The idea of publishing a book, especially your first book, can be overwhelming. Not only do you have to worry about writing, but then there is formatting, editing, the cover, the marketing, the launching, getting reviews, etc...
So when I finally discovered a way to crowd source the effort, and simply participate in writing a chapter, I jumped at the opportunity! (I still jump at it every time I have a chance)
You see, you don't have to be a publishing or book marketing expert to have a book. You don't even have to write the whole book.
What is crowdsourcing a book?
You have probably seen me or someone else do it. Crowdsourcing a book is done by gathering a group of authors together, and each author contributes a chapter.
That's it. You just worry about writing a great 1000-1500 word chapter, and let everyone else do the rest.
The organizer handles the costs and time for cover creation, editing, formatting, promotion (marketing).
In fact, it is incredibly cost effective for the co-authors. My current costs for just the editing portion of my books costs me around $300 per chapter.
Crowdsourcing in this way allows you to get your name out for a fraction of the total cost of a book.