October 30, 2024 • 28 mins
What happens when life throws you more curveballs than you can catch? After a year filled with personal challenges like a house flood, a fire, and a painful arm injury, I'm back to share my journey and triumphs. Despite these setbacks, I've successfully launched a new cozy mystery anthology under my Scott and Lawson imprint, bringing together the creative talents of 12 remarkable authors. In this episode, we'll explore the fascinating world of anthology publishing, dissecting different models—whether contributors are paid upfront or earn royalties. We'll unravel the strategic decisions behind whether an anthology should stand alone or become part of a series, and how branding plays a crucial role in these projects.
Publishing a Christmas-themed anthology involves more than just stringing stories together. I reveal the meticulous process of editing and formatting with vellumpub, adding unique touches like snowflake ornament breaks to create a magical reading experience. Discover the importance of author bios, blurbs, and even a festive recipe to enhance the book's appeal. We'll discuss our distribution strategy for both e-books and paperbacks, how pre-orders can boost visibility, and the pricing tactics ensuring fair compensation for all contributors. Wrapping up, I offer a heartfelt thank you to our listeners and invite you to stay connected through Patreon and social media, eager to see you join us next week for more engaging conversations.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi and welcome to the Writing and Marketing Show
brought to you by author Wendy HJones.
This show does exactly what itsays on the tin.
It's jam-packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news
to help you with the business ofwriting.
It's all wrapped up in onelively podcast.
So it's time to get on with theshow podcast.
So it's time to get on with theshow.
(00:23):
And welcome to the Writing andMarketing Show.
This is episode 199 with authorentrepreneur Wendy H Jones.
As always, it's an absolutepleasure to have you join me
here Now.
It really is a pleasure todaybecause regular listeners to
this show will know that Ihaven't recorded anything for
(00:47):
several months and there's beena number of reasons for that.
Firstly, my house was floodedand I thought I would be back in
by January, february at thelatest, and it's taken a year
for everything to be sorted outand me to get back.
And this was a flood thatwasn't really that bad, but it's
been absolute nightmare dealingwith companies.
(01:09):
But anybody that's flooded orhas a fire or anything, I
absolutely feel for you becauseit just goes on and on and on
and is extremely stressful.
But to add to that I actuallyhad.
I was staying with my cousinand his house went on fire.
So we had to bounce around fromdifferent places place to place
, and we were moving every fouror five days.
(01:32):
We were all right, don't get mewrong.
We had a roof over our heads,but it was still quite stressful
and we were doing that formonths.
Then I was staying with mycousin again and his dog pulled
me over.
And when the dog pulled me overit smashed my arms completely,
smashed my arm into four pieces,my top of my humerus.
(01:53):
I had to have an operation, pinand plating and a bone graft,
and it looks like I will beheading for a shoulder
replacement.
So it's been a very stressfulyear and the podcast had to come
to a hiatus, because sometimesyou just need to decide what is
important and put some thingsaside for a season, which is
(02:13):
actually what happened to me.
So it's been a tough year.
Really, have I managed to getanything done at all?
Well, I have, actually, andthis is why I'm coming back to
the podcast today.
One I was planning on comingback to it anyway.
Two, I've released a cosymystery anthology today under my
(02:34):
Scott and Lawson publisherimprint, and I have published 12
other authors, and it's been anexciting time, I have to say,
and working with the authors.
So today I want to talk to youabout writing anthologies.
I thought that would be areally good topic writing
anthologies because I've workedon a few anthologies where I've
(02:57):
actually been a contributor andnothing to do with the
publication, and then this willbe my second anthology where I
was publishing the anthology.
So I thought I would give yousome hints and tips about what
can be done when you'republishing an anthology and also
(03:19):
when you're contributing andhow it all works together.
So, first of all, what type ofanthology are you going to write
?
I've done two different types ofanthologies or should I say
publish, not write?
I've done two differentanthologies.
One was a nonfiction anthologyand with the nonfiction
(03:39):
anthology, what I did was paidthe contributors for their
chapter.
So they were paid outright andthen they kept they could keep
the copyright, but they werepaid outright for their chapter,
and then they don't get anyroyalties because they were paid
upfront.
Now I'm not saying that was amassive amount, but everyone
that was in it was happy to doit and they were paid.
(04:01):
They were paid fairly for theirwork, which I really believe in
.
I 100% believe that authorsshould be paid for their work
and I as a publisher, am 100%behind that and I don't ask them
to contribute to anything oranything like that.
They're all paid in one way oranother.
My second anthology excuse me,I've got a frog in my throat
(04:24):
today as well.
Another, my second anthologyexcuse me, I've got a frog in my
throat today as well.
The anthology that releasedtoday was a different model.
That was a cozy mysteryanthology and the authors, the
contributing authors, willactually receive royalties from
this, and I will receiveroyalties as well, obviously, as
the publisher and onecontributing author.
(04:44):
So there's two different types,two different models, two
different types of anthology.
With the nonfiction anthology,what I did was I did six
chapters of it, so it was aboutdeveloping your creativity.
It was called CreativityMatters and I contributed
several of the chapters.
Then I paid people for theirexpertise.
(05:05):
So I paid someone forhistorical, I paid someone for
drama, for writing forchildren's the children's market
.
Now I appreciate I write forthe children's market and I
probably could have done itmyself, but I got a children's
publisher and author to do thatchapter.
So I used that as a method ofgetting expertise in for the
(05:30):
areas that I felt I couldn't doit quite so much justice, and
that worked extremely well.
And, as I say, the book iscalled Creativity Matters and
it's for writers or people whowant to be writers.
