This story starts in 2021. Yeah, it was a two-year long ordeal. How could it have gone on for so long and I not know?

I still ask myself that very same question.

But really, it didn’t start off as a scam (at least, didn’t appear to). The optimist in me still wants to believe that it started off legit, but the organizer got in over her head and tried to pivot too many times along the way and it ended up in a disaster.

Here’s what happened.

In 2021, I set the goal of looking for opportunities to be part of more multi-author anthologies and shared worlds in order to find new readers. I’d heard great things about them all over the indie publishing world, and I saw what they did for other authors, and put it on my list to try for 2022.

So, I went on the hunt to find an indie anthology that could take me up to the next level.

After hunting on Amazon, I found an organizer who fit the bill. Or, so I thought.

I watched as one of her holiday sets landed very high in the overall Amazon store, and when I scoured her social media, I saw quite a few authors in the set also hit the USA Today best seller list in Romance because of the success of the anthology. I was in awe.

After looking at the success of that launch, I did my research. Everything was on the up and up. The success on Amazon was real. She really hit the USA Today Bestsellers list. All of it was verifiable.

During my vetting, I saw a second set of hers, which was closer to my genre, (sci-fi romance. I write paranormal) hit the top 50 in several of the major sci-fi romance categories and land in the top 1000 of the Amazon store. Again, I was convinced her business acumen transferred well from one product to the next. None of it was a fluke.

Now I was really interested. I devoured every social media post on her page. She had a bead for business and marketing. And unlike the other marketers online that I’d seen which knew a lot about marketing, but not how to apply it to the publishing industry. She did.

For me, it was all systems go. I was ready to sign up then and there.

The only obstacle in my way was that she was producing sets that weren’t in my genre. But as my luck would have it, she asked what other anthologies should she do. I didn’t hesitate and say a paranormal romance set. To my surprise, quite a few other authors were with me. A few weeks later, she launched a paranormal set.

Except… it was for shifter romance. I don’t write shifters, I write vampires. So, it wasn’t a good fit. In any event, I earmark it, thinking I could probably do a vampire-wolf hybrid situation if it came to it, but a few other others were just as bummed as I was and voiced it. I commented, that if she had a vampire anthology in the future, I’d be all-in.

In November 2021, I got my wish. A cover designer we follow came out with a series of vampire premade covers that were (and are) gorgeous! Absolutely divine.

We all saw them. We all wanted them. They would be perfect. She reached out to me and a few others and asked if were in for both an anthology and a shared world.

I said yes. That would be fantastic.

Then, the bill came. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. I’m not going to lie. It was a big investment and at the time, my books weren’t even making that in a month.

I don’t know how long I stared at the covers debating whether to join up or not. The set was everything I was looking for (vampires, an anthology, a shared world, a robust marketing plan) and with the amount of interest it had from other authors, I knew I wasn’t alone. 

Yet, still. I wondered if I would I make my money back. I questioned whether this world would really be the thing that kicked my author career up a notch?

It was a definite leap of faith moment.

In the midst of deciding, I saw another organizer post on her page. Apparently, that organizer reached out to her because she had a failing set on her hands. All of that turned around with the help of her coveted marketing plan. It boosted a dead anthology into a profitable one.

After that, I needed no more convincing. I was all in. The organizer really had the sauce.

In November 2021, I signed for the set on the back of good reviews, the data, and the promise of a robust marketing plan that would teach me step by step how to build an evergreen email reader funnel would bring in thousands of readers to my stories. It was just what I need.

Plus, there was an added bonus. Because I was part of the first wave for the vampire set, I would get a cover, and I could be part of the world building (which was great, because I love world building and I could help sway it so I could connect it other series). All around, it was a win-win.

I paid for the entry, joined the Facebook group and we were off. Early 2022 came around and we started world building, picking titles, subtitles, tropes, everything. It was a dream.

We continued that until around March/April. At that time, another set came up. It was a huge anthology series that was connected to the shared world. I was so excited for what we were building, I had no hesitations in signing up even though I hadn’t proved out the first endeavor. I figured if the momentum continued the way it had been, it would be fine.

However, by the time Fall 2022 hit, things slowed to a crawl, which gave me pause because we were supposed to kick off the pre-order for the anthology in September.

