Bundles, Box Sets and Anthologies With Jamie Ferguson

Summary

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The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Episode 872: Bundles, Box Sets and Anthologies With Jamie Ferguson

Host: Joanna Penn
Guest: Jamie Ferguson
Date: July 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the world of multi-author bundles, box sets, and anthologies, specifically examining what these terms mean, their benefits and challenges, and up-to-date practical advice for both writers and small publishers engaging in collaborative publishing projects. Joanna Penn interviews author, editor, and publisher Jamie Ferguson, who shares her vast experience with over 20 anthologies and numerous other multi-author projects. Discussion points include terminology, submission processes, contracts, financial realities, and the logistics of producing and marketing anthologies in today’s indie publishing world.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Jamie Ferguson’s Background and Entry to Anthologies

• [21:04] Jamie has wanted to write since childhood but only began focusing on publishing after discovering self-publishing in 2011.
• Juggles personal contemporary fantasy and western writing with editing and publishing anthologies, often collaborating with other editors.

“I’d say I primarily write contemporary fantasy. … I also have a soft spot for westerns.” – Jamie Ferguson [22:01]

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2. Untangling Terminology: Bundles, Box Sets, Anthologies, Collections

• [22:41–23:54] Definitions are murky in the publishing world:
  • Bundle: Generally a collection of eBooks, sometimes print.
  • Box Set: Used for both print and ebook sets; print box sets now possible via services like Book Vault.
  • Anthology: Curated selection of stories—typically short stories by multiple authors, edited for quality and theme.
  • Collection: Could be either single-author or multi-author; often used interchangeably.
• Single-author collections and multi-author anthologies are different. Authors should clarify what they’re joining.

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3. Why Participate in Multi-Author Projects?

• Main Benefits:
  • Promotion Synergy: Each participating author promotes the project, multiplying its reach. [24:44]
  • Creative Sparks: Themed invitations can push writers to create work they’d never otherwise attempt (e.g., Jamie’s accidental dinosaur story). [25:57]
  • Long-Tail Visibility: Anthologies provide “one more place for people to find you” and revive out-of-print stories. Not typically lucrative short-term, but valuable for audience growth and discoverability. [26:51, 27:59]

“That’s more newsletters, more Facebook posts… You just, you feel like you’re part of something bigger than just your own piece.” – Jamie Ferguson [25:48]

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4. Finding and Pitching Anthology Opportunities

• Networking is key. Many opportunities arise through personal connections, mailing lists, and previous collaborations. [28:40]
• Small presses and organizations may put out public calls for submissions—check their websites and newsletters. [29:30]
• Having a platform helps: Editors sometimes check an author’s website/social presence for promotional potential, though exceptions are made for excellent stories. [30:04]

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5. Anthology Production: Timeline and Process

• Project timeline: Varies from a couple of months to nine months, depending on complexity, scheduling, and delays. [32:48]
• Selection: Editors seek thematic, tonal fit; story lengths typically range from 3,000–8,000 words, with exceptions when warranted. [34:03]
• Editing: Multiple editorial passes, feedback loops, and sometimes difficult decisions about rejecting accepted stories if vision diverges. [31:04]

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6. Rights, Contracts, and Payments

• First rights/reprint rights distinguished in contracts; Jamie recommends consulting Christine Catherine Rush’s resources for contract guidance. [35:29]
• Previous systems (PubShare) handled royalty splits without direct contracts; moving into Kickstarter/direct sales required more formal contracts. [36:38]
• Financial model: Often a royalty share (e.g., 60-70% to authors, remainder for editors/publishing costs), usually split evenly among contributors. Publisher share covers artwork, advertising, logistics. [44:27]
• Profitability: Anthologies rarely break even outside special circumstances (e.g., a StoryBundle feature), but Kickstarter and direct sales may shift this equation. [45:38]

“If you’re going to do this, do it more for the marketing, do it more because you enjoy it. Now going forward, I think that that will change because we are looking at Kickstarters, we are looking at direct sales.” – Jamie Ferguson [45:38]

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7. Special Formats, Kickstarter, and Marketing

• Kickstarter benefits: Greater discoverability for anthologies, more compelling sales pages, possibility to offer bundles and premium editions (Book Vault, print-on-demand hardbacks). [38:07, 46:12]
• Marketing: Regular promotional posts, story spotlights, author interviews, and coordinated promo efforts multiply reach. Evergreen web content (author interviews, excerpts) boosts discoverability. [51:23]
• Anthologies are harder to discover on Amazon now; Kickstarter and direct sales present new opportunities.

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8. Editorial Vision, Story "Fit," and Artistic Curation

• Modern anthologies go beyond generic themes; careful curation ensures tone and emotional consistency (e.g., not inserting a comedic story into a grimdark lineup). [41:13]
• Editors often provide thematic guidance/resources to help authors align their submissions with anthology vision. [43:13]
• Sometimes, “editorial vision and the author vision are not the same. And you can’t reconcile that.” [40:47]

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9. Practical Tips for Organization and Production

• Formatting: Use a style guide to keep formatting consistent across diverse submissions (e.g., curly quotes, em-dash style, etc.).
• Author records: Update author bios/links regularly; tools like Vellum help manage recurring contributors. [47:45]
• Communication: Frequent, transparent updates to contributors are essential, especially as plans evolve (e.g., late addition of a Kickstarter). [50:14]
• Cat herding: Flexibility and patience required to manage schedules, life events, and a large cast of collaborators. [38:57]

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10. Tools for Anthology and Backlist Management

• Jamie built Inkwren (inkwren.com), an application for managing anthology projects, author information, contracts, tasks, and catalog management.
• Designed for both solo authors and anthology organizers—features task templates, contract placeholders, project tracking. [54:38]

“I kind of think of it as a publishing management application… It manages your stories from… like as an author, I can manage my stories, I can track… published, drafts, ideas, whatever.” – Jamie Ferguson [54:38]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the promotional power of anthologies:

“If I’m part of an anthology with 15 other authors, that’s 15 other people who are promoting the same project… it just really emphasizes… you get more touch points with potential readers.” – Jamie Ferguson [24:44]

On the genre fit:

“You don’t want to go from something super short to something super long because… it just doesn’t feel like it flows well to me.” – Jamie Ferguson [35:02]

On anthologies as a long game:

“It’s more about avenues to be found… you will have those extra places for people to find you.” – Jamie Ferguson [27:59]

On the editor role and vision:

“You might have to tell somebody who has a wonderful story and maybe even who’s a good friend of yours that you’re going to pass on it, because their story doesn’t fit…” – Jamie Ferguson [38:57]

