For many indie authors, the biggest stumbling block is marketing the book, so people know it exists. Paid advertising can easily waste money. The platform that works for one author doesn’t work for another. Bookfunnel does involve a group temporarily promoting a landing page for multiple author’s books, but other author’s books may sell and yours may not. The best solution I’ve found for one landing page for multiple authors books, collectively promoted by indie authors, in which a sale for one author is a sale for every author, is Itchio Bundles.
Intro to Itch & Bundles
If you don’t know it, Itch was an online indie game store. Since early 2025, its become popular with indie authors too. (Yes, the book store Collective Shout attacked via its payment processors Strike and Paypal in 2025, which I blogged here.) Itch has taken off because instead of Indie authors finding time to write books around day jobs that often pay our bills, to let people know said books exist solo; bundles mean we do it together.
Any author with an Itchio account can create a bundle. Any book with an Itch sales link can be added to the bundle. Creating the bundle creates a landing page with all individual books sales links linked to it on Itch. Books can be individually purchased this way. But the main point is the bundle description, and single click button to buy the whole bundle/ every book.
Organisers (certainly me) tend to create a promo graphic for a bundle, usually featuring covers of all its books. This is shared with participating authors, often in the same email as the Itch link to the landing page, which must be approved by all participants before the bundle goes live.
Choosing A Bundle To Participate In/
Setting One Up
Choosing a Focus; Identity/ Genre/ Theme
Generally speaking; marginalised rep themed bundles sell best. The highest selling bundle I’ve been in was specifically Aromantic. The most successful one I’ve organised was Trans People Take on The World. Specific identities can sell well. Though my ADHD bundle struggled, while my Autistic one did well.
General queer bundles can sell alright during Pride, though there tends to be multiple, so its competitive. I’ve seen precious few BIPOC bundles, but the world needs more BIPOC books, so my prediction is they would be well received.
Note for Cis-Het Authors
I’m sometimes asked by cishet authors if their book with a, for eg. nonbinary love interest or side character can go in a nonbinary bundle. Yes, representation MATTERS. I encourage it. But as a nonbinary author, I don’t merely want to highlight a book that acknowledges nonbinary people exist. I want books that place one or more nonbinary characters on centre stage, as a main character. Queer themed bundles tend to (but don’t always) take that approach.
Choosing a Focus; Theme & Genre
Themes are trickier and I prefer to combine them with genre. For example, I did Friendship-Centred SFF, my best selling bundle so far in 2026. Romance books have many subgenres, making them easy to identify. But books that focus on a group of friends tackling a plot problem? Or a friendship group forming? On a new platonic relationship developing? There are no genres for that. And some people WANT to read it. So bundling books like that worked.
If you’re interested in themes, I suggest being no broader with genre than SFF (SciFi/ Fantasy/ Speculative Fiction). Many readers do read multiple genres. But the chances of many readers reading the exact combination of genres within a single bundle that authors chose, and wanting every book in the bundle?
Also, just because 10-15 authors have a book that features x doesn’t necessarily mean 10-15 or more readers wish to buy it. Author and reader interests won’t always align, so be careful in selecting a bundle you think will have reader appeal. Especially if your spoons to promote and participate are limited, and you need to choose bundles sparingly.
Dates: When To Run A Successful Bundle
Whether its queer identity, or May 4th for SciFi; dates matter. The benefit of identity bundles is timing them to match awareness days/ weeks/ months. A May 4th SciFi bundle will get more eyes on it that a random month of the year SciFi. (I suspect this is true for all genres; romance bundles being best in February, horror/ dark fantasy in Oct, etc.)
Setting A Price
Head’s up: if you have a theme few readers are interested in, or a bundle with a poetic/ vague bundle title, price doesn’t matter, because your bundle won’t sell.
I prefer to charge around $1 per book. So I like to cap the bundle at around 20-30 participants, as I feel like once a bundle is priced over $30; sales tend to drop off, as potential readers are priced out.
Yes, some bundles have had a cheap price and loads of participants and sold really well. But we’re talking 60-100+ participants for $10-15 here. Thirty people promoting a bundle at $10 may earn very little. Ask me how I know 😉
Duration
People tend to be paid fortnightly. If a bundle only runs for a week and they get paid the week after; they may not be able to afford it, having not budgeted for that $30 USD. Related: For the Trans People Take On the World Bundle, I’m fairly confident a chunk of purchasers got paid on the Wed/ Thur of the second week. We got a second spike in sales then that didn’t correlate at all to our promo. I’m sure it correlated with a pay day.
A 3-4 week bundle may get less and less posts and reposts as it’s second, let alone 3rd and 4th weeks come around. Participants get tired of posting. Their followers lose interest in interacting with the posts. And bundle fatigue is real, especially if there have been bundle multiple bundles that month/ the one before, etc. (Late June/ July is a bad time for this, after lots of Pride Bundles.)
Bundle Description
I know imposter syndrome is real and author’s get shy talking about their work. But people need to KNOW why they should part with their $. Why do they want this particular bundle? Is it for people who believe a disabled person can be the author of their own story, not their caretaker? Is it for people who enjoy reading about found families in SFF? Is every author disabled/ queer/ BIPOC? Are they all Canadian? (National or even Asia-Pacific bundles may not sell so well because the country(s) have smaller populations and the bundles get less social media reposts, but I still think they’re worthwhile. And I’d love more Aussie readers!)
