Interview: Jamie Ferguson on Bundle Up! A Practical Guide to Anthologies and Box Sets That Sell
Over the past few weeks we’ve been talking with the authors and curator of the 2026 Write Stuff StoryBundle. For the final interview of the bundle we’re talking with Jamie Ferguson. Her contribution to the bundle is the 2nd edition of Bundle Up! A Practical Guide to Anthologies and Box Sets That Sell — a book for authors, editors, and organizers who want to create or participate in multi-author projects. The first edition came out in 2018, which in indie publishing terms is about three eras ago, so the new edition has a lot of updated and new material on Kickstarter, direct sales, and the very different platform landscape we’re navigating in 2026.
The Interview
You’ve now organized over twenty multi-author projects with more than a hundred authors. What do you get out of collaboration that you don’t get from solo publishing?
Collaborating with other authors brings a really fun energy to a project. Working with other authors who are excited about the project makes the process more enjoyable for me. And, of course, having so many people involved in promotion means the project gets in front of more potential readers than I’d be able to reach on my own.
The first edition of Bundle Up! came out in 2018 — which, in indie publishing terms, might as well be a different era. When you went back to revise it, what was the moment where you thought, “okay, this isn’t just a light update, this needs a real overhaul”?
I knew going in that there would be a lot of work to update the manuscript. For example, Facebook Notes haven’t existed in years, but back in 2018 I used them extensively for book promotion.
The most surprising thing was my discovery that about seventy percent of the first edition was still accurate and useful eight years later. I added quite a bit of new material, and expanded/updated/added examples. But the core of the book — things you should know/consider whether you’re an organizer or a participating author — is the same.
What’s the biggest new area in the 2nd edition — something authors or organizers need to think about now that wasn’t really on the radar in 2018?
Kickstarters! It seems like almost every author I know launches at least one Kickstarter a year now, if not more. I have yet to do one myself, but two of the anthologies I’m working on with my co-publishers (Tami and DeAnna, we run Borogrove Press together) will launch with Kickstarters. I’m very excited about this, and even more excited that my first Kickstarter experience will involve working with not one but two people who’ve already run their own Kickstarters and have more experience than I do. 🙂
I mention this in Bundle Up! but here’s an extra plug for Anthea Sharp’s fantastic book Kickstarter for Authors (which is also in the Write Stuff bundle).
You’re often on both sides of these projects — author and organizer. Does each role teach you something about the other?
Absolutely. Working with so many different authors has taught me to think not just about their story or book, but also about how easy someone will be to work with, to evaluate their social/web presence from the standpoint of how they’ll come across to potential readers, and to think about how likely they are/aren’t to promote the project. I have worked with authors who have very little social presence, and ones who I know aren’t going to do anything to promote the project, so I do make exceptions. But when I make an exception I do so intentionally. For example, there’s one author I’ve worked with a number of times who doesn’t even have a website, and at this point in their career they’re not ever going to create one. But I love their work, and I’m always thrilled to include them in an anthology.
I’ve also learned to be intentional about choosing which projects to participate in as an author. I’ve been in bundles and anthologies where the organizer has done a ton of work on promotion, and other projects where the organizer did very little. I don’t blanketly agree to anything, of course, but I might agree to write a new story for an anthology I know won’t be heavily promoted because it’s an excuse to write a story I’d like to write, or perhaps I’ll provide a reprint to an anthology knowing it might not get a lot of promotion but there will still be some new readers. And if I know the organizer will focus heavily on promotion, I’m much more likely to consider participating, even if I have to squeeze something new into my schedule.
What’s the thing first-time organizers always underestimate?
The amount of time and energy a project requires. Bundles are easier than anthologies, but even they require you to select/invite the authors, write sales copy, plan your promotion, and keep track of all the details. Anthologies take even more work — they almost always require edits, and editing can be a lot of work. In the first anthology I ever edited, one story used six — yes, six — different pronouns for the characters. In addition to all the editing work, the author and I both had to do a pronoun pass at the end. 🙂
You recently built Inkwren — a publishing management app — partly to handle the tracking and scheduling these projects require. Did building it change how you think about the advice in Bundle Up!?
I’ve tried a lot of different approaches to organizing tasks and tracking promotions, and with Inkwren that’s all a lot easier than it’s ever been. I’m also able to see the big picture better, like if I’m promoting multiple projects at a time I can zoom in on one promotion, or look at the overall view of them all together. Being able to use Inkwren hasn’t changed the advice in Bundle Up! but it has made it a lot easier for me to stay on top of everything. And since I’m spending less time trying to track what I’m doing, I’ve found myself thinking about additional things I could do to promote projects now that I have that extra time.
What are you working on now — and what’s fun or exciting about it?
I’m working on a witch cozy series that I love. The main character is a woman who discovers she’s a witch after she accidentally casts a spell that makes something very important invisible. I started this series during the early days of the pandemic when I decided I needed to work on something lighthearted. I put it aside for a few years because I had a lot of life complications, and I’m SO happy to finally be able to work on it again.
About the Author
Jamie has edited and published over twenty anthologies, organized multiple ebook bundles, and has participated in numerous bundles and anthologies created by other intrepid organizers. She publishes under her own press, Blackbird Publishing, as well as under Borogrove Press, which she created with DeAnna Knippling and Tami Veldura. She’s also a member of the Uncollected Anthology, an urban and contemporary fantasy author collective. Jamie created a publishing management software tool, Inkwren, which was inspired by her need to keep track of a zillion publications, stories, authors, and tasks.
In her fiction, Jamie writes stories where magic lives just beneath the surface—where ghosts haunt houses that no longer exist, selkies are stranded far from the sea, and witches discover their power one herb at a time. Her work blends folklore, emotional depth, and a deep empathy for characters navigating impossible choices. She lives in Colorado, where her two border collies are still waiting for her to get them a proper herd of sheep.
Find Jamie
Bundle Up! A Practical Guide to Anthologies and Box Sets That Sell is available now in the Write Stuff StoryBundle, curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. 15 exclusive books on writing and publishing—pay what you want, starting at $5. Customers can choose to direct a portion of their payment to World Central Kitchen. The bundle runs through May 14, 2026.