I'm not really going to betalking about that today, but
the things that I am talkingabout now, from now on will be
for both anthologies, becausethey work both ways.
(05:57):
So the first thing you need todo is decide is this a series or
is it a standalone anthology?
So both of mine were series.
The non-fiction was in theWriting Matters series and the
first one of my Cozy Mysteryanthologies is the first in a
new series called A Right CozyCrime.
So these are going to come outregularly.
They're going to be CozyMystery anthologies and I've
(06:21):
started a new series with thisand we'll come to the branding
for that in a moment.
So A Right Cozy Crime is whatit's called.
Then you have to decide whereyou're going to start, how
you're going to title thedifferent books in it, because,
again, it's part of yourbranding.
You need to get your brandingright right from the get-go.
So I decided the Right CozyCrime series.
(06:44):
The books were going to becalled A Right Cozy Christmas
Crime, and then the next oneswill be called A Right Cozy
Historical Crime, a Right CozyCulinary Crime and anything else
I come up with in that seriesand the branding as part of the
branding.
So brand your series from theget-go.
(07:07):
That's my first tip.
You should be thinking aboutthis before you even move
forward with the anthology whatyour branding is going to be and
what your overall series titleis going to be.
So that was easily done and Ithen pitched to.
I didn't pitch, sorry.
I asked people to pitch to me.
(07:28):
They had to pitch their storiesto me.
Now the first one is actuallyeveryone that's in it was a
member of my Sisters in Crime UKEurope chapter.
Now that was just easierbecause we were starting out,
but in the future it's going tobe opened up to everyone and I
will probably use Submittable.
(07:49):
So people had to pitch theirideas to me and then they were
chosen to be in the anthologyand we did have 14 people but
one person dropped out andthat's important to remember
that people might drop out forvarious reasons.
One person decided that she hadan extremely busy year and
(08:11):
wouldn't be able to put enoughinto it to do the story and get
it out on time.
So there are now 13 people.
Then you have to decide whatyour word count is.
Now I was in an anthology lastyear, or was the year before,
and in that anthology the wordcount was up to 12,000 words per
(08:31):
person.
Now you've got to remember ifyou're publishing a book and
every person has 12,000 words,with 10 people, you're going to
have 120,000 words.
That's a lot of words for ananthology.
So you really need to thinkabout your word count.
So, because I was having 14people in this anthology, I said
(08:52):
5,500 words, which meant thatwe had a manageable page count
in the end.
Because if you've got 120,000word anthology, yes, it's
massive, yes, it looks good, butit's going to cost a lot to get
printed and to distribute andnobody's going to make any money
out of it.
So it's really important thatyou think about word count, not
(09:15):
just oh, I'd like every story tobe up to X.
You need to think about ifevery story is up to X, what is
that going to be in terms of theword count in the long run?
So there's more to think aboutthan you first imagine.
So you then need to give clearguidelines to your authors If
(09:36):
you want them to pitch to you,you need to give them clear
guidelines as to what theanthology is about, the overall
topic, and you need to give theman idea of the word count so
that they pitch correctly.
And what they usually do isthere's two ways, again, that
can be done.
They can just pitch you theidea or they can pitch you the
(09:57):
entire story.
Usually it's they pitch you theentire story.
They send the entire story toyou and it's chosen or it's not
chosen.
And if you've got one that'swritten you've got some that are
written then you can have themready to go, and that's
important.
If someone is, if yours is thefirst one that goes in and it's
(10:19):
say it was the right cozyculinary crime and yours is the
first one about a chef that isworking in hollywood, then
you'll probably be with goodshout.
If your story is good.
But then if somebody else sendsit in with that, you're going
to be saying, well, we'vealready got someone like that,
(10:40):
that type of story, so it's notsuitable.
Anyway, I'm straying.
So you need to give very clearguidelines to the people who
will be submitting to you sothat they know what you're
expecting.
You need to give them veryclear guidelines as to the
timing as well, and giving clearguidelines is key to all of
this.
So what I did was I set down keydates of when I would expect
(11:06):
everything to happen.
So the key dates were the firstnot the first draft that they
write, but the first draft thatthey sent to the publisher
needed to be in by X date.
Then I said that it would needto be edited by X date, and what
I did?
I did peer editing, so everyonethat was in the anthology
(11:28):
edited someone else's.
Now, before you think I haven'tdone any editing, that's not
the case at all.
They did get edited andproofread by me as well, but in
the first instance there waspeer editing.
So they swapped with the personthey were meant to be swapping
with and they worked on theiranthologies.
They got feedback and theyworked on their anthologies.
(11:50):
Then I said they had to bereturned to me, the publisher,
by Y date, and that's whathappened.
They got them back to me.
Now I'm very strict on dates.
I remind people, I give them atwo-week reminder, I give them a
one-week reminder, then I givethem a daily reminder.
If they don't get it in by thatdate, then we're going to look
(12:12):
at whether they should really bein the anthology.
But again, that's up to you.
Now I did have a couple ofpeople who, for personal reasons
, weren't able to get it in andthey wrote to me and explained
and said that something majorhad come up in their life and I
fully understand that at themoment.
So I gave them an extra week.
(12:34):
You know you do have to build insome flexibility, but you can't
just keep pushing back the datebecause it delays it for
everything and everyone else andthat isn't fair.
Now mine got delayed slightlyby two weeks because of my
broken arm.
I was in hospital, I was veryunwell, I was in a lot of pain
and I was being sick, so therewas no way I could have done an
(12:55):
anthology.
So that's my next pointActually build in some leeway
just in case there's somethinggoes wrong and it needs to be
delayed slightly.
