All of our agents have slipped out of the office to spend the holidays with their families. We’ve picked from previous posts “The Best of” for your reading pleasure and pondering. Our office opens on January 5, 2015, and we’ll have new posts waiting for you then. In the meantime, we hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
Blogger: Rachel Kent
Books that include a collection of stories by different authors seem to be becoming increasingly popular. How are these projects planned? Who corrals all of the authors to create a single book?
I have worked on two projects like this recently, and they both came into existence in different ways. Over the next few days I’ll describe how various aspects of a multi-author project work.
The first anthology was A Log Cabin Christmas Collection with stories by Liz Johnson, Margaret Brownley, Michelle Ule, Wanda Brunstetter, Jane Kirkpatrick, Kelly Eileen Hake, Liz Tolsma, Erica Vetsch, and Debra Ullrick. This book released September 1, 2011 from Barbour. It was on the New York Times bestseller list and has been on both the CBA bestseller list and the ECPA lists ever since its release (through February 2012).
A Log Cabin Christmas was planned by Barbour. An editor at Barbour asked certain agents if they had clients who might be a good fit for such a collection, and the recommended clients then submitted writing samples (a couple of chapters and a synopsis). The Barbour editors selected the top nine stories to be a part of the anthology.
The second collection I’ve worked on recently is the 7 Hours project. (Find out more about 7 Hours here.) My client, James Andrew Wilson, came up with the idea and presented it to me. I loved it but wasn’t sure if he would find other authors interested in participating. He was looking for seven authors (including himself) to each write a novella to go along with the title 7 Hours. I told him to find the other six authors and then to let me know.
James pitched his idea to a hand-picked group of authors and found six who loved the concept. Those authors are Rene Gutteridge, Robin Parrish, Mike Dellosso, Veronica “Ronie” Kendig, Tom Pawlik, and Travis Thrasher. James organized all seven authors and put together a strong proposal, including a writing sample and synopsis from each author.
I took the job as “lead agent” on the project because the 7 Hours concept was James’s idea. It was my responsibility to shop the book idea to the different publishing houses. We received lots of interest, and Tyndale House is now the home for this unique, exciting idea.
Have you written a book with other authors? How was your concept organized? Would you want to work with other authors on a book some time in the future?
Collections I helped with that released in 2014:
I would LOVE to be involved in something like this.
I love collections like this. I hope that they continue. Thanks for a peek into the process.
I’, working on an anthology now and would love to do it again in the future.
I have been involved in eight different anthologies. Most come from Writer’s clubs and include stories from club members. Others have come from Linked In writing groups ‘online.’
None have been picked up by big publishers but were published through POD publishers and sold to members, friends and available on Amazon.
A lot of hard work goes into organizing, editing and producing such a book. In all cases it has been a fun learning experience. Check out the Inspire Promise, Inspire Victory, and Inspire Faith — all inspirational stories from Inspire Christian Writers, a great group of Christian writers.
I noticed that Pelican Book Group does a bunch of Christmas novellas every year. They can either be bought separately or together as a collection. An interesting idea, I’m thinking about submitting something to them and seeing what happens. Now to put on the Christmas music and hope for some ideas.