Tag: Books

How to initiate and coordinate a community publication on your own

Introduction

This chapter summarises the tools and lessons learned from working on the peer-edited Knutepunkt Conference Book ’25 Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus. For this 500-page book, 33 chapters were edited, laid out and printed thanks to the combined efforts of 67 individual contributors. There was no harmonization process between editors, authors, and no rejection based on content or skills.

Most years, the Knutepunkt/Solmukohta Nordic larp event releases one or more books in connection to the conference. For the 2025 Knutepunkt book, we needed to rethink the publication process, as no one had enough availability or mana to fully carry out such a demanding project. In line with the wishes of the general Knutepunkt conference organising team, this experience forms the basis for displacing responsibility from a tight team of volunteers to the wider community. Although successful, this first iteration had its shortcomings, and this document is intended to help future teams set up and refine their community-edited publications.

By sharing our tools, I wish to advocate for balance, collaboration and transparency in that collective process, to prevent volunteer burnout but also to paint a less mediated picture of our community’s voice.

In this document, you will find the core tools needed to start a peer-editing process on your own: from recruitment and coordination to editorial expectations and means of communication. It is based on my own conclusions, but also on previous KP/SK book documentation and implicit knowledge, and on countless hours of discussion with the fantastically knowledgeable and skilled Anne Serup Grove, who has worked on five different KP/SK books and was graphics and print coordinator for the KP Book ’25.

An overview of the process

To print or not to print

If you want your publication to be printed and sent to an event (such as the Knutepunkt conference), your final file needs to be ready about 1.5 months in advance.((This can be adjusted according to cover type and delivery times.)) The rest of your deadlines should therefore be worked backwards from this final red line.

If you want to give your editorial contributors at least 6 months to write and edit, and your graphic contributors 1 month to layout, this means that a comfortable timeframe would be to start about 9 months in advance.(( Longer writing times can be particularly suited to volunteer publications, where most contributors juggle their chapter with unrelated full-time activities.))

Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus — chapter illustration. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations), Kirsten van Werven (edits), and Maren Wolf and Anne Serup Grove (layout design)

When the end goal is a digital publication, deadlines and editorial expectations can be much more flexible. Removing all tasks related to online payment, printing and postage also removes a lot of the extra work that piles up at the end of the process.

Here is a potential progression:

1. Send-out role descriptions and enrolling form / Get in touch with printers

This is the recruitment phase, where you get an overview of who is interested in getting involved and in what capacity. You will also receive pitches and get a first (raw and wrong) idea of the topics, tonality and length of the publication.

If someone volunteers to set up the printing during your recruitment phase, they should start immediately: contacting printers, comparing prices to find the best deals, and setting budgets based on number of pages, colour options, paper quality and postage.

Ideally, and this is something we did not achieve for the KP Book ’25, this recruitment phase should also clarify the general timeline so that volunteers are aware of the length and rhythm of their commitment.

2. Forming editorial groups and setting-up your work platform

Based on the answers to the enrolling form, the editorial coordinators create editorial groups for each chapter and set up a digital platform for the collective work. For the KP Book ’25, we used a Discord server. Star Hope Percival volunteered to be our Discord wizard and made it infinitely more readable and inviting, which is extremely important when such a large group needs to work with it.

Knutepunkt book teams often decide that authors and artists retain all copyrights to their contributions, with an informal exclusivity right for the KP publication until it is launched. If you wish to rethink copyrights/Creative Commons, this is probably the time to do it.

Here is a linked template for a contributor list/editorial group setup.

When you start, you should provide a style guide that goes beyond the reference style to include details such as line spacing and headline levels (and any other relevant formatting) – this will help the graphics team enormously, and informing them before the first draft is written will make it much easier for them to incorporate it from the outset.

3. Writing draft 1, starting graphic research, setting-up a tracking sheet

Unless you deliberately want contributors to write only short chapters, you will probably need to allow at least 2 months for this first phase. During this time you should send out editorial guidelines to your contributors, especially if you have less experienced writers. The graphics team can also have a meeting and start playing with ideas for the layout and setting up their own process.

Similarly, the book coordinators can meet and set up a tracking sheet. Here is a linked template for a tracking sheet.

4. Deadline draft 1 and graphic coordination

Authors send their first draft to their editorial group according to the expectations listed in the guidelines. The graphics team has an online meeting to discuss which tasks they would like to take on.

