Anime Novelization

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Ronin1459

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I've fallen in love with a certain anime and know that it would be even better as a book (the concept and characters are great, but the execution, especialy the ending, turned out to be a bit dissapointing.) How should I go about obtaining the necesary rights to the story? Do I need to obtain the rights before submitting the story to a publisher, or do they obtain the rights after they've accepted it? I've always heard that an unpublished author should always have a finished manuscript before submitting fiction, but naturaly I don't want invest a lot of time in writing the actual novel, and perhaps even have it accepted by a publisher, just to have the rights refused. Would it be appropriate to simply ask the company that owns the characters if they would grant rights if approached? I'd really appreciate any advice anyone has to offer.
 

Dancre

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I've fallen in love with a certain anime and know that it would be even better as a book (the concept and characters are great, but the execution, especialy the ending, turned out to be a bit dissapointing.) How should I go about obtaining the necesary rights to the story? Do I need to obtain the rights before submitting the story to a publisher, or do they obtain the rights after they've accepted it? I've always heard that an unpublished author should always have a finished manuscript before submitting fiction, but naturaly I don't want invest a lot of time in writing the actual novel, and perhaps even have it accepted by a publisher, just to have the rights refused. Would it be appropriate to simply ask the company that owns the characters if they would grant rights if approached? I'd really appreciate any advice anyone has to offer.

Oh my. First of all, you can't get the rights, it's copyrighted. Second, yes, the publisher does want the finished product and if you sent in a manuscript based on someone else's works, they would probably be calling a lawyer. Sorry, kiddo, but you'll just have to suffer. And why do I get the idea that you've never written a single book, article, whatever and think it's reallllyyy easy. LOL!! Trust me, it's not easy. Also the writer needs to be established and the company would ask him/her to write the story. You can't just send something in. Sorry, Charlie, you're out of luck.

By the way, what's the name of the anime? It may already have a manga and a novel out there already.

kim
 

sunandshadow

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If this is a commercial anime they would certainly ask you for tens of thousands of dollars to use their intellectual property if they even considered it. What you might try is telling the same sort of story with a world and characters changed enough to make them original.
 

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This is what fanfiction is for. ^_~

I'm afraid anything having to do with novelizations of an existing show or movie is pretty much done as an inside business. They'll approach someone they want (an already established author), not the other way around. Like with the Star Wars novels--you can bet there's a hundred thousand fans out there who've all got awesome ideas for Star Wars books, but the publisher won't even take a look at them. They pick out who they want to write the next book, and tell them what to write.

And when you think about it, it's easy to understand why they do this. One, because they'd have a million screaming fans hurling ideas at them every day. And two, because it is their intellectual property, and they want to control every aspect of it. Why should some unknown author be able to come in and make money off of their product, with a book that would sell largely because of the popularity of the show? You'd be benefiting off of their hard work.

That doesn't mean you can't write about the anime, just that you can't publish or in any way attempt to make money. Fanfiction is pretty much entirely for personal pleasure, but if that's what you're going for, then it's fun.

Coming up with something totally new is fun too. ^_~
 

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Sometimes you can take the feeling a story and characters give you and pull a whole original story out of that...
 

Ronin1459

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That what I was afraid of. Oh, well, at least now I can get back to the much more practical stuff I was working on before I had my flash of brilliance (rolls eyes at self). Thanks for the quick and blunt answers.

I did think about writing my own original story using characters with basicaly similar personalities, but I'm not sure how strongly you can be influenced by a given work before it becomes plagarism. I'm a voracious reader and very impressionable; it would be so easy to copy someone else's work without even realizing it (does anyone else have this problem? What do you do about it?) For example, the anime (it's called "Wolf's Rain") is about four young wolves who are able to live among humans by projecting an illusion that they themselves are human. What I loved about the anime was the interaction between the four, and I thought briefly about writing an original story (if you could call it that) about four boys, or perhaps even werewolves with similar personalities. But I thought that that would be "cheating." Was I wrong? Also, it seems like the werewolf thing is being way overdone just now, but maybe its just a case of me noticing them more. I realize this is very subjective territory; can anyone suggest some good reading on what constitutes copyright infringement? I've found some discussion on this site, but a book or something with concrete examples would be helpful.
 
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sunandshadow

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It would not be cheating to write a story exploring the relationship between four boys within a larger society. Every basic type of story has been told hundreds of times before, it's the details that make it original. I would steer away from werewolves because it would be hard to make yourself think of an original way of doing werewolfism rather than exactly copying the anime's take on it, but they could certainly be nonhumans of some sort. I bet that as you wrote you would find your characters naturally evolving to be a bit different than the originals. The part you would have to make sure you changed would be the details of the problem they are trying to solve over the course of the plot, and the worldbuilding that sets up that problem.
 

Richard White

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Since all my current credits are in media tie-in writing, I'll also take a stab at this.

It's not an impossible task, but darn tricky. What you'd have to do is find out what publisher/packager (if any) has licensed the publishing rights from the company that produces the anime. Even places like Tokyo Pop have to license the rights from the original Japanese production company before they can translate the manga for sale here in America.

If a publisher/packager has the license, you can attempt to approach them to find out if they would be interested in receiving a pitch. Generally, they have an idea who they want to write for them, but sometimes things change, authors back out, or if you're really lucky, they're doing an anthology and need a number of authors, new and established, to write for it.