On the joy of editing and collaboration:

“Part of what I like about working with Tammy and Deanna is Deanna really loves editing… So she does the bulk of the editing, which is great.” – Jamie Ferguson [38:57]

On publishing tools:

“I built a… publishing management application. For years and years I wanted a software tool that would… organize… catalog management… At this point, I published at least 20 anthologies, and so that’s a lot of authors.” – Jamie Ferguson [54:38]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [20:55] – Jamie Ferguson’s introduction and background
• [22:41] – Terminology breakdown (bundle, box set, anthology, collection)
• [24:44] – Benefits of multi-author anthologies
• [26:51] – Anthologies and long-term discoverability
• [28:40] – Finding anthology opportunities & pitching
• [31:04] – Typical anthology timelines and processes
• [34:03] – Story length considerations
• [35:29] – Rights, contracts, and the move from PubShare to formal contracts
• [38:07] – Special print/Kickstarter editions
• [38:57] – Publisher/editor organizational considerations
• [41:13] – Editorial vision and thematic curation
• [44:27] – Financial structure and realities as a small publisher
• [46:12] – Kickstarter’s role in marketing and sales
• [47:45] – Formatting and production tips (using Vellum, style guides)
• [50:14] – Communication best practices for anthology organizers
• [51:23] – Marketing anthologies and collaborative strategies
• [54:38] – The Inkwren publishing management tool

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a comprehensive masterclass for any writer or aspiring small-press publisher curious about the realities of multi-author anthologies in 2026. Jamie Ferguson generously demystifies the process, from terminology and contracts to creative curation, finances, and the joys and pitfalls of collaboration. Her grounded advice and pragmatic optimism underscore anthologies as meaningful, if not always immediately profitable, undertakings—fertile ground for building readership, community, and creative energy.

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Find Jamie Ferguson at:

• jamieferguson.com
• blackbirdpublishing.com
• boragrovepress.com
• Inkwren (publishing management tool): inkwren.com

Host Links:

