The last month has been intense as I upgraded my professional skills in wellness and management but that is not why I am writing today’s piece. I am starting today’s piece with this information because that is where my inspiration began.
One of my classes was a resource material from Professor Krishna N Sharma. Out of sheer curiosity that I had never seen his name before, I went straight to his website as displayed on the material so I do not end up on another website.
Of course, I am a writer and would naturally begin from his published books section. The number was a shock but the topical range was another ballgame entirely. 254 books have got to mean something!
Now, you can be jealous all you want and say “they will be small books”, “they are self-help books and do not require much”, and “many of them can be compressed into other books”. Or you can be humble and learn a thing or two from this serial writer.
I went searching for many of the books and found their sales links were broken (an error we will address another day) but I found something intriguing: all visible books were collaboratively written!
Collaboration is generally defined as working with someone to achieve something or produce something.
Collaboration is one of the priority four Cs in education for the 21st century learner. If this is globally a requirement, it begs the question of why writers think they are above this law.
- We are trained as writers to sweat it out and create our own things. This is a great mindset except we do not have someone to challenge our creative process until we get to the publishing phase.
- We are told independence is synonymous to expertise at what we do and now, we struggle to achieve it.
- Suffering and overwork are glamourized as we lock ourselves up for months and even years cooking up glorious pieces.
There is a place for this level of independence and intense work but it is not the only thing an affluent author knows. An affluent author knows how to ebb and flow in a way that allows them to be profitable and enjoy life while doing the hard work of authoring.
Some benefits of Collaborative Authoring are:
- Reduced creation time: six months would compile an average poetry book but six months with three authors involved will produce a great poetry anthology.
If you were creating that alone, you will probably use the whole year, get fatigued at some point, drop the collection because you are wanting for inspiration and hopefully, you will get back to it in record time.
- Fresh perspective: I used to debate when I was younger and my favourite part of debating was not winning as much as it was listening to the rapid-fire rebuttals my opponent comes up with – it’s free education.
Writing with someone else is like a debate; they will place your perspective to the test and you have to defend it in a way that showcases your mastery during the writing process and that experience solidifies your work.
If you were writing a collection of short stories, your character building will be more holistic because there’s someone there who is less sentimental about your characters and focused on the overall collection.
- Publishing opportunities: it is less likely that two or three authors would write a book that is flat and bare except all three are afraid to critic each other or are completely novices.
If all authors present invest themselves searching for publishing opportunities, you are likely to get a couple of good options as opposed to when you search alone.
- Royalties and payout: let us assume the publisher decides they need one face for publicity’s sake (this is painful), there will be a constant flow of money as your royalties such that you have some level of passive income that allows you to go and write your solo book.
While your collaborative book might not make you very famous because you are a second or third-wheel author, it is very likely to provide you income and introduce you to the audience of the main author.
Collaborative Authoring is regular in the world of research and academic writing for good reasons – do your research.
- Negotiations: with two or three authors writing one powerful book, you have the ability to negotiate better if you know what you are doing.
You can negotiate for lesser service rates, more live events, more book signing, higher royalties or even sales of more book copies.
Any of the above negotiations would mean more visibility or more financial flow. Decide where you can settle.
It would be funny to assume collaboration is the end of your struggles as an author or potential author. Let’s see the tricky side of it:
- Too many collaborations: when you do not have a single published book, people start to question what you actually do with your writing team?
If you are the lead writer, we wonder if you are using the younger writers and if you are the other writer, we wonder if you are a leech.
- Same authoring group: if you only collaborate with the same group of authors, you are likely to coast after a while because you all become familiar with each other’s writing style (that’s great when writing a long series) and you lose the storming phase that challenged your person at the beginning.
- Publishing rejections: you experience a different type of rejection when writing creative books collaboratively because a group is harder to market. It means the publisher has to build a brand around each author and that is tedious work that a lot of people are not excited about.
However, if you are comfortable with one of the authors representing the team (it does not have to be you) as the face of that book, you are good to go. Just make sure you have enough legal contracts in case they go rogue (never do collaborative work financially without enforceable legal documents).
- Loss of voice: when you are a junior writer, collaboration can bring you to the table where industry giants are and it can steal your voice at the same time. You are likely to assume, this is a privilege that you go with everything they suggest.
If you do not deal with impostor syndrome and the need for creative validation, you will sell yourself (your originality) in exchange for a book title and some media publicity.
It is important to set your goals before you begin collaborative authoring. What you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it and the implication of it on your personal projects before you step out.
Collaboration is a coal mine: it is messy but it has the capacity to keep you warm. Choose wisely.
–
Read – Be More – Affluent Authors Column – Liza Chuma Akunyili
