Tag: anthologies

SFFMP 202: Lessons Learned from Putting Together Anthologies and Donating to Charity

Author Interview, Podcast

This week’s show should be of interest to those authors who have considered putting aside the author hat temporarily to don the publisher/editor hat for a project or two.

Our guests were science fiction romance authors Veronica Scott and Pauline B. Jones, who also happen to be the editors and publishers of the Pets in Space series of scifi romance stories (with a pet theme, naturally). They just released their third one (Embrace the Passion: Pets in Space 3) and talked to us about recruiting authors for anthologies, publishing and marketing them, and what’s involved in donating a portion of the proceeds to charity.

Here are some more of the specifics that we covered:

  • How they got involved in this series of anthologies.
  • How they go out and recruit authors (some newer voices and some well-known authors with large followings).
  • Why they only accept original fiction rather than reprints.
  • What’s involved with giving part of the proceeds to charity (and why you need to check with a charity before using them in your marketing material).
  • Why it’s a good idea to sign a contract with a charity.
  • How they determine the order of stories in their anthologies.
  • If there are any stigmas from readers who are suspicious of authors/publishers who “use” a charity for marketing.
  • Their experience with hiring a PR person and why it’s been useful and worth the money.
  • Balancing earnings with their marketing spend to make sure there’s money for the charity and also that the authors get paid for their stories.
  • Why they’re releasing the stories wide instead of focusing on Amazon and KDP Select (Kindle Unlimited) for now.
  • Some of the challenges of marketing science fiction romance outside of the Kindle Unlimited ecosphere where romance of all kinds seems to thrive.

You can visit Veronica on her website, Pauline on hers, and check out the Pets in Space website. Or just pick up a copy here.

 

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SFFMP 196: Writing Tips, Selling Short Fiction, and What SFWA Can Do for You with Cat Rambo

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, fantasy author and SFWA president Cat Rambo joined us on the show, and we grilled her about writing and selling short fiction, her experience at the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop, what SFWA is doing for authors these days, and her latest novel, Hearts of Tabat. Among other things!

Here are some of the specifics we covered:

  • How Cat got serious about writing when she quit her day job at Microsoft and attended the six-week Clarion West Workshop.
  • How workshops can help a writer grow.
  • Whether you have to worry about having your voice altered in the process.
  • Some of the workshops Cat recommends and what to watch out for if you’re considering a less well known one (especially an expensive one).
  • Her Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers where she helps new genre voices emerge via on-demand and live classes aimed at writers working in fantasy and science fiction (scholarships available for those short on funds).
  • Getting started with short fiction.
  • Tips for writers who tend to go long when they try to write short stories.
  • Mistakes writers make when submitting to magazines and anthologies.
  • How crowdfunding such as Kickstarter has made anthologies more doable.
  • How Cat ended up publishing her first two Tabat novels through Kevin J. Anderson’s Wordfire Press (which he talked about when he was on Episode 194 and Episode 138) and how marketing goes when working with a small press.
  • Some tips from her recent non-fiction publication Moving from Idea to Finished Draft.
  • What’s been going on at SFWA since we had MCA Hogarth on the show back on Episode 20 (more than three years ago!) and why both trad and self-published may find a membership useful.
  • What it takes to qualify for SFWA membership.
  • Benefits that come with SFWA membership and how the Nebula convention has changed over the years to have helpful panels for all.

If you enjoyed the show, you can follow Cat on her blog and check out her newest novel, Hearts of Tabat. You can also sample her short fiction in Near + Far and Neither Here Nor There.

 

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SFFMP 119: Surveying Readers, Instafreebie, and Tips for Multi-Author Promotions with C. Gockel

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we brought back Carolynn Gockel, author of the I Bring the Fire urban fantasy series and the Archangel Project science fiction trilogy, for a third time. She publishes a book about every 7 months and is making a nice full-time living as an author because she’s very proactive with marketing her work, and she’s participating in a lot of multi-author boxed sets and anthologies, as well as joint author promotional efforts. We asked her about what’s working well for marketing right now and also about surveying readers for useful information.

Here are a few more specifics:

  • Straddling KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited and “wide” — Carolynn has one series exclusive with Amazon and one series available in all the stores.
  • Surveying readers for information useful in writing and marketing.
  • She uses Survey Monkey for her surveys (they have a free version, though it’s limited so she pays the monthly fee for the months she wants to run some).
  • Asking fellow authors in similar genres to survey their readers (she sets it all up and uses her SM account) to get more data.
  • Carolynn continues to find putting together multi-author anthologies and boxed sets to be valuable — she makes money doing it and also gets a lot of new readers checking out her books.
  • Why she does a mix of free and 99-cent anthologies and boxed sets, and why she’s also done some specifically targeting Kindle Unlimited readers.
  • Her thoughts on collections of original material versus putting in older books.
  • What a new author needs to have to be considered for a multi-author boxed set by folks experienced at putting them together.
  • Getting into swapping book announcements with other authors with good-sized mailing lists.
  • The pros and cons of using Instafreebie for giving away books and building a mailing list.
  • Which types of anthologies Bookbub will possibly accept and run.

