Assembling a Literary Anthology: A How-To
One of my favorite books to read each year is The Best American Short Stories, which is published in the fall and features 20 stories culled from North American literary magazines that were released in the previous year.
This storied (forgive the pun!) anthology has now been in existence for more than a century, and the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, works with a well known fiction writer to choose the stories included in each year’s edition.
I’ve always loved anthologies because of the variety of voices and styles they offer readers—they’re the literary equivalent of Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates (I won’t torment you by including the whole quote here). The O. Henry Prize Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies are also annual notables, and along with The Best American Short Stories, they’re excellent for individual readers as well as for assigning to fiction workshop students who find stories in them that electrify and inspire their own work.
For a while I’ve been aware that commercially, most anthologies are labors of love—corporate presses are, on the whole, not keen to publish them, because a) they require a lot of administrative and editorial work, and b) the majority of anthologies do not become big sellers (with the exception of The Best American Short Stories, which I’ve read is a bestseller each year. The other anthologies in the Best American series likely do well too—Best American Essays, Mystery & Suspense, Poetry, Travel Writing, Non-Required Reading etc.)
A few years ago, based in part on the unprecedented success of Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” which was published in December 2017 by The New Yorker and became a kind of bellwether for the Me Too and Time’s Up movements, I decided to put together a short fiction anthology that addressed these themes, Love in the Time of Time’s Up.
It took some doing, but I’m very glad it exists & is finding readers. The contributors include
, Gina Frangello, Amina Gautier, Karen Bender, May-lee Chai, Melissa Fraterrigo, Lynn Freed, Cris Mazza, Joan Frank, Alison Umminger, Elizabeth Crane, Rachel Swearingen, Rebecca Entel, Victoria Patterson, Roberta Montgomery. I have a story in it too, which first appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review’s Mixtape.)
In this post, I’ve detailed the steps of how to create an anthology and seek a publisher for it.
Getting Started
After you decide on a topic or theme for your anthology, it’s important to make sure your idea isn’t one that’s been done too recently, if at all, especially by someone who is well known.
It’s likewise important to have a rationale for why you’d like to create this anthology, i.e. why you in particular are qualified to do this project, and ideally, what it is about the present moment that makes it a compelling topic.
You’ll need to create a wish list of contributors – a number greater than you expect to be able to include in the anthology because some won’t be able to send you work for consideration
Draft an email (and/or make a phone call if you already have a working relationship or are friends with a potential contributor) to pitch the anthology – you should have a summary and rationale for your project and a rough timeline, i.e. when you’d like to have their submissions, what specifically you’re looking for, and which publishers you plan to approach if you’re not working with a literary agent on the project.
You can also do a public call for submissions through social media, email, and word of mouth, but be sure to have a system in place for reviewing and selecting submissions for inclusion – this can be a lot of work. It can be useful to have a coeditor to share the workload with, but be sure to set the terms of your collaboration at the outset (i.e. what your individual duties will be).
Keep in mind that you might not be able to pay contributors in anything but copies of the anthology—which might only be one copy, with a discount offered if they’d like to buy more—it will depend on the press. Be transparent about payment. You can say that you’re hoping to be able to offer an honorarium to each contributor, but if you haven’t yet landed a publisher, you won’t know if that’ll be feasible.
Most anthology editors land a publisher after they’ve gotten commitments from key contributors—i.e. writers or public figures with a strong and ideally already publicly noted tie to your anthology topic.)
Publishers are unlikely to offer royalties to contributors (which are tied directly to sales figures and require laborious data gathering and calculations), but they might offer them to the editor.
Anthology Components
An introduction where you discuss your interest in the theme/topic of the anthology, along with at least a few paragraphs giving the sociopolitical context, which should make clear why you feel compelled to pursue this project. This is similar to the rationale used in Hollywood: Why this project now? And why are you the one to do it?
Table of Contents
The contributors’ work – often arranged alphabetically by author’s last name
Contributor and editor bios
Acknowledgments page which should include full citations of work that’s already appeared in other publications
Finding a Publisher
If your goal is to publish with a corporate press (aka one of the Big Five imprints – most of which are located in New York and London), you’ll need an agent to submit your anthology proposal to acquisitions editors.
Non-agent options to take: query independent presses and university presses. You can their recent books by looking at their online catalogs.
The University of New Mexico Press, for example, published an anthology titled The Best Peace Fiction in fall 2021. The University of Texas Press recently published We Are All Armenian, an anthology featuring writers from the Armenian diaspora.
Some presses such as Black Lawrence Press open their submissions portals for anthologies at different times of the year. They usually require a submission fee. Black Lawrence’s fee, the last time I checked, was $12. The Feminist Press in New York also considers anthology proposals for topics they’re likely to be interested in.
If you don’t already have one, create an account at submittable.com in order to upload your proposal. You’ll find open calls for submission under the “Discover” tab on Submittable.
When writing your pitch letter to a publisher or an agent (and to potential contributors), I advise using the same components as those in the introduction you’ll include at the beginning of the anthology.
It might take a while—months, even a year or more, to find a publisher for your anthology. Follow up with presses at least once if you haven’t heard back after a month.
Working with Contributors
You need to be sure you feel comfortable editing other writers’ work before embarking upon the creation of an anthology.
Some writers are open to editorial suggestions and easy to work with. Others are more prickly and will challenge your suggestions, sometimes even the ones you think are minor.
Be as tactful and respectful as possible when editing. But sometimes you might have to part ways with a writer if they refuse to take suggestions you think are required to make the piece worth of publication.
Do be open to differences in voice, tone, and style, however – they’re inevitable.
Who Is Your Target Audience?
Publishers will probably want to know who you foresee as your anthology’s audience, e.g. for the Peace Fiction anthology: “Fiction readers interested in social justice, ages 15 and up.”
They’re also likely (maddeningly) to want to know if you have ideas for a sales and marketing plan. How do you envision reaching your audience? What resources do you have to publicize the anthology? Will you hire a publicist and/or do you have experience publicizing other books? What is your social media platform? Do you plan to do bookstore events, and do you have connections with booksellers, librarians, teachers, book critics, social influencers?
Lastly…
Remember to take the long view – it takes time to assemble an anthology. You’ll need to put together a good pitch letter for your potential contributors and prospective publisher, write a good introduction, find contributors, edit their work, and possibly help with the book design if the publisher is open to this. Later on, you’ll also need to help promote the anthology. As much as many of us would like the process to be speedy, it often takes longer than expected.
I offer editorial services (like a lot of Substackers, I know). If you’re interested in getting help with your anthology, you can message me here on Substack or through my website.
Every so often I think I may have an anthology idea. I'm keeping this post bookmarked!