• joannapenn.com
• thecreativepenn.com
• Instagram/Facebook: fpenauthor

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For comments, questions, or sharing where you listen to the show, contact Joanna at JoannaTheCreativePenn.com, or interact via show notes and social channels.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Creative Penn Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots [e-mail] and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show Hello Creatives. I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 872 of the podcast and it is Friday 10th July 2026. As I record this in today's show, I'm talking to Jamie Ferguson about multi author bundles and anthologies. We discuss the difference between bundles, box sets, anthologies and collections which can be confusing, the benefits of a multi author project, how to find and pitch for anthology opportunities and what editors look for in a contribut more so that's coming up in the Interview section. In Writing and Publishing this week. Big news as Amazon Kindle increases the 70% royalty share banned about time. Starting July 7, 2026, the maximum list price for the 70% royalty option changes from $9.99 USD to $12.99 on Amazon.com with equivalent changes across all KDP market. So you can now price your eBook between £2.99 and £12.99 and still get the 70% royalty option, which of course you've been able to get at Kobo and other places forever. So if you are on the lower royalty option and you have maybe higher priced books, hopefully that will help. You don't have to go in and change anything. But I do think this is a good thing, obviously with inflation in general and we do see many traditionally published Kindle books now at 12.99 so that is a way. But also bundles and box sets. Especially good for this interview today if you have an anthology. If you have a bundle, say you want to put in three books or five books. For many years we've we've basically said you need to keep your bundles to three books on Amazon because of the 9.99 price cap. But now this gives a bit more wiggle room. So I don't know, maybe some authors will do five books for the full $12.99 or something like that. So think about how this might help you. And certainly for non fiction authors, non fiction is often priced a lot higher. So a time to think about your prices then in book marketing Voices by Inaudio posted a great article on audiobook marketing tips you haven't heard already a million times. Now that made me smile and it did make me click, although I had heard their things before. But one of the tips is to post all audiobooks for free on YouTube. Now this is something that many of us resist, but you have heard this before back on episode 805 last year with Derek's Slatum. And actually since that episode I have been posting my audiobooks on YouTube for fiction and non fiction. So the Creative Pen for the non fiction and JF Pen author for fiction and I have made some money from ads, but certainly not a lot. So I do think it's more of a marketing angle. Indeed. I know some authors are making that work, but they tend to be putting out serial fiction like Derek does, for example. So think about that. But lots more tips over on inaudio link in the show notes and if you didn't know, in audio used to be findaway voices. So it's what many of us use, including me, to go wide in audio to stores like Apple Kobo Library Services and more. And of course you can use it for Audible and other things. But yeah, so that is in audio. And then a great rallying cry from Seth Godin, who has been blogging every day for Goodness must be 20 years now, Seth being one of the most consistent creators out there. So Seth's blog is his site and he posts the Builder's Creed, which I really liked. It's quite long, so I'm not going to read it all, but some excerpts here from each section. He says, promise yourself to see optimism not as a prediction, but as a choice. Pessimists are sometimes right, but they rarely build anything. And as you know, I am pretty much an optimist in general, definitely a techno optimist. And I lean into building and ignoring all of the hate and the drama and the angst and in fact just ignoring social media more and more, to be honest. Also from Seth, promise yourself to stop waiting to be picked. The world doesn't care about your credentials, it only cares about what you create. So yes, leaning into building there. Then he says, promise the work to make the tool serve the human, not the other way around. That actually made me laugh because I've talked before that I've been using Claude code for loads of things to kind of run the admin side and marketing side of of my business. And one of the things I've been doing is I'm like, okay, remind me to do that whatever day. And then we went away to Brussels and Bruges for a few days and when I came back I opened Claude code and there were Loads of reminders that I'd done. And Claude was like, have you done this? Have you done that? And I was like, hey, hold up just a minute. Move all of those reminders into next week. And it definitely felt for a minute like Claude was bossing me around. I was like, no, I am the boss here. Also from Seth, Promise the work to know the difference between building something people need and needing people to want what you built. That is a real hard hitting sentence for writers to know the difference between building something people need and needing people to want what you built. And that last thing is what a lot of us do, let's be honest. I mean, I just did it recently with Bones of the Deep. I wanted to write that book. I wrote that book. And then I was like, oh yeah, I wonder if there are people who might want this as opposed to building something people need and is useful and is something that they're looking for. So yes, that is the difference between writing to market and writing from your just the book of your heart. Now, I think both are completely valid, but I think what you need to be aware of is if you need people to want what you built, you're less likely to make as much money as building something that people need and are clamoring for. And this is just, again, the truth of being a writer. Some genres are just more popular than other genres. That is the way it goes. And I don't think we can necessarily help what we love to write. We just love what we do. And yeah, find different ways to reach even a tiny audience is good. And then promise each other to be just as enthusiastic about the success of other builders as you are about your own. Scarcity is a story. Possibility compounds. I love that possibility compounds. Yes, it does. I actually absolutely believe that. And then a few things promise the future to remember. Socrates was right that writing would change memory. He was wrong when he insisted it would diminish us. And that is a reference to Socrates, who was absolutely against writing anything down. He basically thought that writing would destroy people's memories and they would get worse and therefore nothing should ever be written down. And of course he would not be remembered today without somebody who wrote stuff down. But yes, I'm sure you can relate to what that's talking about. Anyone who insists that change is always a bad thing is not necessarily correct. Also, promise the future to notice that every era has its printing press. And every era has its people who burn the books. Every era has its printing press that enables more people to create more words to reach other People and every era has people who burn the books, who just want to destroy and promise the future, to hold the lever of possibility and technology with both hands. One hand for ambition, one for responsibility. And I like that because I wrote down in my journal the other day, I need to be more ambitious with what I can create alongside AI. If you, if you haven't had a chance to try Claude Fable. And of course, ChatGPT 5.6 is out now as well. And these are very, very good at enabling you to be a lot more ambitious with what you want to do. So right now I'm working with Claude on a treatment for a Hollywood film, or perhaps not a Hollywood film, but a film. And I'm also using it to help me write image prompts and making a video trailer for a competition. The competition. I need to do a trailer and a treatment. But of course, in order to do that, I need to essentially write the screenplay, come up with the world and the characters. And so I'm pretty excited about it. It's called the Future X Prize, and it is about writing things that are positive about the future with AI and robotics and technology. And I'm. This is the reborn project that I have mentioned briefly. I am deep into bio intelligence, plant intelligence, and how bio architecture, how using principles of plant intelligence in architecture could mean, along with AI, that we grow buildings that can both clothe us and house us and feed us and protect us from the weather and also make a green future possible. And the research on this is absolutely fascinating. And of course, I love research, so I'm going deep into that. And in fact, if you are someone who's involved in green architecture, I'd really love to hear from you. This is. I am planning on turning this into a book, I think, because the sort of positive future of technology, solving these problems of the future is something I'm very keen on. And the whole premise of this Future Vision xprize is that we can only inspire people to change the world for good if we give them visions of positive technology and not just the Terminator. So, yeah, I mean, maybe you're someone who wants to also enter the future Vision X Prize. I'll put a link in the show notes about that. But yeah, the ambition. There's no way I could be doing this without Claude's help because I don't know anything about architecture or the sort of the climate stuff, or only from the news and all that. But I'm really going deep into how this could potentially play out over the next couple of decades. And it is just fascinating. And yes, I'm probably getting too much into world building and not enough on the plot or the characters. But hey, I will get there. Yeah, I'm loving working with Claude Fable on that. So yes, be more ambitious with what you might be able to co create with AI. And of course I talk more about these things in my Patreon. In personal news, well I mentioned last week that I was a finalist in the selfie awards for best fiction. I did not win. Congratulations to Eva St. John who won for her novel Flint in the Bones. Although I did get a highly commended for my thriller Death Valley. The judge said clearly written by a wonderful author, this locked room mystery was a fun read in a unique and very deadly setting. If you enjoy a good thriller, you won't want to miss out on this. So that's nice. Always nice to get a positive comment and a commendation. We were also away last weekend as I mentioned, in Brussels and Bruges in Belgium. Cathedral and church and relic hunting. Bruges is lovely. If you've been there you would know it's just very beautiful architecture and just yeah, nice place. And the highlights were the Jerusalem church out on a private estate with a relic of the true cross and an excellent chapel with a macabre altar carved with skulls. And also I got to see the relic of the Holy Blood which was available for veneration and although I am not somebody of the Catholic faith, I went to the veneration and to have a look at it and fascinating. And those of you who read my fiction as JF Penn know I am a little bit obsessed with religious relics and also ecclesiastical architecture. So hopefully I will get these into my next arcane thriller. I should mention just back on my reborn project that I talked about, I am essentially growing a Gothic cathedral. This has a crossover with my Gothic cathedral research. I want to have a future of architectural beauty that is grown with plant intelligence. It's just very sci fi. Very different to anything I've ever written. But hey, we have to sometimes lean into our muse. Also we did a lovely canal boat trip in Bruges. Very recommended if you go photos on Instagram and Facebook Fpenauthor if you want to go and have a look at my reels. Also, if you'd like to understand how I research my fiction and incorporate the darker side of travel into my books, I I have a written interview on Anna Saburn Lane's substack about the story behind the story link in the show notes and Anna has been on my books and travel podcast we both geek out doing our research. Also, while I was away I had some time to think about what I need to change in terms of this podcast. Something that has been on my mind for a while about how things need to change in general and I made a decision. I am teasing the decision right now. But don't worry, the show will go on. I obviously cannot stop at what are we872. I will absolutely now have to make it to a thousand episodes. It feels like that is a place I have to get to. But in terms of how that's going to happen, things some things are changing. So I am going to do an in betweeny so this week telling you all about that. So it's just a teaser right now. Also this week I finished hand editing a short book on how to write, publish and market short stories. Yes it is a short on shorts and that is now with Kristin Tait, my editor and it was a lot longer. I ended up cutting a lot of it out so it fits beside how to write a novel and successful self publishing. I didn't want to duplicate all that. So that will probably be coming in probably September now. And also remember Bones of the Deep is out in all the usual formats in the usual places and is in KU at the moment. I love doing this kind of idea of windowing the windowing release which was obviously on Kickstarter first, which is ultra wide and the ebook and the audiobook and all the different print stuff ultra wide and now indicu for a few months especially for the standalone fiction which is hard to market wide and then I may put the ebook wide again but for now into KU and of course the audio and print are all wide. If you have read it or you do read it, a review would be much appreciated wherever you get the book or on Goodreads or my store or whatever you usually review. This is probably the most difficult thing with Kickstarter is that you miss out on a lot of reviews. But I still think it is worth doing. It's just reviews would be much appreciated. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Ray said. Catching up with the podcast on a break in Norfolk Spy the attached book in the shop at Burleigh House 111 Dark places in England that you shouldn't miss. And lovely of Ray to send that to me, but of course I have that book already. I never miss a dark book or a dark travel type of thing. And Chris sent Picture of a graveyard came across this small graveyard Hawk's nest Cemetery established 1825 on Cape Cod in Harwich. I was out walking my dog in the trails and came upon these. Looks like it's been cleaned up recently, which is great. Always nice to care for your cemeteries. And Tyreen, on the episode with Nicole Walker said, I haven't written the braided essay in three decades, but I remember writing them in creative writing class a long time ago and I love being reminded of the possibilities in that. And then when Nicole spoke about speculative memoir, I also remembered a class I had in which the teacher said we didn't have to write the truth in memoir, which was bizarre. I agree. I find this truth in memoir thing quite difficult and I Irene also sent a photo out a plain window of the clouds flying home from a conference. We flew around huge storm clouds with lightning. I do love a plane photo, actually. I take those myself. I do love to be that high. I I get kind of I'm not happy with heights when you're still close to the ground, but I'm completely fine looking out a plain window. I think the human brain just doesn't really get that it's very high. So yes, thanks for that Tyreen. Okay, so Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel at the Creative Pen, or email me, send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation so today's show is sponsored by Book Funnel, which I use to deliver my ebooks and audiobooks for my free reader magnet and also to sell direct from my Shopify stores without having to worry about deliverability and customer service. Since BookFunnel handle all that and appropriately for today's show, one of the fastest ways to find new readers is partnering with other authors in cross promotions and book swaps. The challenge? Coordinating with multiple authors and delivering books to thousands of readers usually turns into a logistical nightmare. Bookfunnel makes group promos simple. Upload once, deliver everywhere, and watch your email list grow without broken links, frustrated readers or late night tech support. Smart authors know collaboration beats competition. Book Funnel makes sure your promotions actually work instead of falling apart at the delivery stage. Ready to grow your audience faster? [e-mail] the creative pen. That's bookfunnel.com thecreativepen and as ever, if you use my links, it really helps sponsors know that you are listening to the show and that sponsoring it makes it worthwhile for them. So thank you for that. That and of course this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my [e-mail] TheCreativePen thanks to the 14 new patrons who've joined this week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing, craft, Author, business and AI tutorials. Last week I shared how to use NotebookLM to go through YouTube videos without having to watch them, which is great for audio first consumers like me. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePens Right, let's get into the interview. Jamie Ferguson is a fiction and short story author, editor and publisher with over 20 anthologies and multiple ebook bundles through her own press. Her latest book for authors is Bundle A Practical Guide to Anthologies and Box Sets that Sell. And just for context too, one of my short stories, the Dark Queen, is in the Amazing Monster Tales to the Briny Deep anthology. So I'm excited to talk about this today. Welcome to the show. Jamie.

