The idea to create my first anthology came after I spent 18 months publishing a quarterly lit mag and published my last issue of the magazine. My dad passed away from cancer a few years earlier, and I had taken part in a local charity run for two years to raise money for a cancer charity. Due to health issues, I could no longer do this, so I decided to use the contacts and social media profile I had made from writing and publishing to put together an anthology to raise money for similar charities. I had a starting point from the lit mag and from years of attending spoken word nights in my local area, where I met lots of talented writers.

I’m an author who has self-published most of my books, except two that were picked up by small publishers and republished. I learned a lot from self-publishing and watching what those two small publishers did right (or in some cases, what they did wrong), as well as hands-on experience as I went along.

So, while I’ll share how I created the anthologies, I’ll also refer back to other things I did, for the benefit of anyone who is starting at an earlier point than me and wants to create a charity anthology.

Deciding on a Charity

This should probably be one of the first steps, even though it’s not how I did it. For my first charity anthology, I knew the money would go to a cancer charity in the UK, where I’m based, but I only decided on which one halfway through the process of accepting submissions.

When I contacted them to tell them what I was doing, I was stunned by their response. I hoped they might share the submission call on social media and maybe a link to the book when it was published. Instead, they told me I couldn’t mention that the money was going to them, as I would be using their name to sell books. I’d already told them I was donating all the profits to them, so that was the idea—to sell books and raise money for their work. In short, they would happily take the money, but I had to be vague and tell people it was going to a cancer charity, rather than specifically stating their name.

I wanted to be as open as possible, so anyone who bought the book would know where their money was going. So, I told everyone the money would go to several cancer charities, not wanting to upset any of these organizations. Then, each time I donated the profits to a charity, I posted on the Facebook page with a screenshot of the donation, removing any financial information and other personal details. This showed I didn’t spend it on manicures—although if you see the state of my nails, you’d already know that. It also encouraged more people to buy the book after seeing the money went to good causes. I figured that the charities wouldn’t mind me doing this, as I was only telling people what had been donated and to where after the donation took place. By changing the benefactor each time, I wasn’t using any organization’s name to sell books. In total, I raised almost £200 for three different cancer charities.

My second anthology wasn’t for charity, but was a profit share among the writers. This didn’t do as well, so for my third and most recent anthology, I approached several local charities, hoping these would be friendlier. In contrast, one of them was happy to be involved and helped with the cover design, restoring my faith in charities. They even showed up at the in-person book launch. So, if you’re looking for a cause to donate anthology profits to, I recommend finding a supportive charity that wants to be actively involved. It makes things so much easier.

Social Media and an Online Presence

Having an online presence is important when creating an anthology. I already had my social media page for Printed Words (when it was a lit mag). I used the name as part of the book’s subtitle (A Printed Words Anthology). This way, I could link it to the previous project and use the page to help share the submission calls and later as part of the book promotion.

When I originally set this up, I began by inviting everyone already in my personal network and asked my partner, also a writer, to do the same. Creating an anthology is time-consuming and difficult to do on your own; so if you ask someone to help you, make sure they also help by inviting their network to your social media page.

Facebook is useful as there are groups where you can share submission calls. You can find some of these by searching the groups for “submissions.”

X (formerly known as Twitter) helps you to be discovered through hashtags, such as #submissioncalls, and those related to your cause. When other writers see a submission call that interests them, they are likely to follow your page and invite others with similar interests.

It can seem daunting when you start your social media profile and have no followers, but the numbers can increase quickly. If you’re looking for writers, spoken word nights are a good starting point. These can be in person, but there are still a few that are online too, meaning you can connect with potential contributors around the world.

You might also want a website. I used to have a subsection on my website that was just for information about the lit mag; but by the time I moved onto anthologies, I had shut the website down, as it wasn’t bringing in enough money to justify the cost. Instead, I dedicated part of my free blog page to the submission calls or promoting the book after publication. That worked just as well, leaving more money for good causes.

The Submission Process

The submission process was one of the most enjoyable parts for me, but also the most work. I shared the call-out on social media, from the Printed Words Facebook page, then shared this in relevant groups after making sure their rules didn’t prevent me from doing this. As well as raising awareness of the open call for submissions, it allows writers to follow the page.

I used a separate free email address to help me keep track of the submissions and got my partner to help as well as another writer who agreed to be a volunteer submission reader.

To keep things fair and ensure a varied mix of voices and writing styles, I set up a system where each of us would mark the work out of ten. The ideal score was an average of 7 from each of us, or a total of 21. That meant that if one of us hated the writing and gave it a score of 1 or 2, and the other two liked it enough to give it a 10, it would automatically be accepted. One low score and two higher scores (but not equalling 21) would also mean that I’d look closer at the work and decide if the higher scorers were right and the low scorer just had a personal dislike of something in the writing. If this work was accepted, it would usually involve asking the writer for specific edits.