Now I'm not saying build inmonths, but at least a couple of
weeks leeway is helpful.
I think the publication datewas delayed by about a week in
the end with everything.
(13:15):
But you do need to build insome flexibility.
So be clear with your dates,let people know, remind them
when you want everything in.
Then, when it came into me, Iread all the stories and did a
bit of tweaking.
I'm not talking major tweakinghere, I'm talking the odd
grammar mistake here, the oddsentence restructure, because it
(13:39):
didn't just quite make sense.
It wasn't a lot, it was veryminor, and everybody got a
chance to say that they wereokay with that.
I then formatted the book, andI did this using vellumpub.
Now this is a Mac based program.
You can use Atticus and otherones like that if you have a PC
(14:00):
and I made sure that I edited itand not edited it, sorry
formatted it and made sure itwas an absolutely top notch
document.
I added, all in all, the otherbits to do with books.
One of the things that you needto remember is that you need to
ask for bios from people.
(14:21):
You need to ask for blurbs forpeople.
So the way I structured it wasI actually did a page that had
the blurb, the chapter title andthe blurb, then the story
started on the next page andthen it finished with their bio.
So everything flowed like thatthrough the whole book.
I made sure that the book,everything, looked good.
(14:44):
I put for the ornamental breaks.
I used a little snowflake,because this is a Christmas book
.
So it's just those little addedtouches that can help lift the
book up and make it lookextremely professional, make it
look as though a thought hasgone into it, and that's what we
wanted.
So I made sure there wasacknowledgments, there was
(15:08):
coming soon, and I even threw ina Christmas recipe for snowball
cheesecake.
That's because most cozymysteries have a recipe in it
somewhere and in my story therewas a chocolate not chocolate,
sorry a snowball cheesecake.
(15:29):
So it got added in and then Ifinished with coming soon.
So make sure your layout andyour formatting is up there with
the best, that it looks good.
I then sent.
Once I'd done that, I sent thechapters and what they looked
like in the paperback book toall the authors While they were
(15:52):
looking at it.
I was doing a final proofreadof every single chapter.
I went through it all and did afinal edit and proofread.
Then they sent back if therewas anything that needed changed
.
Now, at this point I did makeit clear that things couldn't be
changed Like I want to changethis bit of the plot.
It was literally spelling,grammar and punctuation.
(16:17):
At that point there wasn't much.
There was two or three things,but things will always slip
through.
Once I'd made all the changesthere, I gave it yet another
read through for proofread andthen you send it for publication
and you need to decide whetheryou're going to go wide, whether
you're going to have paperback,just e-book.
(16:38):
I decided I was having e-bookand paperback and it would be
wide, and what I mean by wide isit's not just going to be on
Amazon, it would be available onevery other e-book distributor
and it would be available tobookshops worldwide and also
libraries, which I did.
So everything was completed.
(17:00):
The last thing you need todecide is do you want to put it
up for pre-order?
So I decided that, yes, I didwant to put it up for pre-order.
So it's up for pre-order nowand it will come out on the 1st
of November.
I just like the neatness of it.
And also, if you do pre-orders,any pre-orders will count
towards where you go on thecharts on the day it comes out
(17:24):
on the 1st of November.
So anybody that pre-orders itwill come out then.
So what else do we need to thinkabout?
You need to think about price.
Do you want special pre-orderpricing or do you want your
price to be the same.
What price point are you goingto do?
Well, I wanted it for 70%,because we've all got to make
(17:47):
money out of it, so I did it for£3.99.
The first one that you can dois £2.99.
That's pounds, by the way.
The first one you can do is£2.99 for 70%.
But I did it at £3.99 becausethere are 13 authors that need
to be paid, obviously.
Then it will go up to £4.99after the pre-order phase.
(18:09):
So that was for the e-book, thepaperback.
I did it for £10.99.
Now, the reason it's £10.99 is,if I did it for any less than
that, none of the retailerswould let me actually, or
distributors would let me upload.
So Amazon wouldn't let meupload because you wouldn't make
enough money.
Ingramspark wouldn't let meupload because you wouldn't make
(18:30):
enough money.
Mark wouldn't let me uploadbecause you wouldn't make enough
money.
So that's the way I did it,no-transcript.
And then you need to think aboutpromoting it.
Now, the ideal thing abouthaving an anthology is, instead
of one person promoting it,there's 13 people promoting it.
(18:50):
Now for Christmas, a lot ofpeople want paperbacks and, as
of today, I'm still waiting forthe paperback to go through the
approval process, but I'm sureit will be through the approval
process by tomorrow, process bytomorrow, and then we will be
able to start to sell thepaperbacks.
We'll be able to sell authorcopies, and that's the other
(19:10):
thing you need to decide how areyour authors going to get
author copies?
Now, I'm not going to tell youhow much I'm charging my authors
for author copies, becausethat's private and I need to
keep that close to my business.
But obviously when you sellauthor copies, the publisher
makes a little bit of money offof those as well, because
otherwise we're not going tomake any money and the publisher
(19:32):
has all the outlay.
And I had the out.
What did I have outlay forCover?
I went to Kathy Helms of AvalonGraphics who did me the most
phenomenal cover, and we'regoing to go back to branding
because she showed me a seriesbranding for it and it was
absolutely outstanding.
She's got the whole thing bangon Her creativity and the way
(19:54):
she grasped what this was about.
I could never have done that.
It was absolutely perfect.
So she has a series brandingand a book branding and I'm
obviously paying for the cover.
I'm paying for some promotionalstuff, I'm paying for a paid
blog tour and I'm paying forsome other things to promote the
(20:14):
book.