Mini Blurbs
If there are 15, especially 40 books in the bundle, how many of them does the potential purchaser actually want to read? This is why some of us now include mini blurbs of each book, displayed under its title, in the bundle description.
These may be 100-200 word mini blurbs. Enough to tell people there are multiple books they want in the bundle and its worth buying. But not long enough that it reads as 30 slabs of text and anyone feeling tired nopes out on browsing book descriptions.
Mutual Aid or Marketing?
Character Focus or Author?
I think bundle names, descriptions, promo graphics and people’s individual marketing posts need to consider whether mutual aid, authors or characters are the marketing focus. Is the overall tone; support queer/ disabled creators? Is it: white people shut up and listen to BIPOC! (No, BIPOC, I’m not accusing you of being rude or aggressive. I’m saying I, white person who talks too much, am happy to shut up and listen to you. Colonialism and racism do too much about you without you, just as ableism, queerphobia and transphobia do too much without listening to disabled or queer people. Hence we need your voices and my Diverse Books list page needs BIPOC bundles on it!)
Is the focus of a marginalised author bundle on the characters marginalised identities? Or on the author’s marginalisation? Is it about financially supporting the authors? Or is it about listening to a range of voices? Or is it all of the above?
I encourage bundle organisers to have clear answers to those questions, and to name your bundle, write its description, design its promo graphic and lead by example in how you describe these things in your own promo posts. Because if any one of the above is the goal, but different authors highlight different ones; your message across social media gets diluted. And the goal of the bundle is less clear to readers, and to anyone boosting or reading your posts.
Successful Bundles;
Timing, Explicit Name & Wow Factor
The most successful bundle I participated in excelled in I think, on two main points. It was probably the first time anywhere that I’ve seen books gathered because the author and or main character was on the aromantic spectrum. It was February 2025, Itch bundles were new, and a marginalised, little known identity being spotlighted like that was something people leapt upon.
But also; it was called Aro Books For Pride. It had clear entry requirements; the author and or main character had to be queer, and its name told readers exactly what they were getting. It was also hosted during Aromantic Pride week. So it had all the magic ingredients: people wanted it, it was clearly named for them to recognise, and promoted at a time people were looking for it.
Power of A Name
The most successful book bundle I’ve seen EVER was Queer Lights in the Darkness. It only had 38 participants and earned a staggering amount of money, especially given that only 38 people were promoting it. Yes, it was marketed during Pride Month. But other Pride bundles earned a tiny fraction of that one. And the other bundles also had around 30-40 participants. So similar numbers of people, of the same marginalised group were promoting Pride bundles, at the same time. Why did Queer Lights in the Darkness, and that queer bundle only make a killing?
It’s all in the name. The name doesn’t just tell you who this bundle is about, or for. At a dark time for queer people (this was a 2025 bundle), and America generally, this bundle title offered hope. And it put queer people at the centre of that hope. And readers wanted books that did that, marketed to them in that way.
The most successful bundle I’ve hosted -which did FAR more modestly- was also a queer bundle, also during a queer identity’s month. Again; I think the name helped a lot. I called it Trans People Take on the World. The year the UK Supreme Court defined ‘woman’ in a way that excluded trans women, a year of trans people taking a lot of crap in the US and UK alike, I wanted a set of books where trans people were front and centre, and we’re getting shit done! I didn’t care whether that was ‘merely’ pursuing a relationship and a wholesome life in a world of enshitification, or a trans princess seizing her throne from her usurping cis male uncle!
Like Queer Lights in the Darkness, I wanted my bundle’s theme to be empowerment. I chose a title that highlighted that. There had to be a trans main character because I think we deserve to be centre stage. The authors had to be trans because I wanted to spotlight trans authors, and because fuck JK Rowling.
Purpose
Now we’ve hit on something deeper. What is the purpose of the bundle? Is it merely some indie authors chucking their books and marketing them together, hoping to make a few bucks? Or is it to spotlight main characters and works by authors we see far too little of, from the traditional publishing industry? Is it to spotlight a massively undervalued relationship in our society; platonic friendship? Or is it to highlight themes that make as FEEL?
Is the theme hope? Is it rebellion or resistance? Does it aim to inspire or empower? Is it morally grey aces saying “fuck the rules, we’re going to do whatever works for us!”? (Yes, there was a Morally Grey Aces Bundle.) Or is it creating a bundle centring something people love, that makes people smile, like cats, or something? (Sorry, I’m unaware of a bundle about that.)
I don’t know about anyone else, but at the end of the day; I read and view fiction because I want to FEEL. To be inspired, surprised, to experience wonder. Joy. To be moved to tears. I want to ‘experience’ life in fantastical worlds. To live a thousand lives. So I think having a clear idea what feelings and ‘experiences’ your bundle aims to capture/ inspire/ provide, will help with choosing an explicit/ evocative bundle name, genres and how to sell that bundle.
Related Reading
Itch, Censorship, My Banned Book and Collective Shout
Becoming an Indie Author Part 1: Publishing
Becoming an Indie Author Part 2
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