I also tried to ensure the work was read blind. I copied and pasted everything into one document, every week or whenever there were at least ten submissions, whichever happened soonest. I deleted any names—even though we asked writers not to include these in their Word document, but some did anyway. The other two readers had no clue who the writer of each piece was, and 9 times out of 10, I had forgotten by the time I read the latest batch of submissions. I located them after marking by searching my emails using the title of their work.

As everyone was offering their work for free, I liked to provide feedback. All three of us would write a line or two. If I couldn’t accept the work, I would compile and edit this into a short paragraph and send them the feedback. This was always something constructive with at least one positive thing about their work.

There were some writers with large egos or those who didn’t take rejection well. Although it was tempting to rise to their arguments, I stayed professional and updated the guidelines when I thought doing this might prevent further problems. For example, I allowed people to opt out of feedback after learning that not everyone responds well, even to the most well-intentioned feedback.

Editing

The editing process for my own novels was different from the process of editing the anthologies. One difference is, with my own novels, I have a strict editing routine. Part of this includes making changes that I think will improve the work. I still did this with the anthologies, but not as much.

Most writers have already edited their own work to a greater or lesser extent, and their work is the way they want it. I did my best to only edit typos and other slight errors. If there was anything more than this that I thought would improve the writing, I would ask the writer first.

Another thing I dealt with was writers who didn’t want their work edited at all, not even typos. I wasn’t happy putting my name, as an editor, behind work containing errors. On the other hand, these people had kindly sent in their poems, fiction or nonfiction to help a good cause. So, I agreed to it but put a small disclaimer in brackets stating that the writer had asked for the piece to be published exactly as it was.

Publishing and Distribution

Choosing how to publish an anthology can make all the difference to distribution. In short, this means where the book will be available. People like to have a choice, so, the more options, the better.

When I became an author, I used Amazon for my own books, but this meant readers could only purchase through the Amazon website for their region, or one of a few third parties, if I signed up for this. One thing I learned from the small publishers who published my books is that Ingram Spark is a better option for getting books on sale in more places and formats. For example, here in the UK, everyone has heard of Waterstones, and publishing using Ingram Spark means the book can be ordered through the Waterstones website, even though it probably won’t be on the bookstore shelves.

However, with this option, you have to purchase an ISBN number and pay a small charge—although they frequently have offers where the publishing charge is deducted. Amazon provides a free ISBN if publishing through them, but as I mentioned, the distribution is limited. So, the middle ground is to publish through Draft2Digital who have a similar distribution to Ingram Spark, but also provide an ISBN and don’t charge for publishing. It’s a print-on-demand service, so they only print copies that have been ordered through one of the many distributors, and these are shipped directly to the buyer’s choice of address. As the author or publisher, you can also buy cheaper copies to sell in person, at events such as your book launch. For readers who prefer eBooks, you can publish the book through several different digital platforms in one go, saving you time and widening your readers’ options.

You can set the book for pre-order to give yourself time to build up awareness and demand. I recommend doing this, as you can spend time building up interest before publication.

Promotion and Book Launches

When I brought out my first anthology, there were still lockdown restrictions in place. I could only do an online launch and relied on social media for marketing. It helped that the other authors with work in the anthology did some promotion, too.

For the Zoom launch, I invited the authors to share their work and also live-streamed the event to Facebook. I later uploaded the recording to YouTube and shared it on X.

Another thing I did was ask the authors if they wanted to record either an audio version or a video of themselves reading aloud their included work. I edited the audio clips together, introduced each piece myself, and uploaded them as a special episode of the podcast I co-hosted at the time. You don’t need to have an existing podcast to do this though. You can just use Anchor for free to upload a similar style audio file of some of your contributors reading out their work. In the podcast’s show notes, I included some of the main links to the book for anyone who wanted to buy a copy.

I did something similar with the videos, editing them together and sharing on YouTube and social media with links to the book included. Most authors contributed to at least one of these promotional ideas.

With the most recent charity anthology, I was able to hold an in-person book launch in addition to all the other marketing activities. A representative from the local charity came along and spoke about their work, which really helped. I brought copies with me and sold most of these at the event.

Overall, it might seem like a lot of work…because it is. Charity anthologies are a great way to raise money for the causes you feel strongly about. Although the money raised doesn’t reflect the time I put into creating and marketing them, the books, particularly the second charity anthology, helped to raise awareness of people’s personal experiences related to the rising cost of living. Sometimes, statistics dehumanize these real people and their feelings, but I got the chance to remind the public that there are human beings behind the numbers in a way that is rarely shown by the media.

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Amanda Nicholson is an author, poet, podcast co-host and copywriter. She has written several books as Amanda Steel, including Ghost of Me, and edited anthologies. Amanda’s poetry has been broadcast on BBC Radio Manchester. She Has a Creative Writing MA, and has articles published by Ask.com, Harlequin and Readers Digest UK, among others.