Publishing
Jaws said:
My immediate snide answer to the question "How does one get media tie-in book assignments?" was "Hang around at conventions and make friends with a current big-name author or editor who handles the property you're interested in." Then I realized that it isn't so snide.
The problem is that, unless one is already on the inside of the information pipeline, it's impossible to know what the publisher/owner group mind is looking for. Or when. Or even if. What you see coming out in the next quarter in
Star Wars novels was conceived of a minimum of 18 months ago. Admittedly, the contract may have been around quite a bit less time than that. However, author possibilities, theme/plot/character ideas and restrictions, the overall shape of the tie-in franchise, etc. were the subject of exhaustive (and exhausting) meetings and/or correspondence and/or marathon telephone calls.
So the best solution is to get known as a published and publishable writer who works well to deadline and happens to be a fan (but not a rabid one) of the property in question, and mingle with other published writers of that material. That goes for
BtVS,
Star Wars,
CSI, whatever. And whatever you do, don't beg for the chance! /
The real problem is that the procedures have changed radically in the last five years, and there are a lot of "old-timers" (none of them frequenting AW) who persist in treating their initial experiences from the 1990s—or longer ago—as somehow reflecting the reality of today. It's even worse than in more-traditional (but not PA!) areas of publishing. Bluntly, if someone is telling you how to break in to publishing, you need to make sure that that person either (a) has done so him/herself within the last three years, or (b) makes it his/her business—preferably professionally, such as an agent, attorney, editor, or hard-core writing advocate like
Victoria Strauss —to constantly keep his/her knowledge of what is actually happening
now up to date. As a specific example, I recently saw a column by [big-name science-fiction writer] that advocates an approach virtually guaranteed to fail… except for that same writer and his/her coterie. /
I don't know, I've been in and around publishing for a lot of years, and I can't see where anything has really changed all that much, whether with traditional publishing, or with tie-ins such as Star Wars and the like.
Now, I've never written a Star Wars novel, and never will, but I know writers who wrote them ten years ago, and I know writers who are writing them right now, and very, very little has changed.
Nor has traditional publishing changed much. At least not in any way I can see. I do still publish with traditional publishers, and have since the eighties. The ONLY real change I've seen is the greater necessity for having an agent now. But finding an agent was always the best route, and even today it isn't absolutely necessary. I encounter several writers every year who break in without one.
I hear from a great many that it's harder than ever for a new writer to break in, but I don't believe this for a second. If it were harder than ever, we wouldn't have a record number of first novelists breaking into print with traditional publishers.
Breaking into publishing is no different now than it was when I first broke in many years ago. You write a novel that an agent thinks a publisher will want, and a novel that a publisher thinks will sell enough copies to turn a profit.
I've sat in on slush pile readings, both agent slush piles and publishing house slush piles, I've sat in on the process of deciding which novels to buy and which to reject, and by and large, I've seen very few changes that matter in the last twenty-five years, especially when it comes to first novels.
The real change in publishing has come from the distrubution end, and the power of the chain bookstores. Some of these changes are serious, and need to be dealt with, but they really don't affect the editorial process with first novels.
If there's a serious problem on teh publishing side, it's that it's now too easy for a first time novelist to break in. Publishers are buying far more novels than they should in an effort to find the next Stephen King or Tom Clancy, and this makes it harder to stay in print than it used to be. But breaking into print is quite likely easier than it's ever been.
There's more competition, but as always, most of it just simply isn't any good, and despite the number of writers around today, you can still spend an incredible amount of time wading through slush piles without finding anything you really want to publish.
Good novels sell. It's as simple as that. If you can write well, if you can tell a story that will entertain, and fill it with characters that come to life, breaking into priont is one of the easiest thinsg possible. It's always been this way, it's still this way, and it probably always will be this way.
Now, contacts never hurt, and can frequently help. Contacts have always been helpful. But they will not get you published. Only a good novel, or at least a novel an agent and editor thinks is good, will get you published.
As for the information pipeline, it isn't closed in any sense of the word. If you can land an agent, she's already inside it, and if you can't land an agent, being inside it probably won't do you any good, anyway. But it isn't that difficult to learn what's happening in publishing, and you can get inside the pipeline if you really want to. It's a fairly small matter to learn what publishers want right now, and what their projected needs are for the next couple of years. These needs change, of course, depending on what the market does, but even a beginning writer can learn as much about what's happening in publishing as can an agent or an editor. None of the information in the pipeline is secret.
But I can tell you exactly what any publisher will want in eighteen months. They'll want the same thing they want today: a novel they can't put down because it's too good a read.
There are no dead genres, there are only genres that are stagnant because no one has written a novel in that genre that stands out.
I'd listen to the old-timers, if I were you. I see them give advice often, and by and large, those who listen are the ones who break into print. Publishing may have changed in many ways, but it hasn't change a whit in the ways that matter to a new writer. You just write a novel that good, that's entertaining, and that an agent or editor can't put down. If you do, you're in, if you don't, you're out.
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