[B]

Thanks for having me. Jo.

[A]

Yeah, so lots to talk about. But first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self publishing.

[B]

Oh well, I wanted to be a writer since I was, I don't know, at least six, maybe, maybe before then. So it was just something I always wanted to do, but I always did it on the side. And I had a year many years ago where I was really busy with work and I just felt like I didn't write anything the entire year year and I thought I'm gonna give it up. And then the next year, that was 2011, I started seeing more about self publishing and that just really kind of invigorated me and made me feel like, no, why am I giving up something I've wanted to do since before I went to school. So I got back into a novel I had worked on years before. I went to a writing workshop with Dean Wesley Smith and up in Oregon, back back in the day. And then I had my energy back and so I've been writing everything since still on the side unfortunately, but you

[A]

know, someday and just tell us a bit More at what kind of genres you write. Because balancing your own books with also doing these anthologies and things is quite difficult.

[B]

Yes, it definitely is. I, I'd say I primarily write contemporary fantasy. I, I really, I'll write anything in any genre if I'm really excited about it. I also have a soft spot for westerns. They take a little more time because I like to research all the festivals facts, but those are really fun to write. And yet creating anthologies on your own is actually quite a bit of work. And one of the things that I also do is I work with two other authors, Deanna Nipling and Tammy Veldura, and now I'm creating more anthologies with them. And that's really fun because then we can each kind of take a different piece and there's also. There's always somebody to talk to as opposed to. You're just doing it on your own.

[A]

So let's start with the terminology, because I definitely struggled with this and I think people still do. So we've got bundles, we've got box set, we've got anthology, we've got collection. And are these in ebook or audiobook or print? So can you just start by explaining what all of these words actually mean?

[B]

Yeah, that's in my book. I actually use the term multi author collection or multi author project because there are so many different permutations and it does get confusing. So from my perspective, I think of a bundle as a collection. It could be a collection of ebooks. Technically it could be a collection of print books, although people generally use box set for that. But then box set can also be a box set that's all ebooks in anthology. I usually use anthology for something that's a collection of short stories where there's an editor who's actually edited all the stories. But I have actually had stories in anthologies where somebody didn't edit them and they would text technically be called a curator. So it is definitely confusing for sure. And I have not done anything with audio collections, but that certainly is another area that I actually think is pretty interesting.

[A]

Yeah. And I also think that a single author. So I've done a short story collection, but an anthology is multiple authors, is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think when I came into the indie space, there were a lot more multi author. We all called them box sets back in the day when it was just ebooks. Right. And now we can actually do boxed sets with boxes through things like book vault. So it feels like the term box set has also gone out of fashion. So I think what if people listening are thinking of doing any of this, you do have to figure out what is the thing you might be signing up for. So let's talk about the multi author projects as that's where you kind of specialize. What are the benefits for an author to be involved in a multi authority anthology project?

[B]

The biggest benefit is you are one of multiple people promoting the same project, whether it's print or ebook or whatever. And so like for example, if I put out a short story collection on my own, I'm the one promoting it. And maybe I can get a couple other people to write about it or something, but it's really just me. If I'm part of an anthology with 15 other authors, that's 15 other people who are promoting the same project. And so that's more newsletters, more Facebook posts, what maybe on their, their Patreons. Whatever it is, it just really emphasizes or you get more synergy and you just get more touch points with potential readers and then hopefully that translates into sales as well. So that's definitely the, the biggest part of it is, is the promotion. And then I also personally really enjoy these types of collections because it's just fun to work with other people and there's just kind of a nice energy when. And everybody's like, oh, here, I put this in my newsletter and I put this here and I put this here. And you just, you feel like you're part of something bigger than just your own piece.

[A]

And what about the creative benefits when, I mean, especially with short stories, often people will write them for a collection or for an anthology project.

[B]

Yeah, I've definitely written some stories that I never would have thought I'd write because somebody who I knew asked if I would be interested in being in their collection, whether it's an E book, book bundle or print anthology. So at least for me, that's been really fun. One of, one of the ones that stands out is I was asked to be in a dinosaur collection once and I was like, I don't write dinosaur stories. And then I did, I said a dinosaur story in London and it was really fun to write. And I never would have come up with that in a million years.