You can visit Carolynn on her website or check out her books on Amazon and (for the I Bring the Fire series) all the other vendors. Her latest release, Heretic, is available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited.

You can also listen to her previous shows here:

SFFMP 19: Making Books Permafree, Where to Buy Sponsorships, and Tumblr with C. Gockel

SFFMP 62: Anthologies, New Covers, and Creating Boxed Sets to Increase Sales with C. Gockel

 

 

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SFFMP 112: Producing and Marketing Anthologies for Fun and Profit with Patrice Fitzgerald

Author Interview, Podcast

On previous shows, we’ve talked about the various ways to put short stories to use, including putting them into anthologies. But we haven’t talked much about producing multi-author anthologies of short stories–and actually making money doing it. (A lot of people edit and publish anthologies for the love of it, but turning a profit can be difficult, especially if you’re paying the authors decently for the rights to use their work.) Today we chatted with Patrice Fitzgerald, who, in addition to being an author in her own right, has published numerous science fiction anthologies–and done well with them.

Here are some of the details of what we covered:

  • The transition from attorney to author to anthology producer.
  • How Patrice is putting together mystery and science fiction anthologies that sell and make money.
  • How she approaches some of the bigger sellers in the indie community (and sometimes out of it) so she’ll have some stories from popular authors to go along with the stories from up-and-comers.
  • How she goes about recruiting those bigger names, and also how she sets up a way to receive submissions without getting too inundated by entries.
  • Whether it’s better to pay authors a flat fee or do a royalty split.
  • Whether it’s best to include stories that are completely stand alone or if they can tie into an author’s existing worlds.
  • Whether there’s an ideal length for the overall anthology and for individual stories.
  • How she gets past the bias (if there is one) against shorter fiction and sells a lot of anthologies.
  • Using Kindle Unlimited and 99 cents to launch her anthologies (and then going up to $4 or $5 the second week).
  • Gathering email addresses and starting a mailing list as a publisher and also leveraging the large lists that some of the authors have.
  • Doing a series of anthologies in a similar style as opposed to jumping all over the place.

Make sure to visit Patrice Fitzgerald on her website and check out her latest anthologies: Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy’s Edge and Mostly Murder: Till Death.

 

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SFFMP 111: Keeping Old Books Selling, When to Hire Help, and Should You Be Where Your Readers Are?

Group Discussion, Podcast

On this week’s show, Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay discussed tactics for marketing your backlist, bringing a dying series back to life, or giving a kick to one that never took off in the first place. They also talked about which tasks they hire out, whether they’ve used virtual assistants, how they stay on task and keep the books rolling out, and whether it makes sense to hang out where your readers are hanging out.

Here are a few more specifics on subjects covered:

  • Is it acceptable to use very similar covers for books in a series?
  • Whether you need to worry about your real name coming out anywhere if you publish under a pen name.
  • Using free/99-cent ebooks combined with periodic advertising to keep people coming into your series funnel.
  • When to put together a boxed set of the early books in a series and using that as another type of Book 1, perhaps with a different cover and blurb to appeal to a slightly different audience.
  • Places besides the bookstores to list your free books.
  • Publishing new short stories or installments in old series in order to help revitalize the interest in the earlier books.
  • Remembering to promote old books, as well as new releases, to your newsletter subscribers.
  • When it makes sense to rebrand a series with new covers and maybe new blurbs.
  • Hiring freelancers for editing, cover design, formatting, audiobook narration, etc.
  • When it makes sense to consider hiring a virtual assistant.
  • Whether you should be visiting the fantasy/science fiction groups on Reddit, Goodreads, etc.
  • Using deadlines and goals to get books finished and out more quickly (here’s the link to the show where Rachel Aaron talked about her 2K to 10K book and increasing productivity).

Thanks for listening!

 

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SFFMP 95: Boxed Set Strategies (multi-author and solo novel bundles and short story anthologies)

Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, the guys chatted about their experiences with multi-author and solo-author book bundles of existing material and also anthologies of new short stories or novellas. They offered some tips and strategies based on whether you’re looking for more exposure (getting more people into the rest of your series), to make money, or to hit a bestseller list. They also started out answering a few listener questions.

