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Little Uncertainties (or 'Why We're Giving Away 12,000 Books')
We launched our Little Uncertainties project in October of this year.
In our first month, we sent 1,168 of these little books out into the world, a fantastic first step towards our goal of giving away 12,000 copies over the next year, completely free.
So what are the Little Uncertainties, and why are we giving them away?
Little Uncertainties are small books, each containing a single short story and produced in a limited edition of 2,000 copies. They're printed in Wales on the same high-quality papers as our anthologies, and they feature original cover illustrations by our art director Lucy Scott.
One of the challenges of being a short story publisher (or writer, or bookseller with a great short story selection in your shop), is that a lot of people – even keen readers – tend to forget that short stories exist. Or if they don't forget, they're somehow under the mistaken impression that short stories aren't much fun. Perhaps they suspect them of being dull things, more about honing a writer's craft than entertaining readers, or they think it's not worth getting absorbed into a short story that's going to end soon, and they don't realise how much fun that fast ride can be.
As a result of these misconceptions, people aren't getting their dose of quality short fiction, and that's a problem.
You see, if people don't read short stories, then people don't buy them. And if people don't buy short stories, then bookshops don't sell them, and then publishers don't publish them, and then writers can't afford to spend their time writing them. And then some fantastic short stories end up not getting written at all.
Which is a shame, because these days we need short stories more than ever: with the busy, fragmented lives we lead, what could be better than a piece of exciting, engaging storytelling that can introduce a world, bring characters to life, take you on a page-turning adventure, and wrap everything up with a satisfying conclusion in less than half an hour?
Here at Uncertain Stories, short stories are what we do. Right now, they're all we do. We'll be making the case for short story reading in a variety of ways, but as a starting point we thought that one of the best ways of reminding people that short stories are out there, and a fantastic source of entertainment, is to actually put them into people's hands.
The first two stories in the Little Uncertainties series are out now. Briar Rose, by Alex Clark, is a creepy tale of love, loss, and gardening that riffs on Sleeping Beauty, while Richard Smyth's Chalklands is a supernatural sideways look at rewilding. There are more books to follow: the third one is due at the start of 2026, and we'll be releasing new titles every couple of months.
We're partnering with a variety of fantastic bookshops to put stacks of these little books on fiction counters and display tables across the UK. You can find a list of our current stockists on this page, and we're also including one with any order from this website. If you see them, grab yourself a copy, and when you have a few minutes – and a cup of coffee, say, or a glass of wine – well, just see where the story goes.
And if you like the sound of what we're doing, do pick up a copy of our anthology Broken Ground. It contains seven brand-new short stories, lots of lovely new artwork, and sales help us cover the cost of the Little Uncertainties. (We'll even put a Little Uncertainty in the package for you.)
