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Author to Author
Our panel of established authors answer questions submitted from other authors in the indie community.
Anthologies- what is good about them and are there any drawbacks?
Do you have a PA? If yes, when did you determine it was necessary? If no, why?
As a short story writer, I have been in a lot of anthologies, both traditional and self-published. I ' ve only had one actually pay out royalties, a Kickstarter anthology run by the editor of a wellknown magazine. Even in that case, the money was trivial, so in terms of financial gain for your time and effort, I would say that anthologies have very little benefit. With Indy publications especially, it is easy to end up pulled into a whirlwind of activities for the anthology.
The key here is to be choosy about who you work with. If it is well organised, it can be a great learning experience and an opportunity for exposure. However, if it isn ' t, you can waste a lot of time and mental energy trying to prop up a collection of stories that no one but the writers are actually interested in. In one instance, the promotion and publicity plan was very badly done and the pressure on the authors to spam their followers and cross-promote all the authors in the anthology was immense. I was incredibly uncomfortable with the techniques used and I dropped out; it wasn ' t worth my effort and the goodwill of my fan base to be associated with it.
I wish! I would love to have a PA but it is hard to justify the cost and I think I am too much of a control freak.
I do have a PA, and I was very fortunate at the timing of it all.
I am a control freak, but I was feeling very overwhelmed with everything that I needed to do. It was either stay in control of everything, or let some of it go to preserve my time and sanity. I was able to hand off things that were taking up precious time, leaving me free to do the things I needed to do.
If you are in need of a PA, but don ' t have it in the budget, consider asking a good friend to lend a hand in their free time.
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