FOR WRITERS
Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Anna Butler:
Not a boxed set of your own series of novels (which I’ll do for Shield as soon as it’s finished), but a boxed set of multiple authors who write on similar themes.
Something I’m mulling over is the value of joining with other SciFi authors – 4 or 5, maybe – to publish and promote a collection of novels.
Boxed sets can find you readers who might otherwise never have heard of you because they come to buy one particular author and find your novel along with it. Sets can be sold at a good price to entice them into the rest of a series or your back list. And with multiple people promoting it, can again find you a new lot of readers.
Of course there are admin issues to sort out – imprint/overall ‘box’ cover design costs/ tax issues/dividing the income etc. and I suspect there would have to be some sort of simple contract or binding agreement setting all these things out. It can’t be done on trust alone. Would the group set up its own imprint for the project or use an existing one? Who would have ‘control’ to make sure the books are all up to standard and edited, and formatted properly? A lot of things to think about.
Has anyone in the group tried this? Have experience (or cautionary tales!) to offer?