The trouble with anthologies, as a reader, is that they usually contain roughly 50% of stories I like and 50% of stories I'm not interested in.
As a writer, the troubles with anthologies are manifold. One, they're difficult to get into. There's only so much space and most of it is already occupied by invited authors. Slots are few. Competition is fierce.
Two, do you promote it? You're only one author within the collection. Any promotion you do benefits the others, but how do you know if they're reciprocating?
Three, they're usually one-off small payments because it's a pain for the editor to keep divvying up royalty cheques into small amounts. So you're paid, that's that, there's no reason to push the book. Chalk up one publishing credit and move on.
The electronic age contains a solution to all these problems. A pick-and-mix anthology. Choose your stories, order the book and wait for the postman. One bound book with the short story collection you chose. Huge thanks are due to David de Beer for telling me about this. So, as payback, I'll mention he has a story coming up in the June/July Alienskin magazine.
For the reader, this is great. You choose every story so there are no duds in there.
For the writer, it's even better. Instead of fighting for space in a single anthology, your story sits in a list. Readers can choose to include it. Okay, maybe nobody ever will but it costs nothing to leave it there. You have an incentive to promote the story (which is what I'm doing right now in case you hadn't guessed) because you're only promoting your own work. The more anthologies it gets included in, the better your name gets known.
Since it's a royalty-payment system, your earnings also depend on inclusion in anthologies. Don't expect to get rich by this route. The money is small but the kudos is large. Your story--indeed, stories--could be in many anthologies chosen by many people. Getting your name recognised is a Good Thing if you want to stand a chance in the bigger pond, where the novels fight it out on shelves.
I've saved the best bit until last. The stories don't have to be first publications. In fact, Anthology Builder prefers stories that have been previously published in a paying market. This is a place for stories that have been published, after the first rights have expired and the story is yours again. Note - be sure the rights have reverted to you first or you'll be in trouble.
Good news for paying markets, too. The story is listed on the site along with the market it was published in and the year of publication. Publicity is always good.
So how do you get your stories in? First, read the guidelines. Then read them again because I know you only skimmed them first time. Make sure your format is right and your story fits in one of the categories they're looking for. There are lots of categories. Second, sign up. The price tag attached to this is my favourite one. Free. Finally, submit and wait for a decision. That's all there is to it.
Oh, and while you're there, buy yourself an anthology. Be sure to include 'The Hand that Feeds', which first appeared in AlienSkin in 2003. It's there under my pen name, Kevin Hillman.
I intend to submit more. Eventually, enough to fill an anthology on my own.
