Articles: Easy Anthology Publishing

Anthologies are a great way to collate and produce a lasting memory of a collection of work. We’ve made it as simple as possible for you to use CompletelyNovel to self-publish work by students, your writers’ group, competition winners, or a group of essays on a theme.

Check out what creative writing students at London Metropolitan University and mentees at the Arvon/Jerwood Foundation did to see some examples, and then follow the advice below to publish a successful anthology.

1. Give yourself plenty of time. It will probably take longer than you think to format it so that all the stories fit well together. Start as early as you can.

2. Try and ask your contributors to follow some guidelines on submissions to get the sections looking consistent in terms of font, size, spacing, margins and paragraphing. You can find help on typesetting manuscripts in Word here.

3. It’s worth appointing an editor, or someone who can gather everything together and ensure it looks professional, rather than swapping files between computers, as this sometimes changes the file due to different versions of software.

4. Remember to get someone with a professional eye to do a proof read. It’s amazing how many people forget to check that all names, titles, chapter headings, etc. are correct and consistent in all parts of the book and on the front and back cover. We can help you out with that if you want.

5. Consider including a short biography about each contributor at the back with a photo. CompletelyNovel allows you to include grey scale photos at no extra cost. Just make sure you use high quality photographs.

6. Make it available online. The good thing about CompletelyNovel is that you can make the book available for anyone to buy, as well as ordering a load of copies at cost price to sell yourself. Plus, it’s really easy to revise the manuscript, if you find you need to edit it or update it later. Find out how much each book will cost to print here.

7. Have a good time! Organise a fun launch party or event to sell the anthology and celebrate the work of contributors. You could even see if your local bookshop/arty cafe will help you out.

Let us know how it goes.

See more articles on CompletelyNovel:

Notes in the Marginalia: The 2010 Anthology of Work by Arvon/Jerwood Mentees

Self publishing non-fiction on CompletelyNovel… Let your knowledge and experience go global!

Find out How to Market Your Book

Beginner’s Guide to Networking for Authors

Self-publishing: A great Way to Keep Memories Alive

How Twitter Can Help Self-Published Authors

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