On January 20, 2026, our 12-author Don’t Blink anthology will be unpublished.
I had a lot of fun organizing this group of veteran indie authors. Everyone was established with multiple books to their author names, so it was easy to lead.
I also shared all my knowledge with some other authors who want to lead their own anthologies. It’s hard work, if you must know, because it takes more than a year to plan and carry out.
In the early days when I first started organizing anthologies (2015), I handled all the key roles. Not only was I leading the project, I also published and disbursed royalties, formatted and organized marketing and cross promotions. Over time, I found key authors who could do some of these things better than I could, so I delegated the publishing to another indie author whom we could trust to handle royalties. I also invited authors who were excellent in marketing and put them in charge of that aspect. It’s a win-win when everyone contributes.
My preference is always to let all authors own the anthology. That is to say, I made sure everyone gets a vote in everything from title, theme, cover design, marketing, promotions, and so forth. One thing is always true in all the boxed sets I’ve organized: each author is free to write whatever they want within the loose scope of the genre theme. Sometimes we do set rules for book length to fit the external promotion requirements, but sometimes
Don’t Blink is the last anthology for me, although I should never say never. But after ten years (2015-2025) and dozens of boxes and four USA Today bestselling lists, it’s time for me to turn my attention to my own inventory of books. I need to focus on the ten (what!) unfinished series I’ve created.
However, I must say that I made a lot of new and lasting friends through these anthologies. Readers got rock-bottom deals when we sell 8-12 novels or novellas for only $0.99. Do you remember? Many of you who have been with me for many years probably still have some of those box sets in your Kindle app.