Run a writing competition, and attract as many entries as you can: the internet makes it easy to find writers’ groups and message boards where you can advertise your competitions for free. You don’t even have to charge an entry fee: just get as many entries in, as quickly as you can.
You don’t need to read the entries as they arrive. So what if some of the submissions are stories for children, and others are racist rantings or violent pornography? It’s quantity you want here, not quality: just bundle them all together into a single anthology, stick an ISBN onto the cover, download it to a POD service, and that’s all your editing and production work done.
The marketing is very easy: all you have to do is tell all the entrants that they’ve won a place in the competition, and that their work will appear in your prize-winners’ anthology. If you want to you can get your anthology stocked on Amazon, and other online retailers; but there’s no need. You can sell it from your own website, and that way you don’t even lose the discounts that those professional book sellers demand: you get to keep every penny that the book earns.
Price the anthology high, and wait for the orders to come in. Chances are that most of the people who are included in it will buy at least one copy; probably more. They’ll make excellent gifts for their family and friends who will probably be too embarrassed to say anything about the dreadful writing the anthology contains; and it’s not your problem that when writers claim your anthology as a professional publishing credit they’ll lose any credibility they had. You didn’t promise them anything more than they got.
It’s a failsafe way to make money out of writers. It’s just not a very nice one.
gosh, about whom are we talking? I actually AM planning not on holding a competition, but putting together an installation as part of a project to blur the boundaries between literature and other forms of the arts. Called “Into the Desert” (http://eightcuts.wordpress.com/eight-cuts-gallery/into-the-desert/) it will absolutely 100% only accept the very best works, and won’t go into an anthology buta virtual and real-life gallery. I just want people to know I don’t intend to be a charlatan – but I DO want to bring amazing hard-to-pigeonhole writing to the world.
Back to anthologies, I must say the one I’ve been in that I was HUGELY disappointed with was the Youwrteon one – only the very highest rated stories from the site were chosen, and being in it was heralded as a “prize”, but there was a template cover used, and the typesetting was just appalling – I wouldn’t knock out a freebie ezine of my own pub rants typeset like that. Do you have a copy, Jane? If not, I have a few that I’m too embarrassed to give out but would be great on self pub review. The other interesting point about this anthology is that I have received one royalty statement, whcih claims a grand total of three have been sold – as I was given 12 copies by my mother-in-law I’m not sure where that maths comes from
Unfortunately this all rings so true.
When I was 17 and a keen poet i entered my best work into such a competition. I was thrilled beyond words to be informed I had won a place in their anthology and told absolutely everyone. The penny only started to drop when they asked for money for not only a copy, but for a framed manuscript and all sorts of other nonsense. I didn’t send them anything but the damage had been done.
I felt such a fool I didn’t write anything creatively for years after. They had killed that spark of enthusiasm.
If only there had been writers blogs back then so I could have a) been warned against such operations and b) at least seen how common such fraudsters are!
Ah, the International Library of Poetry. Forever associated with the Wergle Flomp poem to me. “Ahhh! Wurby tictoc?” They accepted that one too.
It’s especially bad when such schemes target children. They *know* the parents will always shell out for a copy – maybe more, for the grandparents and the kid’s school.
Ah, that reminds me of something that happened to me once.
Would be interesting to know which particular one you’re talking about, though
Needs to be said, Jane. Ugh.
A sad fact. You got it across very well indeed!
It rang a poetry site bell with me. Fortunately, I did not fall for their claims.
Happy Scribbling
Glynis
So how can a writer tell which competitions to avoid?
Dan, I bet you’ll read and consider every submission you get very carefully, though, and I know you’re putting this anthology together in order to publish a fantastic book: you’re not the same as these nasty scammers at all.
I haven’t seen the YouWriteOn collection but having seen several of the other books which it “published” I can imagine what it’s like. I won’t review it on my review site, because I’m careful to only review books with the authors’ full permission: I can be very harsh and I’d hate to shred someone who was reluctant to hear strong criticism. Thanks anyway, though.
Miriam, the dodgier competitions usually stress the wondrousness of their anthologies, and how great it is to see your works in print; they often will also stress the beauty of their anthologies as objects–leather-bound, fine paper, etc.
The better competitions are run by people and organisations with a good history of doing such things, and (usually) a background in publishing; they’ll have judges who you’ve heard of, perhaps, or will be sponsored by publishers you know. It can be difficult to filter out the best: but Google is your friend here. If you search for the name of the competition and the word “scam” you might well find out that it’s to be avoided; and remember to check it out at AbsoluteWrite, too: the Bewares forum there is extremely useful.
Show me the money!