Here are a few more notes on what they covered during the show:

  • Jesper Schmidt’s Fantasy Map Making: A step-by-step guide for worldbuilders. He’s offering 10 free copies to listeners, first come, first serve: http://dl.bookfunnel.com/xshqdkoirn. If you don’t make it in time to grab a copy, you can buy it from Amazon or learn more on his website.
  • Books on writing and resources the guys recommend: Self-Editing for Fiction Authors, Stephen King’s On Writing, and Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Lectures on YouTube.
  • How the guys approach world-building and a few tips from what they’ve learned along the way
  • The different types of boxed sets/bundles/anthologies and when they’re useful for marketing
  • Bundling books in your own series (how many and where you you price them?)
  • Putting together a collection of your own short stories for a bundle
  • Joining or organizing a multi-author boxed set of novels
  • The various goals of these big, multi-author boxed sets
  • Leveraging the power of many authors’ mailing lists in order to sell thousands of copies and possibly hit a list
  • Whether to go wide with a boxed set or stick it in KDP Select so you can take advantage of the page read payments
  • New fiction for boxed sets versus previously published works
  • Creating a multi-author anthology of new short stories or novellas
  • Possible anthology pitfalls
  • Whether it’s better to pay authors up front or offer a royalty split with an anthology

If you’ve enjoyed listening to the gang and want to check out their work, you can find Jeffrey M. Poole at his website and download his first Lentari book, Lost City, for free on the various sites.

You can find Jo at his website or check out several of his books for free, such as Free-Wrench and The Book of Deacon.

You can find Lindsay on her site and grab The Emperor’s Edge for free or  buy Star Nomad, the first book in her new space adventure series, for 99 cents at the time of this show.

 

 

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SFFMP 80: Dissecting Steampunk + Creating a Multi-Author Anthology in a Shared World

Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, we had a podcast first: three guests at the same time. They are all steampunk authors and are a part of a shared world anthology called The Faraday Cage. (If you happen to catch this in the next few days, head over to the site; they’re doing a book giveaway.)

Steven Turnbull was the editor and publisher of the anthology. Peter A. Smalley and Virginia Marybury were contributors. We had them on to talk about the steampunk genre and how to go about putting together an anthology full of shared world stories by different authors. It was a little different from our usual interviews, but we hope you find it to be interesting.

Here are the authors’ links if you want to check out more from them:

The book website is: http://the-faraday-cage.com

The Amazon page (geolink): http://bit.ly/the-faraday-cage

And the authors:

Rob Harkess

http://www.amazon.com/R-B-Harkess/e/B0070CCSFG

Social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RBHarkess

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rbharkess/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/114351001736513757578/about

Peter A. Smalley

http://www.amazon.com/Peter-A.-Smalley/e/B0055QE0MS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Peter_Smalley

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peterasmalley/

Google+: https://www.google.com/+PeterSmalley

Virginia Marybury

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VMarybury

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaMarybury

Katy O’Dowd

http://www.amazon.com/Katy-ODowd/e/B006292ELG

Twitter: https://twitter.com/katyod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katy.odowd

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109100749123016978303/about

Steve Turnbull

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Turnbull/e/B00H20G7P8

Twitter: https://twitter.com/adaddinsane

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steveturnbullwriter

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SteveTurnbull-Writer/about 

 

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SFFMP 62: Anthologies, New Covers, and Creating Boxed Sets to Increase Sales with C. Gockel

Author Interview, Podcast

We had our first repeat guest on the show today, urban fantasy author Carolynn Gockel (writing as C. Gockel) from Episode 19, where we chatted about permafree books, getting started on fan fiction sites, using Tumblr to promote, and where to buy sponsorships. Carolynn has been busy with a lot of marketing stuff in the last year, and she’s also jumped into science fiction, so we talked about some of what she’s done and learned recently.

We discussed:

  • The promotional (and monetary) perks of putting a short story into an anthology with other authors in your genre, all of whom throw their marketing weight behind the release.
  • Starting your own multi-author boxed sets and whether it’s better to do permafree sets or 99-centers.
  • How to snag a Bookbub ad on a multi-author anthology.
  • The challenges of launching a new series in a different genre from your flagship series.
  • Having one series in Kindle Unlimited (KDP Select) and one wide (she recommends that new authors start out in KDP Select right now).
  • Getting approached by audiobook producers and if it’s better to sell your audio rights versus spending the money producing your own audiobooks.
  • Whether investing in new covers resulted in an uptick in sales and was worth it for Carolynn.
  • Her adventures in Facebook advertising — is it worth using Facebook to promote permafree Book 1s? Boxed sets? Multi-author boxed sets?
  • Lastly, she let us know that she writes because, “If I wasn’t an author, I’d probably be a nasty internet troll.” We all have our motivations!

Grab her first book in the I Bring the Fire series for free from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, or Apple. You can also check out the first ebook in her science fiction series, Archangel Down.

Visit her online at C. Gockel Writes.

 

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