MS Needing A Good Home...

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Sonarbabe

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I have yet another question about manuscript placing. This one, I hope, is a little easier. The ms I have is romance, no doubt about it. It centers around the hero and heroine being together despite obstacles and has a wonderful HEA. Perfect, right? Er, not quite. Here's the background to the story. (Please bear with me, folks) My husband and I are avid Dungeons & Dragons fans. We've played together with friends for almost our entire marriage and in many cases, the Dungeon Masters created sub-plots to their campaigns to cater to me and my husband. (ie We're married in RL, so our characters were romantically involved) Throughout the different campaigns--one I was Dungeon Master for--these storylines intrigued me and I decided to write a romance novel based on our games and the characters involved. The continent is made up, the cities are 50% made up (I used some of my own and used some from the campaigns) but the Gods are all from Dungeons & Dragons. The creatures my MCs face are from D&D, etc.

Now, what I want to know is, do I send this ms to a RPG publisher or a romance publisher that accepts fantasy romances? Both are viable options, but I'm not so sure a RPG publisher would appreciate the fact the story is a romance. Someone, anyone, please, pretty please with a slice of cheesecake on top, help me? Thank you so much ahead of time!

~Sonarbabe~
 

Sakamonda

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My .02

Send it to a straight Romance publisher. There is a market for "quirky" romances in odd settings. I myself have a contemporary out on agented submission set in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), in which the heroine gets dragged to an SCA event (SCA is a medieval/renaissance reinactment group) by her best friend; she meets and falls in love with a SCA knight with a dark and mysterious past. . .after many obstacles, they live HEA. It is on submission with regular romance pubs, so you could probably do the same. Or you could market it as a paranormal, which regular romance pubs are snapping up right and left.
 

ANNIE

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Sonarbabe,

While not being an expert on this, I'll throw my hat in - only for the cheesecake though!
My gut feeling is this is fantasty pure and simple. Made up universe, gods, and hero and herorine igetting in and out of trouble, yes they are in love and there is romance involved, but I still think this should be fantasy - I will defer my opinion to anyone who knows better though or for perhaps 2 pieces of cheesecake!
 

CampCreek

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Why not send it to both? Sounds like it'd fit in both. You don't have to tell either one where you've sent it, just that it's out to other places. Sounds to me like that's a good problem that'll give you twice the chances at getting it accepted.

(Do I get the cheesecake now? ;) )
 

Sonarbabe

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Cheesecake all around! :Cake:

Thank you guys for giving me some feedback. I've hopped around to a few different boards and noted the different RPG publishers and since the Gods, a few locations and the creatures of my story come from D&D, I wasn't sure what to do with my ms, since the story, itself, is straight up fantasy/romance. Heck, I'll send to all three. Hehe And if anyone decides to pick it up, y'all can be sure that I'll bake an extra 2 or 3 cheesecakes for celebration--just for my AW colleagues! ;)
 

CampCreek

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Cool! Go for it, girl! :D

One thing ~ none of the elements you used from D&D are copyrighted or trademarked by them, right?
 

Sonarbabe

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That would be the thing, I think. The town names are from a campaign that D&D created. Worst case scenario, I change the names of the towns and make up some new God names. To tell you the truth, those are the only things linking me to the actual game. I only used them because the story is based (for the most part) on the actual storylines that my husband's and my characters faced.

~Sonarbabe~
 

veinglory

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If the gods are from D&D you will need some kind of permission to use them before submitting to any other company.
 

CampCreek

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I don't know much about copyright in this instance except that you can't use someone else's copyrighted/trademarked stuff. Maybe changing the names of all the D&D elements would be enough, but I really don't know. I also don't know if you could use D&D's written campaign as a basis, but would think maybe you could since you did all the writing and just used that as an idea. ? Maybe those are subjects for a new thread? You probably already know this, but I'd get that info and do the changes before submitting anything, even a query.

Sounds intriguing though! :tongue
 

Cathy C

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Sorry, sweetie. No can do. veinglory is right -- RPGs have the same protection as any other published Work. The creator and/or publisher owns the world and any characters created therein. Anything you write in that world, regardless of your original "take" on the characters is considered a "derivative work" of the original world. It would be the same as if you'd written a story based on Lost or 24 or any other television show or movie. Read more information about it here


If you really like the story, then you need to create a new pantheon of Gods/Goddesses and change the world so it doesn't accidentally resemble the existing D&D world. OTOH, you could wait until next year, when Wizards of the Coast (the publisher of D&D) starts to accept submissions to its annual writing contest. They are publishing novels in several of the D&D RPG worlds, but only purchase "all rights" (so you're on the title page, but you've sold it as you might a car or appliance.) But they pay pretty good money for the privilege. I think last year's manuscript paid $10K, but you'll never see royalties beyond that. Just a thought if you think it's good enough to sell. Here's the guidelines for the books they're seeking in the Eberron Campaign
 

Sonarbabe

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Thanks, Cathy for the info. I think I'm going to have to change the names of the Gods and the towns, since they specifically say not to retrofit a standard fantasy (in my case, fantasy/romance) into the setting. It won't be that hard, really. There are only a few references and as long as I'm careful, it shouldn't be too hard.

Thanks for all the input. I appreciate it!

~Sonarbabe~
 
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