[A]

Well, I think that brings us to the source of. Well, so let's say we've got 12 authors, they've all written short stories and now it's in this anthology. But what is the market for these kind of things? And have you found that there is a readership for short story anthologies that carries over to the author's longer work? For example, there is.

[B]

I like to think of it as if I have a story in a collection, whether an anthology, whether it's one I'm editing or somebody else is editing, that's one more place for people to find me. A lot of times anthologies will take reprints as well. Like your story, your story with the Dark Queen, that was a reprint. We asked if you'd be interested in participating in the amazing Monster Tale series. And I actually really like printing stories, again, that have already been published because there's a lot of stories out there that you just. It can be hard to find them or if it's like an older book. Like, I have one author I've known for like 30 years. I reprinted one of her stories that was originally published, I think, 1999, and the anthology it was in was out of print. Like you couldn't find it. And it was a fantastic story. And so it's just kind of fun to be able to give new life to those stories and give them more opportunities and then also just have more ways for people to find you.

[A]

Yeah, I definitely think it's a long game. I don't think appearing in a short story anthology in one particular month is going to mean that your whole back collection just sells, right?

[B]

No, definitely not. It's more about avenues to be found. I know there have been some. Some anthologies that I know of that have made quite a bit of money, but in general, you're probably not going to make as much money, but you will have those extra places for people to find you.

[A]

Yeah, I always feel like, yes, there is maybe a small amount of money, but it is more about almost a marketing thing in itself. Okay, so let's say an author is listening and they're like, oh, do you know this sounds like a great idea. So how can they pitch for things like this? How do they find out about opportunities or get noticed to be asked and what are the expectations for them?

[B]

The. The biggest thing is networking. There used to be a couple opportunities where you could make people aware that you had stories that. That you were interested in, in potentially having picked up for something. I'm not aware of anything like that now, but it. It. So when I talk to people or when I create a collection, I have. I have a mailing list that I send out, and it includes authors who I've published before. It includes a. Who somehow found my mailing list and I'll publish. Like, here's what I'm doing there. You know, authors that I've met at writing workshops when I've been able to read some of their work. I'll approach them and say, hey, I really liked such and such a story. Would you be interested in writing for this? And then there are a couple other websites like Katrope and places that advertise markets.

[A]

Yeah, I've found them also on, like you say, small presses that do these kind of projects, they often put out one call for submission a month or something in you can write for their particular thing. I think that in general, the short story markets are the places to keep an eye on.

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

And then if an author wants to do that, like if they want to pitch to have their story as part of an anthology, do you want to know things like platform or is it just the story itself?

[B]

I personally look at the author's platform. You know, I do make exceptions. Like there's one author, actually two authors that I have worked with a couple times who don't have websites. They are people that I know personally and they are very, very good writers. And so I will make an exception for. For things like that. But otherwise, if it's somebody. If somebody submitted a story to me and I didn't know that person, I would check out their website, I would check out their social media, I would see what else they had done just to. Because part of what you're doing when you're creating a collection is you're thinking not just how will I, as the person organizing this, promote this collection, but how will the authors who are participating help promote it as well? If it's somebody who has a lot of fans, even if they're not very active on social media, that can help a lot too. There are a lot of different factors though.

[A]

So then talk us through the sort of project timeline. How long do things take and what sort of involvement do the authors have along the way? Because it's a lot to juggle.

[B]

Yeah, it is a lot to juggle. I can give you an example with the Monster Tales series. So we will come up with an idea and we also. We like to try to get the artwork done early on in the process. We don't need it that soon, but it's. It's really great to have that taken care of. We will contact authors. I think for this one we've used my mailing list, but we've also contacted a number of people individually that we know who write the style of stories that we like. Then we get, you know, as the submissions come in, we usually wait till we have a nice chunk of them to start going through and then we'll pick some right away. Like, sometimes it'll be like, oh, my gosh, of course we want this story. We'll just wait to fill out the other slots. Then we will negotiate. Sometimes it's like, I want this story. Well, I want this other story. And we have to figure out how the word count works. And then once we finalize the stories, then usually what happens with that anthology is Deanna is a very, very good editor, and so she will make the first editing pass through, and then I will make the second. And then now Tammy's involved, so Tammy will make the third. And then we'll kind of iterate. And once all three of us have gone through the first time, then we'll send the story back to the author for edits. So the most the author has to do for most of the process is just wait for us to edit their story and then work on their edits and get them back. And then once we get closer to promotion, to launch, launch, then we'll give them information about, here's what we're going to do. And for example, we're going to launch the next. The next issue with a Kickstarter so our authors know that we have a Kickstarter coming. And we'll give the board information as we get closer to the actual launch date.

[A]

So how long might an author expect before their work is out there?

[B]

It really varies. I've had some collections published very quickly, so let's say a couple months. Some have taken longer just because somebody ends up having some life issue and. And, you know, things get delayed. So I'd say ideally, ideally it would be more like three to nine months, I would say, depending on the collection and the complexity.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And what you did mention word count there, but just give us a range of what word count you like to get.

[B]

So I think I'm shooting these days for between like 75 and 80,000 for the total word count for a collection that includes the stories, but it also includes any. The opening, the introduction for one that we're working on now, we're going to have some interstitials where we have things, little bits of things we're going to write in between each story. And so that's like the overall size of the collection. And so then I usually. I'll keep track of the word count as the stories come in. And then as we edit the stories, sometimes they grow, sometimes they shrink, and sometimes that's a big enough difference where we're like, okay, we need one more story to Fill it in. But that's kind of the target.

[A]

But I guess. How much for each individual story?

[B]

Oh, that varies. I've done a bunch of different things. I think these days I think what I'm advertising is between three and 8,000 words. But I also always tell people if you're outside this range on either side, just check with me. And if it's something that is really an excellent fit for the book, I'll make an exception. And I have published actually the one that's coming out. I think we have a 1500 or 2000 word story that was just amazingly perfect for what we wanted. There was another story actually, I think it was the issue that you were in that was maybe it was at least 12,000 words, but it also was a perfect fit for the theme. So I will make exceptions, but within reason I wouldn't put a novella inside an anthology because then you'd have a 22,000 word story next to a 3,000 word story. And I personally feel like that's really kind of jarring for the reader. Reader. You don't want to go from something super short to something super long because you. I don't know, it just doesn't feel like it flows well to me.