5. Deadline reviews on draft 1

The editors and reviewers send their comments back to the authors. At this point, authors should flag inactive members of the editorial group to the coordinators, who will then contact them to ensure that they are still on board, or alternatively, to find replacements.

6. Writing draft 2 and developing the layout

About a third of the way through the general timeline, the authors start working on a second draft. During this time, the graphics team works with the editorial coordinators to define a style that fits the emerging theme of the publication.

7. Deadline draft 2

Authors send a second draft to their editorial group. This should also be at least two months later, especially if there is a winter break in the middle. This is when most of the dropouts occur, and when you can start to crystallise the identity of the book and get an idea of its length. This is also a good time for authors and editors to seek additional help with reviewing or editing, if needed.

8. Deadline reviews on draft 2, recruiting more proofreaders

Editors send their final edits to the authors. This is a good time to check with the proofreaders who have responded to the call for contributors to see if they still have the time and energy to work on the articles, and in any case to send out an extra call to recruit more.

9. Setting-up pre-orders

If the book is to be printed, pre-ordering well in advance will help to ensure that copies are delivered to the event and that free copies are available to the contributors. Traditionally, Knutepunkt in Norway offers a copy to each contributor and also to the Nordic National Libraries.

10. Final draft deadline, table of contents and foreword deadline

Authors finalise their chapter and bibliography. The editorial coordinators write the preface and the table of contents. 

11. Proofreading, layout, credits

Proofreaders review the chapters and send them to layout staff. Editorial and graphics coordinators work on the credits and any additional information (ISBN number, publisher’s address, acknowledgements, copyrights, etc.).

12. Final layout and graphic revisions

The graphics team compiles, refines and checks all the graphic elements and layout of the entire publication, including ensuring that the table of contents matches the actual page numbers.

13. Send to print and cross your fingers

Print responsibles follow up with printers, including shipping and invoicing. There may also be work involved in setting up print-on-demand, uploading PDFs, working with online platforms, etc.

Note: There are clear advantages to a digital-only publication. It reduces the workload for graphic designers, removes the need for a print manager, removes any budgeting or online sales work, is more environmentally friendly and allows for more flexible deadlines and more time for writing or creative content. If the organisation’s priority is to have a smooth process and focus on the quality of the content and the convenience of the schedule, I would recommend opting for a digital publication.

That being said, Anne Serup Grove writes in the foreword of the KP book ’25:

“Printing a book is important. It solidifies the huge amount of intellectual work they’ve put into it. You can feel it — its weight, its format. You can interact with it differently than you can with a digital publication.”

Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus – the finished book. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations) and Kirsten van Werven (edits)

In 2025, the physical copies of the book were again happily handed over, sniffed and perhaps even tasted, but I would recommend further digital-only explorations.

Recruiting for peer-editing: role descriptions & casting

The basis of this peer-editing process is that all authors are required to take on the role of editor or reviewer as a condition of publication in the book. This requirement ensures a basic share of the general load, although it has its own drawbacks: it requires more work from authors, it doesn’t ensure the willingness to engage with someone else’s work that one might expect from someone who has signed up directly as an editor or reviewer, and it potentially leads to very heterogeneous collaborations. However, when presented as a necessary part of producing our publication and ensuring its quality and existence, the idea and task can be normalised beyond being an extra chore.

This basic peer-editing structure is then complemented by the participation of other non-author contributors, who sign up directly as editors and reviewers, choosing any number of papers they are willing to work on.

Each chapter is thus the responsibility of a core “editorial group” consisting of: the author(s), 1 editor, and 1-3 reviewers. Coordinators may be called in to help find substitutes, extra help, or to mediate, but the responsibility for the content rests with the editorial group.

Larp organisers are no strangers to creating groups from a long list of people with different interests, skills and energy levels, and peer editing can work in the same way. This process therefore borrows the same tools as casting in larp: role descriptions and casting form/casting.

1. Role descriptions

Role descriptions should allow contributors to understand the expectations around each role: what they should do, at which time of the process they should be available, on which platforms they are expected to communicate, etc.

These are some basic role description suggestions. Role descriptions should allow contributors to understand the expectations of each role: what they are expected to do, at what point in the process they should be available, on what platforms they are expected to communicate, etc.