So when 13 people are promotingit, you're going to make a heck
of a lot more money than ifthere's only one person
promoting it, because you'regoing to get it out by 13 people
.
So who are the authors in mybook?
I want to give a shout out tothem because they're all most of
them are award-winning authorsin their own right and they're
(20:36):
all best-selling authors.
So we have Linda Mather, sueCook, melicity Pope, marta M
McNair, sheena McLeod, paulineTate, julia Fancelli-Clifford,
diane Ascroft, gillian Duff,stella Oney, alex Grayson and
Sophie Smythe, and they wereamazing.
(20:58):
They did a brilliant job.
Their stories are excellent.
I thoroughly enjoyed readingthem all and they have got their
work in when it was meant to bein and they were absolutely
superb.
And they were also superb whenthings went wrong for me,
because obviously they have goteverything in on time and then
(21:20):
I'm delaying it slightly.
But they understood thatsometimes life happens, major
things happen in life and youtake your eye off the ball for a
couple of minutes, but otherthan that you know everything
went to plan.
(21:41):
Follow the guidelines.
If someone said I am lookingfor cozy culinary crimes and
they need to be 5500 words long,then do that.
The other thing you can do isfollow the formatting guidelines
.
If the if handing it in, you'retold to do, um, just double
line spacing and no otherformatting, follow that.
(22:03):
It makes it easier for for thepublisher because they're
obviously looking at whathappens with that when they
actually format it as a wholeand they may have different ways
they do it.
So follow any of the formattingguidelines.
Make sure you stick to the wordcount.
Word count is crucial.
If you say, well, I can onlyget it in 7,000, I'm sorry but
(22:27):
the publisher doesn't want 7,000.
They want 5,500 or whateverthey've asked for.
You know you have to look atyour story and make cuts, make
changes in order to get it downto the word count.
Publishers are not saying theywant a word count just to be
difficult.
They're saying we want acertain word count because they
(22:47):
have worked out the word countfor the book as a whole based on
the number of authors that areinvited to actually publish in
the anthology.
They're not doing it just to bedifficult.
They need to make sure that theseries works together.
They need to make sure that theprinting costs are not going to
be so astronomical, that youhave to sell the book for 20
(23:09):
pounds, which nobody's going tobuy.
So they have a plan, they havea vision for this and that
vision includes the word count.
If there are dates that thingsneed to be in, absolutely make
sure your dates are in.
You get them in on those dates.
As I say, most publishers havebuilt in a little bit of
flexibility.
So if they actually say, well,you know, we can give you an
(23:31):
extra week, that's fine, use theextra week to get it in.
If you keep putting it off andputting it off, you'll find that
your story doesn't end up inthe book because the publisher
needs to think of all theauthors in the anthology.
They can't delay thepublication because, remember,
they're doing it not only forone author but for a number of
(23:53):
authors.
And they're doing it not onlyfor one book but a series of
books.
And they will have the otherseries planned out and will be
having authors submitting sothat that can come out on time.
But if one's delayed, the nextone's going to be delayed.
So you could be inconveniencingnot just inconveniencing it's,
you could be stopping thepublication for hundreds of
(24:16):
authors down the line because ofthe way everything works out.
So it's very important really tostick to what is asked and, as
I say, publishers do understandthat life happens.
But sometimes you know you needto put the pedal to the metal,
as they say, or the metal to thepedal, or whatever way round it
(24:37):
is.
I can never remember and tryand bring it out because it
can't just get delayed adinfinitum, as they say.
So the other thing is enjoy theprocess.
It's an absolutely brilliantprocess.
It's lovely being in ananthology.
(24:58):
The excitement and the buzz isgreat because there's other
people are excited and buzzingalongside you and that's
important.
You've got other people tobounce ideas off of.
You've got other people who areexcited.
You've got other people who arecreating a buzz about it.
So share the other authors'posts, Share their names, say
(25:18):
you're excited to be in withthem in different things and
just give the other authors ashout out and make sure you do
your part in promoting the book,because it only works if every
single contributor um promotes.
If you, if every singlecontributor doesn't promote one,
it's not getting as muchexposure as it should do.
(25:39):
And two, it's not fair on theperson who um, it's not fair on
the others, it's not fair on theother authors, because they're
doing their bit and you shouldbe doing yours as well.
So I hope all this has helpedyou.
It's certainly um, I've lovedit.
I've loved every step of theway.
I'm so proud of the authors inthis anthology.
(26:01):
They've done a fantastic job.
Their stories are outstandingand I would highly recommend
that you take a look at the bookand you can either buy an
e-copy or a paperback If youlike.
Festive cozy mysteries.
This one hey, I'm going to brag, this one is brilliant.
I know it is because my authorsare all brilliant.
(26:21):
I know it is because my authorsare all brilliant.
So thank you for listening.
I will put the details in theshow notes of how you can buy
the book.
You can buy the paperbackseverywhere paperbacks are sold
when it goes through the process.
You can buy the e-book via I'mgoing to use a books to read
link, which means that it willtake you to the retailer of your
(26:44):
choice, and I will put those inthe show notes.
So that's it for another week.
I'll be back next week, I thinkI'll be talking to Biba Pierce,
who writes mysteries, and we'regoing to be talking about
writing Christmas books.
As far as I know, that may getslightly delayed, in which case
(27:04):
I'll have a different guest foryou next week, but I'll be here
with a guest.
Forgive me please for the lackof podcasts for the last several
months, but I hope you'llunderstand that life has been a
bit difficult.
So thank you once again, have agreat week and keep reading and
keep writing, and I will seeyou soon.
(27:28):
That brings us to the end ofanother show.