[A]

No, absolutely. We'll come back to the sort of making it. Because I think you mentioned some really interesting things there. But just on the contractual side because a lot of indie authors don't necessarily do any publishing contracts for their work unless it's signing the terms and conditions when uploading on Amazon or Kobo, whatever. So tell us a bit about the contract side. What rights are we talking about here? Any red lines in contracts around this kind of thing?

[B]

So for contracts, I would recommend people read Christine Catherine Rush's posts on these. She is way more informed about this than I ever will be. And so when I actually have questions, I will look at her posts and I've asked her a couple questions what we're doing for the amazing monster tale. So this is the first time that I've actually had authors sign contracts. Prior to this I've used PubShare, which handles royalty splits and all of that. And that was really great. But we want to do direct sales and Kickstarters and have lots of other options. So we did put together a contract this time and I'd have to pull it up, but I think we asked for first worldwide rights in English. I'm getting the terminology wrong here, but that was basically it.

[A]

But yeah, or I guess reprint rights if the story's already been licensed.

[B]

Correct. Yes, we, we have two, two contract templates, one for original stories and one for reprints. And yeah, so we made sure to make that distinction because it is definitely a distinction. In the book, Christine Catherine Roch's book, it's called Closing the deal on your Terms. And I highly recommend that for anybody interested in learning more about contracts.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's great. And just for people listening, when you said you didn't have contracts before, you just used PubShare. So in that way the author still retained the rights and you just split the royalties. It was more of a co writing thing.

[B]

Correct. When you publish stories through PubShare, the author signs an agreement with PubShare and then I as the editor or organizer would also also sign a separate agreement. So our agreements, each of us have an agreement with PubShare, we don't have agreements with each other, if that makes sense.

[A]

Yeah, so it's very different to move into Kickstarter then. So, so tell us you've been publishing things like and. And what you're now moving into.

[B]

Well, Kickstarters are a new world for me personally. I have many friends who have had Kickstarters. I've supported Kickstarters, I watch them. But it's something where I'm very, very happy to be to have two partners who have done Kickstarters before. I'm not sure how many Tammy's done. I think Tammy's done the most at this point. And so, yeah, so this is all new to me but it's very exciting. And it's also at this point we have a backlist and so part of the plan is to offer for, for the monster series, part of the plan is to offer the issues 1 through 4 as part of the rewards for when we launch issue number five. And that's really kind of exciting because I never had a backlist like that before.

[A]

Yes. And in fact the money is in the backlist as ever. And those add ons or the bundles as part of Kickstarter are great. So are you going to do special print editions or is it digital only?

[B]

We are talking about special print editions. You mentioned Book Vault earlier. We've been looking at Book Vault, our other anthology series that has not come out yet. It will also launch with a Kickstarter. It's dragon themed and Tammy actually did the COVID work which is beautiful. And so we've talked about, you know, like Book Vault just gives you so many options that just never had them before. So I'm very excited about that.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's A really good idea. I mean, I did gorgeous hardbacks for my solo author collection. So yeah, I think it's a great idea. So from the publisher side then, let's come back to that. I guess you've mentioned you have to write things like potentially an introduction and interstitials and you're trying to put balance the stories. But what are some of the other things that if people want to organise their own anthologies that they might think about.

[B]

Oh, gosh, where to start. I mean, there's the basic setting up of the anthology, so you have to define the table of contents. You might get a bunch of stories that are really awesome and you might have to tell somebody who has a wonderful story and maybe even who's a good friend of yours that you're going to pass on it because their story is. Story doesn't fit with all the other stories. So that every time I have to do that I feel kind of bad. But it's being on this side. It's really interesting to see how you can tell which stories fit together and which don't. There's also the editing process, which can be a lot of work. Part of what I like about working with Tammy and Deanna is Deanna really loves editing. I feel like I'm a good editor and I can do it, but for me it's more of a job for Diana. She like, loves it and so. So she does the bulk of the editing, which is great. When I do it on my own, I. I feel like this is a task I have to do. And so that's just having to think about that. There's lots of cat herding. You know, sometimes people take a while to get their edits back. Sometimes they have life events and you have to delay things because you're waiting on them to be able to get to their edits. There's all the little. Little tiny pieces of organizing things. Like if. If you're reprinting stories, you need to make sure that you get the copyright attribution correct. And a lot of times I will have to go and look up where something was originally published. An author might say, oh, it was published in this year, or whatever. And I'm like, okay, actually it was published in this other year by this other thing first. And so I'm trying to be organized there. And then I think one of the things that very, very infrequent. I think it's only happened to me twice is every once in a while you're in the middle of editing a story and you have to Pass on the story even though you've already accepted it because the editorial vision and the author vision for the story are not the same. And you can't reconcile that.

[A]

I think it's really interesting because so much of what you're talking about there, you mentioned vision, it's almost taste. And you're saying like which stories fit? It's not just a case of, I don't know, pirate anthology and then picking ten stories about pirates. Right. You seem to be going much more thinking about this in a more artistic way. So can you talk a bit more about that? Like how do you decide on a theme and then how do you know that a story story doesn't fit?

[B]

In the beginning I was not this selective in the beginning. I'd say, for example, hey, I'm putting out a collection about fairies. Give me a fairy story. And that was, that was it. As I've edited the stories, it's become, it's become easier to see how things fit. So if I, for example, if I have 10 stories in an anthology and I have an 11th story, they have different tones. Like let's say the 11th story is really funny and all the other story stories are very serious, then that would be kind of a fit thing. So that's not necessarily taste, it's just you don't want one funny story if everything else is really dark and scary or serious or whatever. And I guess as far as like, like picking a theme. So the theme could be very broad. So for example, with this dragon anthology we're working on, we decided we wanted it to be called A Hoard of Books. And so the theme was like, has to have the dragons, has to have books. And that's pretty much it. And then we were like, let's just see what we get. And then we were very surprised actually at what we thought we'd have more, more serious stories. And it turned out most of them were very light hearted and, and really fun. And we're like, you know what, that actually changes the way we're looking at the whole series because we did not expect that with the monster series we will pick a theme. So for example, the next issue is Monsters in Little Love. And for those it's more like let's, let's just see what happens. But sometimes I'll have a more specific theme. So the next anthology that I'm publishing on my own, it's called Fairy Bargains. And I wanted people to obviously have fairies, but I wanted there to be something related to the, the mythology and lore of having A bargain with a fairy. And there's a lot of stuff about that. So for some things like that, when I put out a call, I'll provide information. Like I might say, here's a link to Wikipedia or article. Here's some story or some mythology that might be helpful for you. Just because I want things to stick a little bit more to. On the theme itself. Whereas if you're saying Monsters in Love, there I can tell you with Monsters in Love, there's a very wide range of stories. And that was very fun to, to work through.