These are some basic suggestions for role descriptions:

• Author: An author writes a chapter or creates other content for the publication. An author may also be asked to edit two chapters or review four chapters based on their areas of interest/comfort/experience. Co-authors may also share these other tasks. They report editorial difficulties to the editorial coordinators.
• Editor: An editor looks closely at an author’s contribution and makes suggestions to help them achieve clarity and coherence, sometimes providing assistance with style. They help authors to meet deadlines and report editorial difficulties to the editorial coordinators.
• Reviewer: A reviewer is a secondary editor who goes through several chapters, highlighting potential problems and encouraging the development of interesting ideas without going into detail. They usually only review the first draft of the chapter, but may be recruited later in the process to provide fresh insights.
• Proofreader: A proofreader looks for typos, language errors that compromise the integrity of the text, and flags up formatting/layout issues. They are only involved with the final draft.
• Graphic Designer and Layout Helper: A graphic designer designs the layout and layouts the finished articles. A layout helper ensures that each article uses the chosen font/layout/bibliography style. They don’t have to be the same people but some overlap is normal. (Suggestion: at least 3 per journal)
• Graphic artist: A graphic artist creates illustrations, textures, or image editing (Suggestion: 2-3 per book)
• Print responsible: A print responsible researches printers, negotiates printing and shipping on behalf of the team, and oversees the overall process. (Suggestion: 1-2 per book)
• Editorial coordinator: An editorial coordinator sets up the editorial groups (author-editor-reviewer, and later proofreader), communicates the guidelines and the general editorial process, and supports the editorial groups – especially when making difficult decisions. They write the table of contents and the preface. (Suggestion: 3 coordinators per book or 1 per ~10 chapters)
• Graphics coordinator: A graphics coordinator sets up the graphics research process with the other graphics contributors. They supervise the general progress, deciding on layout, cover, possible illustrations, possible harmonisation of diagrams, etc. In the case of printing, they work with the editorial coordinator to set editorial deadlines and with the printer to decide on paper quality, format and other graphic constraints. (Suggestion: 1-2 coordinators per book)

In 2025 we ended up with this distribution: 36 authors, 21 editors, 43 reviewers, 15 proofreaders, 1 editorial coordinator (not enough), 1 graphic coordinator (not enough), 2 illustrators, 3 graphic designers, 2 print coordinators, 1 Discord wizard.

Although a few people (the coordinators and a few editors) were still overworked, balance seemed within reach.

2. Casting form, and casting in groups

The call for contributors is a form designed to gather the information needed to create editorial groups (a team of authors, editors and reviewers working together on a chapter).

It is therefore important to ask contributors to situate themselves in the editorial landscape: are they comfortable engaging with academic, artistic or personal pieces? How experienced are they in writing or editing? If they are authors, do they want an editor with a particular background to support them?

It may not be possible (or desirable) to create perfect editorial groups, but these questions will allow coordinators to balance the desires of some contributors and limit potentially destructive group frictions. Our community is heterogeneous, and while bringing different affinities together may be the most valuable option here, exposure to other perspectives is unlikely to be well received unless it comes from the author’s initiative.

One way to balance editorial groups could be to assign an editor from the desired background (academia, arts, humour, ecology, etc.) and reviewers with different perspectives. In particular, aiming for different cultural backgrounds to meet in editorial groups allows for a higher international readability, as niche cultural concepts are more likely to be spotted and pointed out. We learned in the process of the KP Book ’25 that this should be communicated clearly and upfront.

As a community practice, the creation of editorial groups is subject to the same constraints as the creation of social groups in a larp, especially in terms of forced proximity.

Before setting up the editorial groups, the coordinators can therefore send out the list of all volunteers, allowing contributors to indicate whether there are people they do not want to work with.

Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus — chapter illustration. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations), Kirsten van Werven (edits), and Maren Wolf and Anne Serup Grove (layout design)

Editorial guidelines and expectations

1. Style & content expectations

A peer-edited publication, where the responsibility rests primarily with the judgement of independent editorial groups, will by its very nature be disparate.

There is, however, a way to ensure a degree of editorial harmony or quality by having pre-established guidelines to which reference can be made.

These guidelines are the main authority that allows editors to set boundaries, ask for more effort or even step out of the general process. Detailed and progressive guidelines can also be a reassuring beacon for authors to follow and an instructive landmark for newer editors.

