a short story, knowing that the whole story shouldnt take longer than an hour to complete.

The Sixty Minute Story embraces technology and by being a short, small and mobile read, it would be natural to publish them on small, mobile devices. Which is why the Sixty Minute Story provides ideal reading for eBook readers, netbooks, laptops and cellphones as well as the iPhone and iPod touch.

The Sixty Minute Story is a novel way to spend an hour, and we really feel that here is an opportunity to introduce new writers and to help form new readers.

We are really excited. Just imagine some of the possibilities of writing a story which readers can finish in a single hour… which they can discover and download straight to their mobile device.

Seeking short stories

We are looking to build a section on MeeQi dedicated to Sixty Minute Stories and are looking for short stories of less than 15,000 words, which we can feature and deliver to readers. Simply visit MeeQi.com and upload your story in any eBook formats (pdf, plain text or epub).

You can find lots more information about the Sixty Minute Story on the website – or why not give it a try by downloading Benjamin Button and seeing if you can finish reading that in an hour.

The buttons are automatically generated when you add a book, and are available in your Studio.

When clicked on, users will be directed to your book page.

Mini-button (88×31)

Button (200×90)

These new buttons are an addition to the Feature badge.

Feature badge (180×430)

Demonstration

A video is being put together to show you how simple and easy it is to add a button to your webpage.

Any suggestion?

We will continually look to expand the selection of quick-click buttons and badges and would love to hear any suggestions or feedback.

If you are a writer or an author; you can now easily sell your e-book online with MeeQi in the format(s) which you choose.

Plus, if you have a printed book available, you can encourage people to purchase a printed book by providing direct links, to your print ‘outlets’; for example:

• From an online bookstore
• Directly from a website dedicated to the book
• The author’s official website
• Or a print-on demand service

An outline of how it works

The process

1. Upload your e-book in any of the file formats.
2. Add any sample files which you may like readers to download for free (for example a free chapter, a behind-the-scenes interview…)
3. Add any links to where people can buy a printed book. Examples include
   • From an online bookstore
   • Directly from a website dedicated to the book
   • The author’s official website
   • Or a print-on demand service
4. Set the selling price for your e-book (or zero for a free e-book)
5. A dedicated book page is then created, where visitors can download your free sample, read information on your book, find links to your print copies and buy the e-book online
6. Readers buy online for instant download
7. You receive money for your sales

We handle transactions in Euros, Pounds Sterling and US Dollars; both in selling to readers and in paying you revenue from your sales.

Would you like to see an example?

Here to help

We are always here to help and you are very welcome to contact us via our twitter page or by leaving a message on our blog.

Useful techniques to find available dot com domains

Collect lots of related words

A good fist step is to take a blank piece of paper and come up with a list of words which relate to the nature of the website.

After our initial brain-stoming sessions where we collected as many related words as possible, we let the task of identifying keywords, sit in the back of our minds whilst we continued building the website. Moments of inspiration can come at the oddest of times, so it’s important to be ready to capture those ideas.

Combine words together

Take a look at your list of related words and combine two words together to make a new name. With endless possibilities, you are sure to crack onto a good name if you get creative.

Expired domain names

Not something we actively tried to do on our hunt for a domain name, but expired domain names which haven’t been renewed can be a good way to snap up a good address.

Use a name generator

Name generators like MakeWords.com and Dotomator put random words (and at times, very random letters) together to form a new random word. Websites like these often include domain registration tools so you can do an instant check to see if the domain name is available.

Use the tld (domain hack)

Whilst this approach won’t help you in locating a web address which ends in dot com, using the tld creatively can come up with some neat web addresses.

The top-level domain (tld) is the last part of an internet web address, which follows the final dot (here is a list of the top-level domains), which can be used as part of the web address itself.

The most well-known domain hack was the formerly del.icio.us, which is now redirected to delicious.com

Try another language

Many languages are closely related to eachother and thus many words too are closely related and similar too.

Ubuntu, the operating system, is named after the South African ethical ideology ‘Ubuntu‘ (”humanity towards others”)

One of the most effective ways of finding available domain names, was to take a word from one language and do a play on words. One my favourite online dictionary for converting words is Freedict.

I will do a live test, whilst writing this blog, to see if the technique still works well. As I love the Japanese culture, I will translate an English word into Japanese and then use that Japanese word to create an new domain name.

1. First I will visit the English to Japanese Dictionary
2. Enter a related word. The first word which comes into my mind is: library
3. My results were: shobou, raiburari-, bunko, raiburari, toshokan
4. Take a word. In this case, I will select the shortest name: bunko
5. Play.

Here were my results:

• bunkoo.com = taken
• boonkoo.com = available
• boonko.com = available
• bunnko.com = available
• buncoo.com = available
• booncoo.com = available

Fantastic. Up til today, 6 out of 7 available dot com domains.

Conclusion

It is certainly becoming harder and harder to create a unique domain name which is available, and there are lots of articles which can describe further techniques on how to come up with a new name for your website and brand.

The tips above have helped me in coming up with various and unique domain names for the projects I’m involved in.

The best advice I can give offer is – be creative.

What we didn’t know was how challenging (and frustrating) it could be come up with one.

What we also knew was that it would be near impossible to find a domain name which is shorter than 6 letters long, as many were already snapped up and in use. Most were being sat on, waiting to be ransomed off for some extortionate amount.

Selected the right domain name is something you (ideally) want to do once and to do it right; as it isn’t something you can easily change later down the line.

We tried many different ways to come up with a brand name which would have a dot com domain available and will write a follow-up post on the approaches we tried.

Persistence paid off

It took a long time. But we eventually found a domain name. It’s a dot com. And it’s short. 5 letters.

One problem. It wasn’t a word which exists yet. MeeQi.

What MeeQi means

The name MeeQi is made up of two parts:

• Mee a play on the word me
• Qi which is the life energy thought to be inherent in all things

Loosely, MeeQi means the energy of Me. The idea that the books and stories which are written are a result of some sort of ‘creative’ energy.

Moving forward

With millions of domain names already registered, it has become increasingly harder to register the domain name that you want.

We opted for the short and unique name, which when broken in two, is easy to absorb.

With the new word, we have an opportunity to create its definition.