New look at Anthologies
- Feb 12
- 2 min read
By DC Gomez
For most of my author career, I have been taking part in anthologies or short stories collections. At each stage of my journey, they were very helpful for very different reasons. As a “baby-author” not sure of the process of publishing and marketing, anthologies provided a great venue to collaborate with other authors and asked questions in a safe space. I could build connections and make new friends in the industry. The authors in those collections were amazing mentors in helping me established my author platforms, and teaching me how to promote my books in social networks. My understanding of the publishing world expanded during these projects.
As I grew more comfortable with the craft, anthologies were an amazing way to add exposure for my works. New projects gave me opportunities to create stories outside of my genre and pushed my boundaries. Short stories are a refreshing way to give authors a break from their principal works while expanding their skills and techniques. It also was a great way to keep up with the changing trends in the industry, as different projects focused on the emerging tropes. With a requirement of 8,000 to 12,000 words per submission, they were not an enormous time commitment on my part. I even had the pleasure of participating in a collection that made it to the USA Today Bestsellers lists.
After years of participating in different collections and projects, it felt it was the perfect time to transition to publishing them. Together with the talented Jaime Dalton, we created The Tales Collections. An opportunity to not only create short stories we enjoy, but provide a venue for other authors to be published as well. We have taken our many years of experience to create a fun journey for both the readers and the authors in the groups.
Anthologies and short stories collections are a great way for the reader to be introduced to new authors without too much of a commitment on their part. Many of my submissions from those previous collections are the ones I currently use as reader-magnets or giveaway for my tribe. It is a fun way to connect with individuals that might not be very familiar with my style of writing or my characters.
Like many things in the writing community, the popularity of anthologies changes every year. Fortunately, holiday anthologies and collections are still very popular and do very well with readers. If you are an author and have never taken part in an anthology, I would recommend joining a holiday one. For readers looking for new authors, anthologies are a great place to start.
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