[A]

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot of monsters on the, let's say the spicy side as well. But I imagine you, you were you doing a clean Monsters in Love as opposed to in Lost.

[B]

Yeah, this is a clean one. That's pretty funny. Yeah. But boy, when you give authors the room for these types of things, you get all kinds of stories. And it is super, super fun to work with those collections.

[A]

Yeah. And as you're talking, I definitely want to do more short stories. It's just, it's really interesting because you can actually generally get paid more for. For a first print. Right. First print rights on a short story. But I often want to just publish it myself. And then I was really happy to be in. In your one because it was a reprint anyway. And so I was like, well, there's absolutely nothing to lose if it goes in as a. As a reprint. So I think it. These things can be really interesting. But talking of the finance from, from your side of things, so you have a small press and you are doing this publishing yourself, but you're paying all these authors and you're doing a lot of work. So how does it work as the publisher in terms of these anthologies financially,

[B]

with the ones that we've published so far, because we've gone through pubshare, it's been a royalty split. And so as the editors, we would take a percentage and then we pay for the artwork and then of course, all of our time. And then. So I think what we were doing there was saying 70% of the royalties would be split equally between all of the authors and the stories. And so, for example, if I had a story as well, I would get part of the author split, the same percentage as everybody else in the collection, in addition to the editor split. For what we're doing now, we've changed this a little bit. I believe we said 60% goes to the authors, and then we're going to keep a share of this, of the proceeds for the business because we want to be able to pay for the artwork out of the business account. We want, want to pay for advertising. Whatever we need to do to set up, like if we, if we need to do something with setting up our store, if we wanted to, to invest anything, we want to be able to do that as the business as opposed to it's just us doing this on our own kind of thing, trying to treat it, treat it a little bit differently.

[A]

Yeah. And I mean, I know it's so much work. It's so a crazy amount of work. And how many anthologies and books do you have to do in a year to make it worthwhile financially, I mean.

[B]

Oh, I don't know. I would say unless you get an opportunity, like for example, to have an anthology in a story bundle or something like that, you may not break even. But if you're going to do this, do it more for the marketing, do it more because you enjoy it. Now going forward, I think that that will change because we are looking at Kickstarters, we are looking at direct sales. We're very motivated to try to make this more of a business thing than kind of a fun side project project. So, yeah, ask me in a year.

[A]

Yeah, hopefully more. I do think Kickstarter is great for short stories. I've actually, I buy quite a few collections on Kickstarter. I think they're actually really hard to discover through, say, Amazon. Like, I think that's. It's a place that is quite hard to identify short stories or as I found, I've bought collections on Kickstarter because there's so much more of a sales page, you know, there's so much more. More rich media that tells me how I'm going to feel about the stuff. And so I've bought short story anthologies and collections from people I don't know. So I think it's actually a really good thing to do. I think that audience. There is an audience there.

[B]

Yeah, definitely. And it does feel like the anthologies on Amazon don't sell as well. Like you don't make as much as you used to. That's because I've been doing this for, gosh, 10 years now, and I feel like the sales numbers on Amazon in the past year were noticeably lower than they would have been six or eight years ago. So I am very excited about Kickstarter. Plus, Kickstarter just feels really fun. You know, you're not just throwing your book up. You're also, you have all the extra stuff with the page and you have the rewards and it's just, it just feels, it feels really exciting.

[A]

No, I agree. I, I really love it. I didn't do it for a long time and now I just love it. So staying with the publisher side of things, any practical formatting and production tips? Because doing these techniques, types of projects where all kind of people just send you different stuff and all that. So anything there practically.

[B]

I have a style guide and so whether it's me or it's the group project, once all the edits are complete, I will do a formatting pass through through that and I'll make sure like you know, I use curly quotes and the same em dash format and everything just so everything in the book is formatted the same way. Every once in a while there's a. An author who has something particular that they want and I can, I can work around that and that's fine. I also, I work with a lot of Canadian authors and so I will let them keep their Canadian spellings. I don't think everybody does that, but that I feel like that's their voice in a way. And so I don't correct those. I might check some things there but I think the formatting is important, I think to just, I think it makes things look better if, if everything has the same style. And then I use Vellum, which makes things really easy. And I love Vellum because I publish so many authors at this point. I have a vellum file where I store just their, their biographies and their links. And so then when I publish a new anthology, I'll be like, okay, I'll just go grab Jo's author page about the author page from that collection and I'll put it into the new file. And then I also track when is the last time I checked with the author about the biography. And if it's been more than a year, I will check in with them and say, hey, do you have an updated biography that you want me to use? Or here's your links. Do you have any different links now? Or whatever. So that makes it a lot easier from the formatting standpoint.

[A]

Yeah, and you mentioned vellum and having done box sets on Vellum, you can just drag a whole book in there. If you want to do a three book box set, for example, or three short stories, whatever. It's much easier to just drag things in. Right. And it makes it easier to form format. So I would say to people, you don't need to worry too much about that. There are lots of things that can help you, I guess. But even like with doing the print Stuff for the Kickstarter. People have opinions, don't they? So in terms of authors opinions and managing, you mentioned herding cats. Like, how do you manage all of that side of things?

[B]

I haven't actually had a lot of trouble with that. I think the authors I've worked with, they seem to feel like they gave me their story. And then once the edits are out of the way, I haven't had anybody have any issues with the COVID Usually they love the covers, especially with the monster series. Yeah. So no problems there.

[A]

Oh, that's good. Well, I would say then a tip would be to make sure you're communicating. Like if you're somebody who's organizing, you know, so talk a bit about communication.

[B]

Communication is very important. What I try to do is just send regular updates, especially if it's like I'm in the middle of edits or I'm working on something something and I'm not ready to launch, I'll send an update email out to the authors and just say, here's what's going on, here's what the plan is. Or if the plan has to change, if the launch has to change for some reason, I'll let the authors know about that. Actually, with the upcoming Monsters in Love issue, we were originally not going to do a Kickstarter. That was a late decision. And so I contacted all the authors and said, we've changed our plans. We're going to launch this with the Kickstarter. Kickstarter. Please confirm that you're okay with this. And one author was not comfortable with. With the Kickstarter idea, so he pulled his story and then we found a replacement story for that. But I just feel like the communication piece is really essential. Yeah, it's. It's really important for. For the authors to know what's going on.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. So then we've talked, I guess, that marketing is a good thing in terms of. There are lots of people marketing. But how are you effectively marketing these kinds of books as the. This is quite different to a single author project. Right.