Therefore, I recommend setting clear expectations for each draft, which editorial groups can then readjust if they have the need and capacity to do so. As an example, these are the expectations set for the KP book ’25, some of which are inspired by previous KP book guidelines.

2. Drafts expectations

Editorial expectations of the KP ’25 book were phrased as follows:

What is expected of a first draft

• The chapter should be close to its final length.
• The chapter should cover most of the points necessary to its argument.
• The chapter’s argument should be roughly understandable.

What is NOT expected from a 1st Draft

• Style: The chapter does not need to be fluid or well phrased.
• Transitions: Vague and rough transitions are to be expected.
• References: Although it’s encouraged to start referencing/quoting early on, you do not need to have all your references, or have them sorted and formatted.
• Potential illustrations: This can also wait.

What is expected of a second draft

The chapter should be in its final form. Meaning:

• The argument should be understandable.
• The style should allow your group to have a fluid reading of your piece.
• The author should have corrected their chapter to the best of their abilities (typos, grammar, etc.). We understand that this varies greatly from person to person.
• The references, quotes and bibliography should be formatted using Chicago style.
• Possible illustrations should be collected, named (e.g. fig 1, fig 2) and accompanied by a short description (e.g. “Diagram of the overlap between larp and a normal family dinner”).
• The chapter should be available as a Google document.

What is NOT expected from a second draft

• That your chapter is up to academic standards.
• That your group agrees with your argument.
• That your group likes your style.
• That there are no language mistakes/typos.

If the paper does not meet the progress expectations, editorial groups can (and should) decide to:

• Ask for more help by posting on the editors’ and reviewers’ communication channels, ideally before the deadlines have passed.
• Withdraw from publication: In this case, editors and reviewers are also asked to post a call for editors/reviewers on the general communication channel to find potential replacements. If no help or replacement can be found, the chapter will not be published.

Expectations and cuts

If you read the KP book ’25, you will see that the chapters vary in style, genre, length, clarity, etc. Some of them would probably not make the cut if it had been a curated publication, but their compilation is true to a community-edited process. The process described above resulted in several authors withdrawing their publications and some editors leaving their editorial groups. In total, 14 chapters were shelved.

This general process, involving group discussions, transparency and collaboration on other pieces, is already a great filter. Conversely, facing the troubles of trying to lift a piece we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves, of having to reach out for more reviewers and help, can challenge our prejudices and make us take a second look at what we otherwise have discarded. In this way, a couple of chapters have been rescued and then championed by initially uncertain editors.

An open platform for communication and collaboration

This collaborative process depends on creating an open platform that allows the community of contributors to discuss, meet, question and help each other.

We used Discord. Each category of contributor (authors, editors, reviewers, etc.) and each chapter had its own private channel.

A public channel called “Ask for more eyes” allowed authors and editors alike to seek extra help on their chapters, which was probably one of the most successful experiments of the whole process.

The public channel “Questions” allowed all contributors to clarify the process, sometimes expressing dissatisfaction or confusion. This allowed everyone to potentially provide answers (rather than just relying on the coordinators), but also to have more difficult discussions publicly, which increased the transparency of our collaborative process.

Discord is overwhelming for many people, which was a barrier for some contributors who weren’t able to be active on their channels. However, it allowed the coordinators to have a very clear overview of the editorial groups, and the progress of different chapters, it allowed for compartmentalised storage of images and documents, and contributors knew exactly where to reach their editorial groups and discuss their work.

Final thoughts

The process around KP 2025 was imperfect, but the bumps we have encountered are easy to avoid. They include:

• Either starting early or renouncing printing the book
• Involving more coordinators
• Writing more detailed and appealing “role descriptions” and guidelines

It is possible that we were lucky with our contributors’ reactivity and in recruiting 5 volunteers for the graphic team, which may not be realistic to expect every year, or might not be robust enough to shifting life circumstances. This process still needs a lot more reflection and tools to encourage autonomy and responsibility, especially in meeting deadlines without prompting, in reading and researching the information available, and in communicating drop-outs.

I hope that future teams will iterate on similar systems, and keep sharing their notes afterwards, towards more balanced, autonomous, manageable and transparent collective work. By further experimenting on peer-edition, we are training individuals in our community to take more initiative and better share the burden of volunteering.

Cover image: Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: A Breathing Corpus – the cover. Yanina Zaichanka (illustrations) and Kirsten van Werven (edits)