It was really good to have youon the show with me today.
I'm Wendy H Jones and you canfind me at wendyhjonescom.
You can also find me on Patreon, where you can support me for
as little as three dollars amonth, which is less than the
price of a tea or coffee.
(27:49):
You go to patreoncom forwardslash, wendy H Jones.
I'm also Wendy H Jones onFacebook, twitter, instagram and
Pinterest.
Thank you for joining me todayand I hope you found it both
useful and interesting.
Join me next week, when I willhave another cracking guest for
you.
Until then, have a good weekand keep writing, keep reading
(28:14):
and keep learning.
Hi and welcome to the Writing and Marketing Show
brought to you by author Wendy HJones.
This show does exactly what itsays on the tin.
It's jam-packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news
to help you with the business ofwriting.
It's all wrapped up in onelively podcast.
So it's time to get on with theshow podcast.
So it's time to get on with theshow.
(00:23):
And welcome to the Writing andMarketing Show.
This is episode 199 with authorentrepreneur Wendy H Jones.
As always, it's an absolutepleasure to have you join me
here Now.
It really is a pleasure todaybecause regular listeners to
this show will know that Ihaven't recorded anything for
(00:47):
several months and there's beena number of reasons for that.
Firstly, my house was floodedand I thought I would be back in
by January, february at thelatest, and it's taken a year
for everything to be sorted outand me to get back.
And this was a flood thatwasn't really that bad, but it's
been absolute nightmare dealingwith companies.
(01:09):
But anybody that's flooded orhas a fire or anything, I
absolutely feel for you becauseit just goes on and on and on
and is extremely stressful.
But to add to that I actuallyhad.
I was staying with my cousinand his house went on fire.
So we had to bounce around fromdifferent places place to place
, and we were moving every fouror five days.
(01:32):
We were all right, don't get mewrong.
We had a roof over our heads,but it was still quite stressful
and we were doing that formonths.
Then I was staying with mycousin again and his dog pulled
me over.
And when the dog pulled me overit smashed my arms completely,
smashed my arm into four pieces,my top of my humerus.
(01:53):
I had to have an operation, pinand plating and a bone graft,
and it looks like I will beheading for a shoulder
replacement.
So it's been a very stressfulyear and the podcast had to come
to a hiatus, because sometimesyou just need to decide what is
important and put some thingsaside for a season, which is
(02:13):
actually what happened to me.
So it's been a tough year.
Really, have I managed to getanything done at all?
Well, I have, actually, andthis is why I'm coming back to
the podcast today.
One I was planning on comingback to it anyway.
Two, I've released a cosymystery anthology today under my
(02:34):
Scott and Lawson publisherimprint, and I have published 12
other authors, and it's been anexciting time, I have to say,
and working with the authors.
So today I want to talk to youabout writing anthologies.
I thought that would be areally good topic writing
anthologies because I've workedon a few anthologies where I've
(02:57):
actually been a contributor andnothing to do with the
publication, and then this willbe my second anthology where I
was publishing the anthology.
So I thought I would give yousome hints and tips about what
can be done when you'republishing an anthology and also
(03:19):
when you're contributing andhow it all works together.
So, first of all, what type ofanthology are you going to write
?
I've done two different types ofanthologies or should I say
publish, not write?
I've done two differentanthologies.
One was a nonfiction anthologyand with the nonfiction
(03:39):
anthology, what I did was paidthe contributors for their
chapter.
So they were paid outright andthen they kept they could keep
the copyright, but they werepaid outright for their chapter,
and then they don't get anyroyalties because they were paid
upfront.
Now I'm not saying that was amassive amount, but everyone
that was in it was happy to doit and they were paid.
(04:01):
They were paid fairly for theirwork, which I really believe in
.
I 100% believe that authorsshould be paid for their work
and I as a publisher, am 100%behind that and I don't ask them
to contribute to anything oranything like that.
They're all paid in one way oranother.
My second anthology excuse me,I've got a frog in my throat
(04:24):
today as well.
Another, my second anthologyexcuse me, I've got a frog in my
throat today as well.
The anthology that releasedtoday was a different model.
That was a cozy mysteryanthology and the authors, the
contributing authors, willactually receive royalties from
this, and I will receiveroyalties as well, obviously, as
the publisher and onecontributing author.
(04:44):
So there's two different types,two different models, two
different types of anthology.
With the nonfiction anthology,what I did was I did six
chapters of it, so it was aboutdeveloping your creativity.
It was called CreativityMatters and I contributed
several of the chapters.
Then I paid people for theirexpertise.
(05:05):
So I paid someone forhistorical, I paid someone for
drama, for writing forchildren's the children's market
.
Now I appreciate I write forthe children's market and I
probably could have done itmyself, but I got a children's
publisher and author to do thatchapter.
So I used that as a method ofgetting expertise in for the
(05:30):
areas that I felt I couldn't doit quite so much justice, and
that worked extremely well.
And, as I say, the book iscalled Creativity Matters and
it's for writers or people whowant to be writers.
I'm not really going to betalking about that today, but
the things that I am talkingabout now, from now on will be
for both anthologies, becausethey work both ways.
(05:57):
So the first thing you need todo is decide is this a series or
is it a standalone anthology?
So both of mine were series.
The non-fiction was in theWriting Matters series and the
first one of my Cozy Mysteryanthologies is the first in a
new series called A Right CozyCrime.
So these are going to come outregularly.
They're going to be CozyMystery anthologies and I've
(06:21):
started a new series with thisand we'll come to the branding
for that in a moment.
So A Right Cozy Crime is whatit's called.