Surely, there would be prework to set up a funnel. Surely, we’d start creating graphics or hooks, or something for the basic marketing tasks. Surely, we’d get email copy. Something.

Now, let me take a second to break down what I understood was supposed to happen.

Every Monday, the set organizer would go live in the group, give an update on the status of the project, and tell us what tasks we needed to do for the week. We’d get a full marketing plan for a robust reader full that will include an email funnel with copy that we could use to send to readers to keep them engaged with the world. All of this was to start in September.

Except, the majority of September came and went with no preorder, no prework, no information, no communication.

I got worried. So, did several others. Other authors started to ask her on her main page when things were going to get started. She said, it was coming as though we were being impatient.

By the last week of September, however, things got started. She posted in the group, informing us to get ready. The preorder was going up. Finally.

Then, when October rolled around, we started getting updates. The preorder went live, there were tasks for us to do, and each week, as promised, we got a new pre order update.

The nervousness I had, went away again. The live videos were sporadic at best, but the set organizer promised they were coming.

I could understand. By this time, she had more than a dozen sets going on, and more coming out every week. That was a lot to juggle. She was busy. I figured she had to adjust to this new-found growth and soon, things would settle down.

And because we were getting weekly updates in October, I figured my theory was right.

Then the end of October came around, and my “something’s not quite right here” meter started to go off.

I saw a thread for a buy swap for another anthology she was organizing. I had never heard of such a thing until then.

Come to find out, buy-swaps are when a group of people buy the product of another person in exchange for that person to buy their products in return. In this case, each author was expected to buy the book in every store it was available. Twenty authors purchasing 4-5 copies of the same book to boost the rankings across the platforms. (That would be 80-100 sales between 20 authors). Sounds shady? Yeah, I thought so too because it felt like we were gaming the system.

So, I declined to participate and didn’t get involved. Yet, I saw quite a few authors act as though this was normal. For me and a few others, though, it seemed contradictory. The goal of a multi-author anthology is to find new readers, not arbitrarily boost rankings by having all of the authors purchase the anthology in baches.

Then, I did the math. If the organizer was running 10-15 sets with 20 people in them, that could be thousands of sales that weren’t target market readers. That meant potentially thousands of sales from authors who had no interest in reading my story or my books.

I didn’t sign up for that.

Now, in all fairness, the post was not by the set organizer. Nor did I see that organizer promoting that behavior. But, I also didn’t see her put a stop it either. However, I didn’t see another buy swap thread again.

That ended October. November came, everything was steady. We got weekly tasks, and pre-order updates, but if I had to admit, the pre-order updates weren’t as robust as what we had previously been getting. But, the stats were usable.

However, when December arrived, things started to take a turn.

The USA Today Bestseller list went away. The person who ran it was laid off without a replacement and there didn’t seem to be a replacement in sight.

Worse, the group went dark. There were no tasks, no posts, no updates. Nothing. Yet, I still saw the organizer selling more anthology sets on her main page.

I wasn’t happy about that. I thought if she had time to sell more sets, then she should have had the time to support the sets she’d already sold.

My original questions about the success of this venture came back. By this time, I’d paid a lot of money into several sets, and was afraid that I had bought into the hype because I wasn’t getting the product that I was advertised.

January 2023 came. Still, the group was silent. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Another author on her main page asked what was going on. The organizer blamed the Facebook algorithm, but when pressed about how that didn’t make sense since we could sort for posts in the group, she then claimed that she had hired someone to take over managing the weekly tasks and was in the process of onboarding them.

Honestly, I found that hard to believe. Either Facebook was eating her posts or there were no posts because she was onboarding someone new. It couldn’t be both at the same time. Either way, I felt there should have been an announcement or some sort of communication.

By the end of January, the new person came into the Facebook group and introduced herself. Other than that, there were no tasks, no updates, no new information.

February 2022 arrived. By this time, it had been two months without an update, and I was frustrated. I posted in the group asking when then the next update was coming. When the set organizer responded, I was told there was a post last week (there wasn’t).

After some back and forth, and realizing there wasn’t a post, she never apologized for her mix-up. However, the person responsible for posting our weekly tasks, does apologize and says it’s coming.

