Elaine Cougler and I met at an Historical Novel Society conference several years ago and have been author buddies ever since. Elaine has written historical fiction but more recently has turned her attention to other projects – the latest being the creation of an anthology titled Canada: Brave New World.
“So what goes into that kind of project?” I asked. Here’s Elaine to give us the benefit of her experience.
~~~
This writer thrives on new challenges, new learning and new ways to create story; hence, after four historical fiction novels, a creative biography, and a memoir, I dove into creating an anthology. All of my previous formats allowed me deal with history in some way, so it was natural that I settled on the theme for Canada: Brave New World. Here is my Call for Submissions opening statement:
The book length publication of Canada: Brave New World will feature unique and true stories of people who escaped their homeland and settled in Canada as a result of the Second World War or because of other warring troubles in their home countries. The publication will show that our country is made up of amazingly strong people who escaped something bad and created something good.
I wanted to collect stories of immigrants to Canada, to reveal their ability to rise up and face unforeseen challenges, and to show how they have helped Canada become what it is today.
The first thing I considered was the publication date. July 1st is Canada Day, and the media is always looking for stories to fit into that news cycle. Why not time the release for that period? That gave me about 15 months to bring the project to fruition. The in-person launch is scheduled for June 4th and the print, Kobo and Kindle versions will be available by then if not before. I timed all of the marketing accordingly.
To start, I created the Call for Submissions mentioned above, and placed notices on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. My blog post on May 11, 2022 was entitled Call for Submissions: An Anthology and the queries started filling my InBox. Because Covid was still making speaking gigs almost non-existent, I did a lot of personal contacting—my newsletter list has about 1600 addresses on it and my email list is extensive as well.
My organizational skills were called into play with all the queries I was getting. How would I keep it all straight? Aha! In a previous life I taught Computers and had learned about spreadsheets. I drew up one in Microsoft Excel with the following headings:
Author Name, Format, Title, Country Emigrated From, I’ve Read, Accepted, Needs Editing, Ready for Print, Author Email, Call for Submissions Sent, Put into Anthology Document, Submission Publication Form Submitted, Author Copy Sent, Coming to Launch.
You might like to order them differently.
A few questions arose but the one I remember most was someone asking how much I was going to pay the contributors. I explained they would each get one copy of the anthology and that I would be working for a year to bring the whole project to fruition. They could also use this book as a writing credit and advertise their part in the anthology. I have invited all of the contributors to the book launch and many are coming. Everyone now seems to understand the work involved. Each of the final contributors has been wonderful to work with.
This brought up the legal side of the anthology. I made sure that the contributors each owned the rights to their story and were thus able to comply with my requirements. I checked other anthologies and copied what they had done. I did not use any previously copyrighted pieces. One article I would have liked to use had been pre-published in another magazine. It was not used, mostly because of the wishes of the author.
My editing consisted of the usual but sometimes I had to decide whether to allow different formats for the submissions. For example, one of the submissions is a particular poem format. I decided the format was part of the overall poem package and I’m glad to have its variety in the book.
Six of the unique stories I wrote—I became the author and the editor. I knew these people, their stories and how they would contribute to the theme of the anthology but none of them were writers. With their permission I interviewed them, wrote the stories and asked them to check them for correctness. The lead story is one of these. A lot of my heart went into it as it is of a Vietnamese couple whom I met when I taught an ESL class is 1980.
A few of the stories submitted had a lot of coloured photographs. This led to another decision. Would I put photos in the book? I knew that answer would dictate the type of paper I chose, the cost of the book, and the order of the photos in the book. Would I use colour or black and white? Because the book was getting longer and longer, I decided to use only a few black and white. The stories are the most important thing.
A writer has a lot of decisions to make along the way and my journey to publishing an anthology was no exception. I like to do a lot of things myself, things which fit my skill set or that I enjoy doing. I do not create my own covers, but I have a lot of input into them. I hire a skilled interior designer. I do that thing that writers are always warned not to do. I am my own final editor. My beta readers read and assess my final copy and I go over each of their ideas. This takes quite a lot of time as I usually have 8-10 vetted beta readers. After I have made what changes are warranted, I leave the document for at least a couple of weeks. Then with fresh eyes I pore over the pages again. I am always amazed at what errors I find and correct. A warning note—if grammar is not your thing, do NOT do what I do. Find a wonderful editor and make nice with her or him.
One final note comes to mind. This journey was mostly a delight but not entirely. One story that I was very excited to put in the book ultimately had to be left out. I was to write the story but the person whose story it was seemed to want to turn it into a sort of political position paper. That did not fit in with the theme of the book. Sadly, I had to put my foot down and say no.
Now that the book is printed and almost totally started on its adventure in the reading world, I have learned one more thing that I could have done. Or should have. I should have asked that the submissions make clear if pseudonyms were being used. I didn’t. Still that story is valid even if some of the names have been changed to ‘protect the innocent’.
When I put the book together with its beginning pages and end matter, I put some of myself into those pages. I take responsibility for how the book looks, for its overall message, and I indicate that with those pages. Any errors are mine alone as I state in all of my books. And, of course, the ultimate joy of creation is mine as well.
Some excellent advice, Elaine and what a great accomplishment! For those who aren’t aware, Canada has a large and diverse immigrant population, a strength for our country and a policy that is admired by many other countries. Canada has been steadily increasing the number of immigrants we welcome each year. I believe the official target for 2023 is 450,000 people. And that is on a population of roughly 39.5 million.
Canada: Brave New World by Elaine Cougler
Brave New World is an anthology of many shocking stories of beleaguered people who were forced to flee from their home country and chose to settle in Canada many years ago, or in the not-too-distant past. Out of very difficult situations, they created and are creating a home in which they can be successful, happy and fulfilled; Canada is much the richer and better off because those people came here. The book contains stories of people from Ireland and Zimbabwe, from Latvia and Germany, and from the Netherlands and Great Britain, as well as from many other countries. This is a compilation of those who had the strength and determination to flee, often leaving behind their extended families, never to see them again. These immigrants prove once again the courage of ordinary people who, in perilous times, rise to become extraordinary.
Elaine has been on the blog before writing about her trilogy, The Loyalist Legacy, as well as a book about Ron Calhoun, who helped Terry Fox and other heroes make millions for charity.
FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY
M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel is THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, a dual timeline set in Hong Kong. Mary’s other novels, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.
5 Responses
Congratulations to Elaine! This sounds like an excellent undertaking!
Thanks, Patricia. It was a joy to compile and to share. I also met a lot more writers.
This is such an interesting idea! My friend in Kassel – Germany, did something similar on a smaller scale. My question is: did you ask the responders for a specific number of words? Thank you. (She also had to abandon her best story. The woman’s husband objected.)
Interesting about the woman’s husband. You never know just how or what the reaction will be from people, do you? As to size, I accepted various sizes. I let the scale and importance of the story dictate. I had two submissions that were partials of books. I had to make sure the authors had the rights to do that but it all worked out well. The longest story was a compilation of three books and came to about 50 pages in the finished document but it was well worth it.
Thanks, Patricia and Michele! I did not ask for a specific word count and two of the submissions were long and from pre-published books. Of course we had the proper permissions to use these precised versions.