Table of contents:
- Fundamental Differences
- Marketing Reality Check
- Professional Credibility Concerns
- Financial Pay-Off
- What Anthologies Can Provide
- The Merits of Your Own Book
Anthologies, where different individuals pay to contribute a single chapter to a book on a common theme, have been around forever.
Depending on the audience and participants, the theme could be anything from “women in business” to “resilience” or “modern leadership,” for example. Different chapters reflect each author’s unique take on or experiences with respect to the topic.
Coaches, consultants, and publishers frequently offer the “opportunity” to participate in an upcoming anthology for a fee. The promise is that participation will bestow immediate author status and the prestige of being aligned with a well-known coach or consultant.
For leaders and experts who aren’t sure they have the time or sufficient content to write a whole 60,000-word book on their own, an anthology can be pretty enticing.
But are anthologies a smart investment?
It depends on who you ask. There may be big payoffs from the networking that occurs around a particular book and its chapter contributors. The promotional investment made to support the anthology’s release may also heighten everyone’s visibility for a minute, but long-term, do anthologies have staying power?
Not that I’ve seen, although I’ve only participated as a ghostwriter and not an author.
While it is true that you’ll be able to say that you contributed to a specific title and were published, it’s a stretch to infer that you authored the book. You didn’t. Being published and being an author are two separate things.
Writing and contributing one chapter to a book is not the same level of accomplishment as writing and publishing your own book, which features your name alone.
Fundamental Differences
The biggest difference between an anthology and an individually authored book is cohesion.
An anthology is a group project, essentially, managed and driven by the sponsor. The individual shepherding the project has the final say over the theme and to what extent the chapter submissions support their vision.
Ultimately, the book should consist of 10 or 20 or more takes on the assigned topic. Those individual chapters may be compelling and interesting, but because they’re authored by separate people, there won’t be a single voice throughout.
There can’t be, by design.
When you write your own book, however, you have complete creative control, not to mention quality control. A book written by a single author with a single voice will flow much better than a manuscript consisting of multiple voices. And if you’re writing it, you can also be certain that it meets your own quality standards, rather than someone else’s.
Finally, when you have the space and freedom to share your expertise in your own book, you can go much deeper into topics and share more stories that benefit your reader. Contributors to an anthology have word count limitations that make it challenging to go too deep into any subject; there just isn’t enough space.
Marketing Reality Check
One of the big selling points of an anthology is the group of contributors who will help to market it. With a dozen or more people promoting it to their own audiences, it’s bound to be successful, right?
Not necessarily, although many do manage to become Amazon bestsellers thanks to the support of the group of contributors.
The problem with multiple people promoting the same book to their communities is that authorship becomes diluted. Who is the actual author, people will wonder? It’s not clear.
Your individual voice can easily get lost in the crowd.
Additionally, although you each may commit to marketing the anthology, it’s inevitable that not everyone will participate equally. You may invest significant time and extra money to make the most of your opportunity, but your fellow authors may not be as committed. You can end up doing far more work than others, which weakens the value of participation.
Publishing a book should net you increased credibility, authority, visibility, and prestige, and I’m not convinced that an anthology can do that as well as a book you write entirely by yourself.
Professional Credibility Concerns
You may think that I have a personal bias against anthologies, but the truth is that the publishing industry has a similar opinion.
Anthologies are not taken as seriously as traditionally published books written by a solo author.
But there is a difference between invitation-only, curated anthologies organized by an organization and those where authors pay for inclusion. Curated anthologies, often published by academic presses, are a different animal and are not what I’m referring to here.
Financial Pay-Off
Participation in an anthology can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. On top of that, you may be asked to pay for extra copies of the book as well as optional marketing support.
On the flip side, the proceeds from sales may or may not be divided by the contributors. If they are, the financial return is severely limited by the royalty split across all of the participants. Even if the book becomes an Amazon bestseller, splitting even $20,000 across, say, 20 people nets you $1,000 each.
Granted, many business owners and gurus opt to participate in anthologies without the expectation of financial gain. They just want the authority that accompanies the author status they’ve been promised.
What Anthologies Can Provide
Even if you don’t make a fortune from contributing to an anthology — and you may not have expected to — you may still get value from participation.
Effectively partnering with several other individuals to fill the pages of a book with your collective wisdom, stories, and insights offers the potential for valuable networking. This can lead to new business relationships and follow-on opportunities regardless of the book’s success.
You can also use the chapter drafting as a trial run for your own book, if you’re considering it. Assess how easy or hard preparing one chapter was. Did you enjoy it? Would you want to write 10 more as part of your own book? Can you write consistently? This can be a good test case.
By providing a chapter, you also become more familiar with the various stages of the publishing process. It’s an editorial education of sorts that can prepare you to embark on your own solo journey in the future.
The Merits of Your Own Book
An anthology is quicker and easier, with only one chapter to develop and submit, and, essentially, your work is done. Writing your own book is a much bigger endeavor, with more time and money required to be successful.
However, writing your own book does give you complete control over the topic, the approach, the content, and ownership. You can control what can be done with the information contained in your book, and any derivative works will benefit you alone.
In practical terms, writing your own book provides the space to develop complex concepts and ideas. Being able to delve deeper helps solidify your position as a visionary or thought leader.
As an author, you also receive the benefits of authorship, such as media attention and potential new business opportunities and income streams, not to mention any royalty payments for copies sold.
I’m not saying there is no value in contributing to an anthology, but I am saying that the benefits are not the same as authoring your own book.