[B]

There's the usual write a release post, write posts on social. I do additional things. So I will publish what I call a story spotlight for each story in the anthology. And that's just kind of. I talk a little bit about the story, I provide an excerpt, and then I provide the author's bio and links to find them. Those are really great because they're really very quick to put together. I just, you know, the hardest part is like getting an excerpt excerpt that fits a short excerpt that shows enough about the story to, to be engaging, but that really isn't that much time either. And then those are also nicely evergreen because I've actually searched for authors before when I'm trying to research them for an interview or something. And I found my own spotlight posts and my own interview post with authors come up at the top of the list, which is kind of funny. I also will do interviews with as many of the authors in a collection that are willing to participate. Sometimes people just literally don't have the time. I don't make this required, but I usually get 80 to 90% of the authors participating. So for example, this year I'm in a couple bundles on storybundle.com and I'm doing, doing interviews for, for people there. And that's. It's also really fun. And you're not paying for advertising, you're just kind of creating something that then the authors are excited about and they want to share. So it promotes the, the collection collection, but it also promotes the author, which I find really, really nice because it's, it's, it's just kind of a nice networking thing too. And I'm happy if someone wants to interview me too. It's, it's like free publicity for, for each person in addition to the collection.

[A]

Yeah, I love that you've used the word fun quite a lot, which I find amazing. You're obviously a super collaborative person. And you know, I've co written a number of books and obviously I've been part of some collections and things. And I really, really think that there are definitely two personalities. One like me, where we really love the creation stuff and the publishing stuff, but we're hyper controlling. And then someone like you, you're very collaborative. You're doing such a great job. And to people listening, I would say if you're more like me, don't organize an anthology you want. What you want is Jamie or somebody who actually finds it fun to organize a big group of authors.

[B]

Yeah, it is, it is definitely interesting working with partners in this because when I publish an anthology on my own, I make all the decisions. I pick the artwork, I pick the theme, I do everything, I decide the table of contents. But when you're working with other people, you do need to negotiate. So we've had a couple times where it's like, I want this story. Well, I want this other story. I don't like the story that you want, you know, so we have to kind of barter in a way. But aside from that, I mean, it is nice because you get to split up the tasks and so you. Like, I can, I could focus on things like, like the organization or I put together the. I do the vellum files, I. I do the final cover and everything for, for the Kickstarters. Tammy's got more expertise there. So Tammy's going to be working on, on the Kickstarters for our collections together. And it's like, if I had to do all this on my own, it's a ton of work. It's a ton of work. So it is nice to split it up.

[A]

Yeah. And of course, one of the things is managing like so many moving parts and you've actually built a tool to manage all this. So tell us a bit about that and how it might be useful for people with big backlists as well as anthologies.

[B]

I built a. I kind of think of it as a publishing management application. And the original idea is for years and years I wanted a software tool that would organize, basically do catalog management. And because I had managing my own catalog and then I was also managing, at this point, I published at least 20 anthologies. And so that's a lot of authors. And then last summer I had an author who I published a of number who was. She was going to, I think, worldcon. And she asked if I could give her covers for five anthologies she'd been in so that she could make some promotional material. And I was like, oh, yeah, sure, I can do that. And then I was like, well, wait a second, is this a notion? Because I started trying to use notion last year, or is it in a spreadsheet? And it turned out her information was in like three different places and I had to work to pull it together. And then I was like, you know what? That's it. I'm just going to finally write this application. So incren. It manages your stories from, you know, like, as an author, I can manage my stories, I can track. These are published, these are drafts, these are just kind of ideas, whatever. I can track my publications from the publisher standpoint. It's really helpful because I can track each anthology that I've published or I'm working on. I can track the edits, I can track the contracts, I can upload contract templates. So we talked earlier about the original and reprint contract contract templates that I use. And so I upload those and they have placeholders in them. So. So if, when I, when I generate the actual contract, the author's name will. Will replace the. The like, I'll have the text author name in the contract template and it'll get replaced by, like, Joanna Penn or whatever. So that saves a lot of time. And then I also added in task tracking because I started to feel like, well, now all my stuff is in one place, but my tasks are somewhere else. And so now I can associate. Associate tasks with a publication. So, for example, for the book that I'm working on right now, I know which I need to do this for the COVID and this is the interior and everything. I have a template of tasks. And then I also can track tasks related to promotions. So, for example, the story bundle that I'm promoting right now, I have a task for each interview I'm doing with the authors and I have a calendar view so I can see when I'm going to publish it and know that they're all spread out. So, yeah, so it saves me so much time and it's so much easier.

[A]

I do think building tools when you actually need the tool yourself is very useful. Just say the name again and spell it out for people.

[B]

It's Ink Run. I wanted something. My own personal publishing company is Blackbird Publishing, and I wanted something related to birds and writing. So I came up with Ink Ren, which is I N K W R E N. And it's just incren.com. yeah.

[A]

And so it is available for other people. People to, to potentially buy and use.

[B]

Yes, yes, it is.

[A]

Well, yeah, I think that's super useful because it's very hard when people are starting out and they think, oh, I've only got one book. How. Why would I need any kind of tool to manage it? But over the years, your backlist grows and especially with short stories. So I love that you've built this and. And there's probably more that you can add over time as you expand the business yourself and just so much potential. So we are at the end. So where can people find you and your books and everything you do on online?

[B]

My Author website is jamiefurgason.com and then obviously I mentioned Ingrain earlier. My publishing company is blackbirdpublishing.com and then the projects that I'm doing with Tammy and Deanna. We have a couple websites, but the easiest way to find us is our press, which is boragrovepress.com fantastic.

[A]

Well, thanks so much for your time, Jamie. That was great.

[B]

Thanks, Joanna.

[A]

So I hope you found the interview with Jamie interesting and that you might consider writing for an anthology or even organizing one yourself. Let me know what resonated with you. Please leave a comment on the podcast show [e-mail] or on the YouTube channel or email me joannathecreativepenn.com also please send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard or crypt or death culture place in general. Coming up this Wednesday I have a special in betweenisode and an announcement about the changes to the the podcast going forward. Don't worry, the show will go on just with a little shift and next Monday it's back to the usual interview schedule guest to be announced since I am behind on recording so surprises on the way in the week to come. Happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show [e-mail] podcast and you can get your free Author [e-mail] Blueprint if you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the Creative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook. F Pen Author Happy writing and I'll see you next time.