Then you have to decide whereyou're going to start, how
you're going to title thedifferent books in it, because,
again, it's part of yourbranding.
You need to get your brandingright right from the get-go.
So I decided the Right CozyCrime series.
(06:44):
The books were going to becalled A Right Cozy Christmas
Crime, and then the next oneswill be called A Right Cozy
Historical Crime, a Right CozyCulinary Crime and anything else
I come up with in that seriesand the branding as part of the
branding.
So brand your series from theget-go.
(07:07):
That's my first tip.
You should be thinking aboutthis before you even move
forward with the anthology whatyour branding is going to be and
what your overall series titleis going to be.
So that was easily done and Ithen pitched to.
I didn't pitch, sorry.
I asked people to pitch to me.
(07:28):
They had to pitch their storiesto me.
Now the first one is actuallyeveryone that's in it was a
member of my Sisters in Crime UKEurope chapter.
Now that was just easierbecause we were starting out,
but in the future it's going tobe opened up to everyone and I
will probably use Submittable.
(07:49):
So people had to pitch theirideas to me and then they were
chosen to be in the anthologyand we did have 14 people but
one person dropped out andthat's important to remember
that people might drop out forvarious reasons.
One person decided that she hadan extremely busy year and
(08:11):
wouldn't be able to put enoughinto it to do the story and get
it out on time.
So there are now 13 people.
Then you have to decide whatyour word count is.
Now I was in an anthology lastyear, or was the year before,
and in that anthology the wordcount was up to 12,000 words per
(08:31):
person.
Now you've got to remember ifyou're publishing a book and
every person has 12,000 words,with 10 people, you're going to
have 120,000 words.
That's a lot of words for ananthology.
So you really need to thinkabout your word count.
So, because I was having 14people in this anthology, I said
(08:52):
5,500 words, which meant thatwe had a manageable page count
in the end.
Because if you've got 120,000word anthology, yes, it's
massive, yes, it looks good, butit's going to cost a lot to get
printed and to distribute andnobody's going to make any money
out of it.
So it's really important thatyou think about word count, not
(09:15):
just oh, I'd like every story tobe up to X.
You need to think about ifevery story is up to X, what is
that going to be in terms of theword count in the long run?
So there's more to think aboutthan you first imagine.
So you then need to give clearguidelines to your authors If
(09:36):
you want them to pitch to you,you need to give them clear
guidelines as to what theanthology is about, the overall
topic, and you need to give theman idea of the word count so
that they pitch correctly.
And what they usually do isthere's two ways, again, that
can be done.
They can just pitch you theidea or they can pitch you the
(09:57):
entire story.
Usually it's they pitch you theentire story.
They send the entire story toyou and it's chosen or it's not
chosen.
And if you've got one that'swritten you've got some that are
written then you can have themready to go, and that's
important.
If someone is, if yours is thefirst one that goes in and it's
(10:19):
say it was the right cozyculinary crime and yours is the
first one about a chef that isworking in hollywood, then
you'll probably be with goodshout.
If your story is good.
But then if somebody else sendsit in with that, you're going
to be saying, well, we'vealready got someone like that,
(10:40):
that type of story, so it's notsuitable.
Anyway, I'm straying.
So you need to give very clearguidelines to the people who
will be submitting to you sothat they know what you're
expecting.
You need to give them veryclear guidelines as to the
timing as well, and giving clearguidelines is key to all of
this.
So what I did was I set down keydates of when I would expect
(11:06):
everything to happen.
So the key dates were the firstnot the first draft that they
write, but the first draft thatthey sent to the publisher
needed to be in by X date.
Then I said that it would needto be edited by X date, and what
I did?
I did peer editing, so everyonethat was in the anthology
(11:28):
edited someone else's.
Now, before you think I haven'tdone any editing, that's not
the case at all.
They did get edited andproofread by me as well, but in
the first instance there waspeer editing.
So they swapped with the personthey were meant to be swapping
with and they worked on theiranthologies.
They got feedback and theyworked on their anthologies.
(11:50):
Then I said they had to bereturned to me, the publisher,
by Y date, and that's whathappened.
They got them back to me.
Now I'm very strict on dates.
I remind people, I give them atwo-week reminder, I give them a
one-week reminder, then I givethem a daily reminder.
If they don't get it in by thatdate, then we're going to look
(12:12):
at whether they should really bein the anthology.
But again, that's up to you.
Now I did have a couple ofpeople who, for personal reasons
, weren't able to get it in andthey wrote to me and explained
and said that something majorhad come up in their life and I
fully understand that at themoment.
So I gave them an extra week.
(12:34):
You know you do have to build insome flexibility, but you can't
just keep pushing back the datebecause it delays it for
everything and everyone else andthat isn't fair.
Now mine got delayed slightlyby two weeks because of my
broken arm.
I was in hospital, I was veryunwell, I was in a lot of pain
and I was being sick, so therewas no way I could have done an
(12:55):
anthology.
So that's my next pointActually build in some leeway
just in case there's somethinggoes wrong and it needs to be
delayed slightly.
Now I'm not saying build inmonths, but at least a couple of
weeks leeway is helpful.
I think the publication datewas delayed by about a week in
the end with everything.
(13:15):
But you do need to build insome flexibility.
So be clear with your dates,let people know, remind them
when you want everything in.
Then, when it came into me, Iread all the stories and did a
bit of tweaking.
I'm not talking major tweakinghere, I'm talking the odd
grammar mistake here, the oddsentence restructure, because it
(13:39):
didn't just quite make sense.
It wasn't a lot, it was veryminor, and everybody got a
chance to say that they wereokay with that.
I then formatted the book, andI did this using vellumpub.
