Use your strengths to collaborate with authors

Author Collaboration

Since becoming an indie author I’ve harbored a desire to become part of an author collaboration team. Being a writer is such a solitary existence, and as a digital nomad who travels continuously, it was really important for me to connect to a likeminded group of writers I could work with to achieve shared goals. When I first set up this website, I had a landing page aimed at attracting other authors to reach out to me to collaborate on shared travel-related books and content. This approach was akin to sitting on the river bank, rod in hand, hoping for a bite.

I didn’t catch anything! So I put my fishing tackle away and switched my focus to building my author brand. Then one day, as if by magic, a collaboration opportunity screamed in my face so loud, I couldn’t ignore it. Fast forward ten months . . . and we launched an Anthology. A collection of blog posts from the AlzAuthors website, where authors who write about dementia, and share the inspiration behind their books.

As this was my first collaboration exercise, it was a learning curve experiment of what works and what didn’t, and what needs to be done better next time.

Play to your strengths

Indie authors have to wear many hats, and even if you’re doing all of your own self-publishing steps on your projects, the benefit of collaboration is that each member of the collaboration team should have a specific role leveraging their strengths. When the Anthology project was kicked around for a couple of months in the AlzAuthors Writers’ Facebook group, I was eager to take part in the project. I participated in the group chat, but got disillusioned by the lack of focus or a specific plan.

The I realized I had overlooked my core strength – Project Management. Over the past two decades I’ve managed multiple global projects for a massive corporation, so I needed to use my project management skills to help drive this collaboration project in the right direction, and keep in on track. I’d held back because I wasn’t a member of the AlzAuthors founders team, but then realized they needed somebody to step into the project role.

As well as corralling the content into a first draft for the team to proofread, I formatted the ebook and paperback versions of the anthology, and invested in Index generating software to create a useful index for the book’s readers. You can read about how I approached the indexing process of this first anthology.

Based on the Acknowledgements page in this Anthology, my input and skills were appreciated.

Not only did I get to use my project management skills, I also added another publication to my book formatting portfolio. We published the book under an AlzAuthors imprint, which is part of my Birds of a Feather Press imprint.

I learned a valuable lesson during this process—you have to play to your strengths.

I abandoned my corporate career to become a digital nomad and author, and to have the opportunity of spending more time with my Mum who has Alzheimer’s. And for a brief period I walked away from my project management skills in lieu of writing. I forgot how much I love nudging a project from start to finish, and how that skill comes so naturally to me.

If you’re looking for a collaboration opportunity, have a look at your strengths. What do you have to offer? Eek out what you’re passionate about. If you love to do something and it comes easy to you, you’re probably good at it. So share that skill with your fellow authors and find a collaboration opportunity you can shine at.

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