#398: Publish With a Purpose: 3 Reasons to Consider Participating in a Multi-Author Book Project

Welcome to Kingdom Writers where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Are you wanting to become a published author but the scope of self publishing and the costs are holding you back? Or maybe you are a published author and you're looking for ways to get your writing in front of new readers. If so, you may want to consider participating in a multi author book. Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz and I am one of your hosts here at the Kingdom Writers Podcast as well as the founder of ChristianBookAcademy.com, where we help you to take a step of faith so you can finally finish your book and God can use it to impact readers lives. So in today's episode we're going to talk about three reasons to consider participating in a multi author book. These are also called anthologies or you may have heard it called a collab. Book collaborations is a big thing right now in marketing. But whatever way you look at it, a multi author book is a book published by one person or one publisher and multiple authors contribute to that book and are doing it as a group effort. We have published many of these. We have done so many over the years. Our 21 series books each had an anthology in it. So 21 stories of gratitude. It was 21 different people that we had submit stories of gratitude. We had 21 stories of faith. We also had the 21 stories of generosity. And I've done this in so many different ways over the years. We've, we had one that was called Unshackled and Free. It was Stories of Forgiveness. And then we were able to promote our book forgiveness formula. So you can also host an anthology and publish it. And then you're the one that is bringing in all of these authors together. But the easiest way to get started is to participate in a multi author book. So why would you want to do this? Well, first of all, it's a way to introduce your writing style to new readers. So if you already have books published or if you have an academic active blog or you want to start building your email list, this is a great way to do it because you, you are going to potentially be reaching new readers. Number two, it's a very small commitment. So a small commitment of your time, but also of your finances. So you're only writing one chapter in the book. And so it's a very small commitment of time. You may be even able to repurpose something you've already written. It depends on the scope of the project and the, the submission guidelines and all of that. Sometimes they want original content, but it doesn't take a ton of time to write a chapter. And then you're typically not paying the publishing or marketing costs. You may pay a small fee to be participating in the anthology, but many times you can join an anthology at no cost to you. And the other person takes on the complete financial risk, the finances to get the book published, the, you know, editing and the formatting and cover design and all of that. So number one, it introduces your writing style to new readers. Number two, it's a small commitment. You're just taking one chapter of that book and writing it. Plus it's typically little to no financial commitment from you. And number three, you have an entire team working with you. So instead of you doing a project on your own, you have an entire team. And so not only does this give you a deadline to get your submission in, you know, when you're writing a book on your own, sometimes it's hard to meet deadlines or to even set deadlines for yourself because you're just out there doing it by yourself and you're like, eh, if I can put it off, I can put it off this. You cannot. You know, you're going to be participating with other people, they are relying on you. There is a deadline you have to meet. But also when it comes to marketing the book, you're not marketing it on your own. There is a whole team of other authors that are all going to be marketing to their friends and family, to their audience, to their email list, their social media, you know, all of the things. And so it just takes the load off of you. Now I'm not saying you're going to get incredible results by participating in an anthology, but you will get some new eyeballs on your work. Number one, introducing your writing style to new readers. Number two, it's a small commitment for, you know, being able to say you're a published author, but also to be able to participate in something like this that could potentially lead to growing your audience or selling more books. And number three, you have an entire team working with you. So as you market the book, there's going to be a lot of other people doing it with you. And this is one of the things that I really encourage you to think about when marketing is how can you do collaborations? Well, a multi author book is One of those options. And you might be thinking, okay, Shelly, this is interesting. I want to do this, but I'm not sure. Well, in Christian Book Academy we actually have an entire training for you that I paid Heather Hart to create and it's how to publish and contribute to anthologies. And Heather Hart has managed some of our anthologies in the past. So I know that what she's teaching is great content because she's done it for us. But she also continues to publish new anthologies on a regular basis. So in this training, not only are you going to get information on contributing to anthologies and some places to consider submitting and all of that, but you'll also get an entire training on how to publish this kind of book, this multi author book, an anthology that you'll get examples, you'll get a tracking sheet, you'll get a book contract, a sample legal agreement, you'll get a worksheet. So you'll get a lot of the tools that you need to be able to organize this project. And if you are a self published author and you've self published at least one book, then you know the process of self publishing and you can either charge a small fee from everyone that's participating so it can help cover your costs, or you take on those costs and just know that everybody's going to be be marketing those books and then on the back end you're making the royalties. So typically, you know, there's, there's, you know, not a royalty split with the authors, you know, that are taking part in an anthology. And that's all part of the contract and everything. But if you're interested in this whole topic, we have a training for you in Christian Book Academy on this. So we would love to have you join us. Join us@christianbookacademy.com and we also in Christian Book Academy you can get access to our previous conference all about how to do collaborations. And in that conference material we provide you some different people who are hosting anthologies on a regular basis and people that you can check with to see if that's something you're interested in. So again, I hope that you'll consider this. If you see opportunities come up to participate in a multi author book, there are a lot of great benefits from doing it. You get in front of new readers, you can grow your platform or sell your current books. Number two, it's a small commitment, both of your time and cost and then you have an entire team working with you. Not only are you working together to finish publishing this book and become a published author, because yes, if you contribute in a multi author book, you are a published author, but you're also marketing it together. And you know, sometimes the biggest benefit that you get from doing collaborations like this are the relationships that you make. So you get connected with other authors and you may have relationships that continue for years and you may continue to cross promote each other or support each other. There may be prayer partners or accountability partners that come out of these types of things. I mean, there could be so much that happens as a result. So, so consider it, see what you think. And if you want more help on doing this, we have that training for you in ChristianBookAcademy.com come join us and I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.