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Make sure you know which one you are embracing. One of the most destructive elements in any contractual arrangement is not having shared expectations. When two people expect the same things, the chance that you’ll achieve them is far greater. If you have different expectations, you may find yourself working at cross purposes, and ultimately be dissatisfied to the point of dissolving your collaboration. That is a monumental waste of time.

Always use a contract to protect everyone involved, including your heirs. I don’t often talk to collaborators. I probably should do so a bit more, but I am better with communicating through the written word. A vocal agreement is often misinterpreted or not remembered completely. What I say may not be what you heard. It’s not the same for a written contract. Write it down, then conquer the world. You have a plan. Check out the Appendices, where I provide a variety of contracts for different circumstances.

Moving on to the question of why you might wish to collaborate. I see three main reasons for collaborating: business purposes, personal growth, or simple fun. Each reason can transcend and become more than originally intended. We hope that’s the case, and managing the expectations at the outset is important for all parties to keep the collaboration a safe place to work and achieve at least that initial objective.

The bottom line is generating more revenue, and that is what most collaborations are about, whether through direct or indirect means. Direct means each author gets a cut of something they would not have had before, and their combined efforts deliver a higher return than either would have been able to accomplish on their own (either through quicker ability to publish or through a wider offering). Indirect revenue generation is through quality exposure, maybe newsletter list growth, all while earning money.

Which is a good point to make and reinforce. A collaboration doesn’t mean you write something for someone else for free purely to get exposure while the other makes money. Make sure the terms are clear, the workload is acceptable, and the desired end result is clearly spelled out.

No one does everything well. Some write well. Some market well. Some connect with the readers well. How do we get the most from our strengths, while minimizing our weaknesses? Collaborate. What if there is a gap in what you are offering your rabid fans? You need to fill it, but you don’t have time to write all the words.

For example, an individual who has had a successful career wants to grow their offering. An established author may search for a collaborator to help him/her add books to the backlist. What about an individual who writes well, but can never seem to find an audience? That good author could benefit from a collaborative arrangement with someone who is good at marketing, or maybe even a marketing genius who has trouble writing a gripping tale.

These collaborations come down to time versus effort. I firmly believe that anything can be learned, but some things take a great deal more effort than others. A collaborator can help an author fill a gap quickly. In other words, work smarter, not harder, to achieve your business goals.

The business factor for collaborating is all about bringing in more revenue, either now or later. Collaborate for a share of future profits. Collaborate to offset a self-publishing weakness (the writing or the marketing).

Add horsepower to your business. A recent example of this was K.F. Breene pairing up with Shannon Mayer to write the Shadowspell Academy series. This (Urban Fantasy set in a school with young adults) is a hot genre as of the writing of this book. Those two delivered three books that were still ranked in the five hundreds four months after publication. Between them and their well-established audiences, their collaborative books rocketed up the charts. They tapped their individual audiences, and with great sales came more exposure for all their books. Amazon likes winners and helps promote the books that sell well. When extremely talented and successful authors combine their efforts, the results can be eye-popping. I suspect that series has made them excellent money, as well as brought new readers to their backlists, which is a double win for two authors who were doing just fine on their own. But they knew they could do a little better and showed the rest of us what that looked like.

In science fiction, we have the Dune books that came after Frank Herbert passed away. His son Brian picked up the torch and collaborated with Kevin J. Anderson to deliver a knock-out set of books with long legs and great staying power. The worlds will live on, thanks to two great authors hammering out a better book together than they could have done alone.

It’s nice to make more money. It’s better when you can do that in less time. For the established author, collaborating in any kind of 50/50 (or variation) arrangement means you can add a new title in half the time, and potentially with half the work (or less). Growing one’s backlist can mean an increase in visibility and business viability. Partnering with a bigger-name author can improve your visibility if your writing is already sound. That being said, I don’t recommend approaching big names with offers to collaborate if they haven’t asked for people to contact them or you don’t already have an existing relationship.

How much work does each party need to do? That’s up for grabs in the negotiation, based on your individual strengths. Maybe the relationship is 70/30—70% for the one who wrote the great story, as long as the up-front costs (cover & editing) are recovered first. Work effort, risk, and potential earnings are all important points to consider. I’ll discuss these later.

I do not recommend collaborations that are purely mercenary (make money at the expense of ethics and common decency). If you’re willing to trample someone to make money, maybe you should return this book. I’m a fan of the rising tide, and that we can all win together. Making money is important because it allows us to keep doing what we do but making money at all costs is a hard way to live your life. So don’t do it. Look at a business relationship that will be financially beneficial to all parties involved. I hope it becomes a long-term relationship, but if you go your separate ways after the contract terms have been met, that’s fine, too.

Be upright in all you do. That will sometimes mean you have to cut ties. You may find out after the process has started that you are not compatible. This is when the out-clause in your contract will come in handy. Better to cut ties early than continue a painful existence. Don’t let it destroy you. Better to move on.

Thich Nhat Hanh said, “When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you
don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.”

The way to get to that level of nirvana is to make sure your expectations of each other and the final product are crystal-clear at the outset. Take a shared journey on a mutually agreed-to path. It makes things much easier.

Getting better at what we do is important. Is a profession where you’re perfect without practice is worth having? I doubt such a profession exists. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as perfect. The readers decide if they like it or not, then vote with their money to buy the next book.

Even the greats practice. Prince, considered the best guitarist by people like Eric Clapton, always practiced. Top athletes have coaches. And top authors write and then write some more. They get feedback from trusted sources, and they write the next book a little better.

In a mentor/mentee situation, one helps the other grow through guidance and feedback. The mentee does the majority of the heavy lifting, but that is in exchange for the learning. Some people pay big money to be mentored. What if your only investment was time and a willingness to learn?

I’ve seen one representation of the learning cycle as See, Do, Teach, teaching being the element that helps one master their art. When the student becomes the teacher, the cycle has gone full circle until the next challenge and a new cycle of See, Do, Teach begins. Who learns more, the student or the teacher? Once you’ve become the teacher, you’ll discover that both learn a great deal through the process.

How do collaborations help your personal growth? Collaborators of like minds who are friends become closer because of building something together. Remember working on a class project with one of your parents? I’m not talking about the one you waited until the night before to tell them about, but one that you planned, spent countless hours putting together, and cheered when it worked like it was supposed to. Those are the memories that last forever. Those moments are what make life worth living.

Every book could be that way, too. writing a book is unlike most people’s regular job. It’s the best job in the world, telling stories to readers. And they pay you for it. Collaborations can make us bigger, better, faster, and all the other good things, if managed from the beginning and done for reasons that you both agree to.

When authors of comparable ability and or marketing prowess get together, they can be peers and partners in the creation process, sharing ideas and encouraging each other to be better. The process becomes a friendly competition to spur each other to greater heights.

They have an idea and throw it together. It leads to great things. Think of the comedy duos out there—Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, Key and Peele, Penn and Teller. Sometimes, great minds feed off each other in a way that nourishes the soul.

Look at yourself in the mirror of a partner’s face. A knowing smile. A twitch. A thought turned to words becoming a catalyst for a plot. The world around it takes shape, gets painted in. It’s you and someone just like you creating something wonderful.

Collaborators get to do fun things. You both write the story, and the story dominates. Maybe you’ll make a little money, too. That makes it even more fun, but that wasn’t the initial motivation. Fun collaborations are about having fun first and foremost. Enjoy the process of telling a story. Leverage each other’s strengths. Enjoy the moment.