Now this is a Mac based program.
You can use Atticus and otherones like that if you have a PC
(14:00):
and I made sure that I edited itand not edited it, sorry
formatted it and made sure itwas an absolutely top notch
document.
I added, all in all, the otherbits to do with books.
One of the things that you needto remember is that you need to
ask for bios from people.
(14:21):
You need to ask for blurbs forpeople.
So the way I structured it wasI actually did a page that had
the blurb, the chapter title andthe blurb, then the story
started on the next page andthen it finished with their bio.
So everything flowed like thatthrough the whole book.
I made sure that the book,everything, looked good.
(14:44):
I put for the ornamental breaks.
I used a little snowflake,because this is a Christmas book
.
So it's just those little addedtouches that can help lift the
book up and make it lookextremely professional, make it
look as though a thought hasgone into it, and that's what we
wanted.
So I made sure there wasacknowledgments, there was
(15:08):
coming soon, and I even threw ina Christmas recipe for snowball
cheesecake.
That's because most cozymysteries have a recipe in it
somewhere and in my story therewas a chocolate not chocolate,
sorry a snowball cheesecake.
(15:29):
So it got added in and then Ifinished with coming soon.
So make sure your layout andyour formatting is up there with
the best, that it looks good.
I then sent.
Once I'd done that, I sent thechapters and what they looked
like in the paperback book toall the authors While they were
(15:52):
looking at it.
I was doing a final proofreadof every single chapter.
I went through it all and did afinal edit and proofread.
Then they sent back if therewas anything that needed changed
.
Now, at this point I did makeit clear that things couldn't be
changed Like I want to changethis bit of the plot.
It was literally spelling,grammar and punctuation.
(16:17):
At that point there wasn't much.
There was two or three things,but things will always slip
through.
Once I'd made all the changesthere, I gave it yet another
read through for proofread andthen you send it for publication
and you need to decide whetheryou're going to go wide, whether
you're going to have paperback,just e-book.
(16:38):
I decided I was having e-bookand paperback and it would be
wide, and what I mean by wide isit's not just going to be on
Amazon, it would be available onevery other e-book distributor
and it would be available tobookshops worldwide and also
libraries, which I did.
So everything was completed.
(17:00):
The last thing you need todecide is do you want to put it
up for pre-order?
So I decided that, yes, I didwant to put it up for pre-order.
So it's up for pre-order nowand it will come out on the 1st
of November.
I just like the neatness of it.
And also, if you do pre-orders,any pre-orders will count
towards where you go on thecharts on the day it comes out
(17:24):
on the 1st of November.
So anybody that pre-orders itwill come out then.
So what else do we need to thinkabout?
You need to think about price.
Do you want special pre-orderpricing or do you want your
price to be the same.
What price point are you goingto do?
Well, I wanted it for 70%,because we've all got to make
(17:47):
money out of it, so I did it for£3.99.
The first one that you can dois £2.99.
That's pounds, by the way.
The first one you can do is£2.99 for 70%.
But I did it at £3.99 becausethere are 13 authors that need
to be paid, obviously.
Then it will go up to £4.99after the pre-order phase.
(18:09):
So that was for the e-book, thepaperback.
I did it for £10.99.
Now, the reason it's £10.99 is,if I did it for any less than
that, none of the retailerswould let me actually, or
distributors would let me upload.
So Amazon wouldn't let meupload because you wouldn't make
enough money.
Ingramspark wouldn't let meupload because you wouldn't make
(18:30):
enough money.
Mark wouldn't let me uploadbecause you wouldn't make enough
money.
So that's the way I did it,no-transcript.
And then you need to think aboutpromoting it.
Now, the ideal thing abouthaving an anthology is, instead
of one person promoting it,there's 13 people promoting it.
(18:50):
Now for Christmas, a lot ofpeople want paperbacks and, as
of today, I'm still waiting forthe paperback to go through the
approval process, but I'm sureit will be through the approval
process by tomorrow, process bytomorrow, and then we will be
able to start to sell thepaperbacks.
We'll be able to sell authorcopies, and that's the other
(19:10):
thing you need to decide how areyour authors going to get
author copies?
Now, I'm not going to tell youhow much I'm charging my authors
for author copies, becausethat's private and I need to
keep that close to my business.
But obviously when you sellauthor copies, the publisher
makes a little bit of money offof those as well, because
otherwise we're not going tomake any money and the publisher
(19:32):
has all the outlay.
And I had the out.
What did I have outlay forCover?
I went to Kathy Helms of AvalonGraphics who did me the most
phenomenal cover, and we'regoing to go back to branding
because she showed me a seriesbranding for it and it was
absolutely outstanding.
She's got the whole thing bangon Her creativity and the way
(19:54):
she grasped what this was about.
I could never have done that.
It was absolutely perfect.
So she has a series brandingand a book branding and I'm
obviously paying for the cover.
I'm paying for some promotionalstuff, I'm paying for a paid
blog tour and I'm paying forsome other things to promote the
(20:14):
book.
So when 13 people are promotingit, you're going to make a heck
of a lot more money than ifthere's only one person
promoting it, because you'regoing to get it out by 13 people
.
So who are the authors in mybook?
I want to give a shout out tothem because they're all most of
them are award-winning authorsin their own right and they're
(20:36):
all best-selling authors.
So we have Linda Mather, sueCook, melicity Pope, marta M
McNair, sheena McLeod, paulineTate, julia Fancelli-Clifford,
diane Ascroft, gillian Duff,stella Oney, alex Grayson and
Sophie Smythe, and they wereamazing.
(20:58):
They did a brilliant job.