Finally, the next day, we get a task list for tasks that we’d already done months ago. To top it off, the post has no due dates attached. At that point, I realized there was no real week-by-week marketing plan. It was being made up on the fly.

After that, the weekly tasks came once more at the end of the month. We also finally got a preorder update. Those looked to be starting up weekly again.

However, by March, the preorder updates stopped altogether. And the marketing updates were sporadic at best and were boiled down to two of the simplest beginner stage marketing tactics out there.

By April, there weren’t any marketing tasks posted, nor preorders.

I didn’t know what to do by that point. I’d already committed to the project, paid money, and I believe I announced it to my newsletter, but I was disheartened by the process. I wanted to pull out of it but felt obligated. I decided to make the best of a terrible situation. I would write the stories and deliver them to my readers just like I promised. While I was duped, they wouldn’t be.

I hustled in April and May to get the stories written and edited because they were due on June 1st. During this time, the group was radio silent except for a few authors trying to make the best of it.

June 1st came, the day of the submittal.

Imagine my surprise when there was no form to submit my story to. I waited all day, refreshing the group to make sure I didn’t miss the deadline. But the time nighttime rolled around, I was pissed beyond reason.

I posted publicly in the group, venting my disappointment at how the entire project degraded. Reading it back, I’m surprised how nice I was in this post even though I was boiling mad.

But the gaslighting from the organizer continued.

I was getting gems like:

“When USA Today, weekly preorders announcements are no longer relevant to our goals”

“We changed our policies, and everyone saw it.” (gaslighting. None of that happened, but I was being made to believe I missed it).

“Marketing tasks were always rolling” (as though it was an established thing. They weren’t. I asked early on if we could get them a month in advance. I was told no because they recalibrate them every week.)

When I stated that I worried about my return on investment I got, “Well, you only paid xyz.” (diminishing my hefty investment into her business.)

When I complained that she’d made policy changes and didn’t notify anyone, I got, “Everything was transparent, you just missed it…” (making it seem like I was crazy)

Then, she presented a boiled down “marketing” plan as though that was what I bought into; I was flummoxed. Absolutely dumbfounded.

A marketing strategy is more than bookfunnel promos, newsletter swaps, and social media shares. Those are tactics to help with a strategy. We both knew that. She’s even said that in her posts. But she acted as though those tactics were worth paying all of this money for.

Seriously? My jaw was on the floor.

As I saw it, at that point I had two options; waste my money, time, and effort, and pull my books from her sets without a refund (her sets were non-refundable) or just publish them and let it ride.

I took Option C. I asked for my money back even though I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t see a cent of it.

To my surprise, after I gave her a lengthy, ‘I didn’t get what I paid for” speech, she offered me a one-time exception to her refund policy. I pulled out of everything except for the two anthologies that I’d already paid for in time, money, covers, and editing. I was able to recoup about half of my total investment. I figured it was the best of a bad situation.

Even still, my eternal optimist prayed for a miracle. I’d hoped that when September and October rolled around, I would break even on launch. The anthology itself was a charity anthology, so no money would be earned there. But, according to the set organizer, I should see a huge spike in sales for my next book.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t. Not even close.

And the year just kept getting worse. By October I was working 60+ hour weeks at my job and my mom’s health took a turn for the worse. We were in and out of the emergency room. Up all hours of the night monitoring her breathing. Scared that her health would totally fail.

I was exhausted and stressed out and pushing through it was just not happening. Talk about running into a brick wall over and over and wondering why it hurt.

By the end of October, my mom’s health started to stabilize, but all of November was a ton of testing and trying to keep our spirits high.

In December, I decided to cancel Quinn, and take a break from publishing and from work and spent time with Mom. I decorated for Christmas (the house looked like a Hallmark Christmas movie set), baked cookies, and rested.

I took the time to clear my head and recalibrate.

And after some much-needed time off, I gained perspective.

While I never want to go through any of that again, some good came out of it. I didn’t break, I got some good stories done, and I took some big lessons learned out of the deal.

All in all, I’m taking the stories I created into 2024 and leaving the rest behind.

Here’s to a better year.