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For Tom Dolby and Melissa De la Cruz, co-editors of Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust, and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men (Dutton, 2007), their own friendship was the catalyst for the anthology. De la Cruz's agent was enthusiastic from the start, which Dolby credits to good timing. "We were right in the final season of Will and Grace; Sex and the City had ended a year before. It was one of these things that was in the public consciousness, but it hadn't been done in anthology form," he says. "With anthologies, there are so many subsets of subsets of groups that people are writing about that there's often not really a market for it, so if you can hit on something where there's a large, underserved group that's interested in reading about themselves, you can sell a book."

Similarly, it was a casual discussion over coffee that sparked an idea between friends and only children Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller. The result was Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo (Harmony, 2006). Siegel had always known she wanted to write about the topic, while Uviller hadn't given it much thought, but by batting around their similarities and differences surrounding their experiences, they realized they had the makings of a diverse collection. They then went about making a list of writers they admired who they knew to be only children, as well as discreetly asking about other authors who might be.

Selling an anthology is different from selling a solo work because you're pitching a book largely based on the reputation of the authors involved. Having "big name" authors (Only Child features Rebecca Walker, Kathryn Harrison, Lynn Harris, Thomas Beller, and Molly Jong-Fast, among others) can help sell the work to a publisher, even if you don't have many (or any) completed essays to submit. For Only Child, the authors spent six to eight months working on their 20-page proposal, which Siegel terms "pretty-detailed." This legwork came in useful later as they organized the essays into four pre-set categories. Tracy Brown, the agent who sold Only Child, says that while anthologies have enjoyed "a remarkable renaissance" over the last five years, there's currently a glut of them in the marketplace. This doesn't mean you can't sell one, just that you have to be savvy about it. He praises Only Child as a stellar example of the form. "Everything went right from the beginning," Brown says. "The editors are both only children and realized that this was the most defining experience of their lives. It wasn't like they looked around for a subject; it came organically out of their own lives. I think this is key for anyone thinking about putting together an anthology: the editors need to be personally involved with the subject. It didn't hurt that New York magazine ran a cover story on raising only children in New York the same week that the proposal was sent out." Brooke Warner, senior editor at Seal Press, looks for not just a list of names, but an editor's platform and means of executing their planned anthology. "We want to see vision, a call for submissions, and sample pieces," she says. "If an editor has done a good job with the proposal, it's pretty obvious."

Sean Manning, editor of The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience (Da Capo, 2007), says he created the anthology he couldn't find. Manning had an MFA from The New School and had written for New York Press and Black Book, but lacked umpteen publishing credits. He found his agent, Jim Fitzgerald, through another writer's referral, but had to contact Rick Moody, Jerry Stahl, and Thurston Moore (all contributors to The Show) on his own. What he did have was passion for the project. "I knew a couple of the writers, but most of them I didn't," he says. "I did know their work, though. I think that helps. They know you want them on board because you really like their stuff, instead of it just being about their name." His next project, conceived of by editor Brandi Bowles at Crown, is But Prince Don't Moonwalk: Essays on Rock, Pop, Country, and Rap's Most Famous, Infamous, Underappreciated and Unthought-of Rivalries.

Sometimes a book idea originally envisioned as a solo endeavor morphs into an anthology over the course of brainstorming and proposal writing. This was the case with Jaime Clarke's Don't You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2007). Clark's initial idea stemmed from a mass email sent by an editor at Simon Spotlight Entertainment, seeking pitches for the young imprint. While SSE "loved" his idea of an oral history of John Hughes's films, his idea to interview the principal actors in films such as Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club fell through because he couldn't get commitments. Instead of admitting defeat, he suggested an alternative to the publisher, which became the aforementioned anthology. "I realized that my casual suggestion was in fact the better idea," he says. "I yearned to know others' experiences with the movies that had meant so much to me as a teenager."

Selling the book may be a struggle, but once it's sold, the real work begins. "Far and away, the correspondence with my contributors, agent, and editor was the most time-consuming part of the process," says Andrea N. Richesin, editor of The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your 30s (Tarcher/Putnam, 2006). Clarke's biggest challenge was the "arduous" in-house legal review. "The hardest part was being caught between two competing interests: those of my publisher, who wanted to guard against a possible lawsuit, and those of the writers, whose creative expression I wanted to protect," says Clarke, who secured writers including Steve Almond, T. Cooper, Quinn Dalton, Ben Schrank, and Moon Unit Zappa, and even scored a foreword by Ally Sheedy.

Editors have the option of including their own work in essay form in their anthology, or simply writing an introduction that encompasses their reason for putting the book together and presenting the work as a whole. Manning, Uviller, Siegel, de la Cruz, and Dolby all contributed their own stories to their respective anthologies, while Clarke and Richesin wrote introductions to their respective works laying out their inspiration.

You will need a literary agent to submit an anthology to a major publisher. For smaller presses like Seal and Soft Skull, you can submit your proposal directly to the publisher, though the more essays, confirmed names, and media buzz you've already generated, the better. Don't expect to get rich or have your anthology be the next The Bitch in the House, the bestselling work edited by Cathi Hanauer. "This was really a pet project for us, a labor of love," Dolby says. "You don't do it for the money. I don't think you even do it for the notoriety. You do it because you love the topic and are passionate about it." Another thing an anthology can do is make you an instant "expert" on the topic at hand, just as you'd be positioned if you wrote a book. In a sense, you have even more perspectives at the ready because you have multiple authors' takes on a topic you've studied and pondered. Siegel recommends a topic "you're also able to frame and shape into current events." She and Uviller were instant parenting experts for CBS This Morning, but could also address more literary crowds. Courting multiple audiences creates new avenues for publicity and a wider potential readership. Another way to garner publicity for the book is through the common process of selling serial rights to the stories as a way to drum up interest in the book and earn the individual authors additional royalties. A modified version of entertainment journalist Anna David's essay from Girls Who Like Boys... recently ran as a Modern Love piece in The New York Times, including a credit to the anthology.

Promoting an anthology can take the form of a Web site (such as TheMayQueenbook.com and GirlsWhoLikeBoys.com), book tours featuring a rotating set of contributors, blogs, and media appearances. As for the dollar signs that may be dancing in front of your eyes, put them on pause. Editors are expected to pay their authors out of their advances, and these fees usually will take up to one third to one half of the advance (contributors' fees for major anthologies usually range between $500-$1,000, with approximately anywhere from nothing to $200 usually paid for contributions to small press anthologies). So while your advance may range from $30K-$100K (the higher end of that is rarer), this is not all going into your pocket.

All the editors interviewed for this piece were passionate about their unique subjects, and had connections to their topic before the anthology process began. This drive not only helped in creating and promoting the book, but in future endeavors as an author and editor. Manning concludes that getting to contact his favorite writers made the experience one he was eager to repeat. "It gave me an excuse to get in touch with all these big time writers I really admire. How else would I have ever gotten to shoot the shit with Harvey Pekar?"

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a writer, editor and blogger.