Their stories are excellent.
I thoroughly enjoyed readingthem all and they have got their
work in when it was meant to bein and they were absolutely
superb.
And they were also superb whenthings went wrong for me,
because obviously they have goteverything in on time and then
(21:20):
I'm delaying it slightly.
But they understood thatsometimes life happens, major
things happen in life and youtake your eye off the ball for a
couple of minutes, but otherthan that you know everything
went to plan.
(21:41):
Follow the guidelines.
If someone said I am lookingfor cozy culinary crimes and
they need to be 5500 words long,then do that.
The other thing you can do isfollow the formatting guidelines
.
If the if handing it in, you'retold to do, um, just double
line spacing and no otherformatting, follow that.
(22:03):
It makes it easier for for thepublisher because they're
obviously looking at whathappens with that when they
actually format it as a wholeand they may have different ways
they do it.
So follow any of the formattingguidelines.
Make sure you stick to the wordcount.
Word count is crucial.
If you say, well, I can onlyget it in 7,000, I'm sorry but
(22:27):
the publisher doesn't want 7,000.
They want 5,500 or whateverthey've asked for.
You know you have to look atyour story and make cuts, make
changes in order to get it downto the word count.
Publishers are not saying theywant a word count just to be
difficult.
They're saying we want acertain word count because they
(22:47):
have worked out the word countfor the book as a whole based on
the number of authors that areinvited to actually publish in
the anthology.
They're not doing it just to bedifficult.
They need to make sure that theseries works together.
They need to make sure that theprinting costs are not going to
be so astronomical, that youhave to sell the book for 20
(23:09):
pounds, which nobody's going tobuy.
So they have a plan, they havea vision for this and that
vision includes the word count.
If there are dates that thingsneed to be in, absolutely make
sure your dates are in.
You get them in on those dates.
As I say, most publishers havebuilt in a little bit of
flexibility.
So if they actually say, well,you know, we can give you an
(23:31):
extra week, that's fine, use theextra week to get it in.
If you keep putting it off andputting it off, you'll find that
your story doesn't end up inthe book because the publisher
needs to think of all theauthors in the anthology.
They can't delay thepublication because, remember,
they're doing it not only forone author but for a number of
(23:53):
authors.
And they're doing it not onlyfor one book but a series of
books.
And they will have the otherseries planned out and will be
having authors submitting sothat that can come out on time.
But if one's delayed, the nextone's going to be delayed.
So you could be inconveniencingnot just inconveniencing it's,
you could be stopping thepublication for hundreds of
(24:16):
authors down the line because ofthe way everything works out.
So it's very important really tostick to what is asked and, as
I say, publishers do understandthat life happens.
But sometimes you know you needto put the pedal to the metal,
as they say, or the metal to thepedal, or whatever way round it
(24:37):
is.
I can never remember and tryand bring it out because it
can't just get delayed adinfinitum, as they say.
So the other thing is enjoy theprocess.
It's an absolutely brilliantprocess.
It's lovely being in ananthology.
(24:58):
The excitement and the buzz isgreat because there's other
people are excited and buzzingalongside you and that's
important.
You've got other people tobounce ideas off of.
You've got other people who areexcited.
You've got other people who arecreating a buzz about it.
So share the other authors'posts, Share their names, say
(25:18):
you're excited to be in withthem in different things and
just give the other authors ashout out and make sure you do
your part in promoting the book,because it only works if every
single contributor um promotes.
If you, if every singlecontributor doesn't promote one,
it's not getting as muchexposure as it should do.
(25:39):
And two, it's not fair on theperson who um, it's not fair on
the others, it's not fair on theother authors, because they're
doing their bit and you shouldbe doing yours as well.
So I hope all this has helpedyou.
It's certainly um, I've lovedit.
I've loved every step of theway.
I'm so proud of the authors inthis anthology.
(26:01):
They've done a fantastic job.
Their stories are outstandingand I would highly recommend
that you take a look at the bookand you can either buy an
e-copy or a paperback If youlike.
Festive cozy mysteries.
This one hey, I'm going to brag, this one is brilliant.
I know it is because my authorsare all brilliant.
(26:21):
I know it is because my authorsare all brilliant.
So thank you for listening.
I will put the details in theshow notes of how you can buy
the book.
You can buy the paperbackseverywhere paperbacks are sold
when it goes through the process.
You can buy the e-book via I'mgoing to use a books to read
link, which means that it willtake you to the retailer of your
(26:44):
choice, and I will put those inthe show notes.
So that's it for another week.
I'll be back next week, I thinkI'll be talking to Biba Pierce,
who writes mysteries, and we'regoing to be talking about
writing Christmas books.
As far as I know, that may getslightly delayed, in which case
(27:04):
I'll have a different guest foryou next week, but I'll be here
with a guest.
Forgive me please for the lackof podcasts for the last several
months, but I hope you'llunderstand that life has been a
bit difficult.
So thank you once again, have agreat week and keep reading and
keep writing, and I will seeyou soon.
(27:28):
That brings us to the end ofanother show.
It was really good to have youon the show with me today.
I'm Wendy H Jones and you canfind me at wendyhjonescom.
You can also find me on Patreon, where you can support me for
as little as three dollars amonth, which is less than the
price of a tea or coffee.
(27:49):
You go to patreoncom forwardslash, wendy H Jones.
I'm also Wendy H Jones onFacebook, twitter, instagram and
Pinterest.
Thank you for joining me todayand I hope you found it both
useful and interesting.
Join me next week, when I willhave another cracking guest for
you.
Until then, have a good weekand keep writing, keep reading
(28:14):
and keep learning.
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