Now, even if you do get your foot in the door, writing a tie-in is not like writing your own novel. At all points in the process, the licensing department has final say on anything you do. When I wrote the Gauntlet Dark Legacy novels, I had to submit a story idea, the editor had to approve it, and then Midway Entertainment's licensing department got to hack off on it. Then I wrote a treatment (seven pages describing the book almost chapter by chapter). Again, the editor and licensing had to approve it. Then finally I wrote the novel and then the edits and galleys . . . at any point in this process, licensing could have stepped in, said "Nah, this isn't what we're looking for" and either I would have had to rewrite or else they'd simply have paid my "kill fee" and found someone else to write the book.

See, that's the joys of playing in someone else's sandbox. It's not your property, they're letting you play with their toys. OH, and at the end of the book, you can't have made life-altering changes. You can't kill off Aunt May in a Spiderman story, you can't have Superman marry Lana Lang nor can you kill off Spock. What you are doing in a licensed story is attempting to develop the character further than the movie/tv show/game/comic did or fill in the gaps between episodes to explain why things happpened the way they did.

Only in a very few series, like the Star Wars books, are the books allowed to "continue" the story and do things like kill off major characters (like Chewbacca), but believe me, that was cleared by George Lucas or it would never have reached print.

So, it's not an impossible task, but it's not an easy one either. Best of luck if you want to pursue it and if you have any other questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
 

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Wasn't there a woman who published Star Wars fan-fic as an "official" licensed book through Publish America?

After that debacle, I understand that publishing Star Wars fan-fic in any form was likely to draw the wrath of Lucasfilm.

Anyway...

Having written my share of licensed properties in comics, you inquire as to the availability of rights as your first and foremost step. If they aren't available or they're too expensive, you move on..sadly and reluctantly, but you move on.

As for submitting to a company that already holds the publishing rights to a property, you're taking a risk. Not all of them pay kill fees.

A few years back, a UK company contacted me about contributing to their Stargate SG-1 publishing program.

I was at first very interested...until I was told that I would have to write a ten to fifteen page synopsis/outline and three sample chapters. They were expecting basically fifty pages.

On spec.

No kill fee.

If they accepted it, they would send me a contract.

If they didn't accept it, then I wasted all of that time and effort. That was the deal.

Uh-uh.

That kind of attitude is one reason I stopped submitting to Marvel or DC years ago.

Too often the editors would expect you to jump through all sorts of fiery hoops in order consider a proposal for one of the corporate-owned characters, then decide, nah--they were just going to give it somebody who already scripted four monthly books for them because that writer needed orthidontic work done.
 

Richard White

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Axler,

It's true, work for hire has its own set of pitfalls. Since I'm not a full-time writer (yet), I don't have as much problem doing proposals/samples on spec if I'm interested in the property. Also, I've had things rejected by an editor for one reason or another and then later gotten a request directly from them for a later project.

Would I rather be doing my own stuff. Sure, but then again, having been a small press comic guy, I loved getting the opportunity to write for the Marvel line as well as Star Trek, Doctor Who and other stuff.
 

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Aaargh! [clutches head] Must... not... start... hoping...

Seriously, though, thanks for the encouragement. I knew it was a long shot from the beginning but then I started writing episode summaries (just as an excercise, I told myself). I fell in love with the characters and the mythological symbolism and was grieved at how the confusing storyline and ambiguous ending distracted from those elements instead of enhancing them. Also, I already knew that there were a lot of fans who felt the same way.

To tell the truth, if there's any chance at all I'd like to give it a try, or its going to keep driving me nuts. If nothing else, I'll gain valuable experience. I've already written over 50 pages worth of episode summaries alone (summary might not be the right word; they're fairly detailed and include quite a bit of my own prose), so having to write a synopsis and sample chapters wouldn't bother me. Since I'm an unpublished writer (not for money, anyways) I had fully expected to write the entire book on spec; I just wanted to make sure there was the possibility of having the rights granted if someone liked it. I realize its different for people who depend on their writing for a living; you can't afford to waste time on something thats so unlikely to pay off.

So, if I understand Richard White's and Axler's posts correctly, either some company already has the publishing rights, in which case I need to submit directly to them, or else I'd need to actualy buy the publishing rights, or perhaps convince a publisher to do so? I originaly thought of Viz, since they publish the English-translated manga, and they also publish their own paperback novelizations (like the Rurouni Kenshin one that just came out), but since I'm using the anime storyline, which is completely different, thats probably wrong. Bones produced the original Japanese anime, I beleive, and Bandai Entertainment has the English language licence, so which one would I approach, and at what point?

Sorry about the long post; I really appreciate a couple of professionals taking the time to respond to me seriously. Arigatou!
 
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Axler

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Would I rather be doing my own stuff. Sure, but then again, having been a small press comic guy, I loved getting the opportunity to write for the Marvel line as well as Star Trek, Doctor Who and other stuff.

Well, I'd like the opportunity as long as it's straightforward and not like a couple of experiences I had with DC editors.

I was invited to come up with a concept to revive a couple of their moldy old characters and then found out after I'd turned it in the proposals that I'd been entered into a competition with about a dozen other writers without my knowledge.

Curiously, the writer's proposal that was chosen always seemed to be someone who was writing regularly for them anyway.

And in at least two cases, I found elements of one of my proposals grafted onto the final published version...and inasmuch as it was a character I hadn't created and didn't own, there was no recourse.

If you pointed out the suspicious similiarities to the editor, then you got put on the black-list. If you kept quiet, you might get another invitation to enter another moldy old character revival competition.

Or, as in my case, I just said to hell with it. I had way too many credentials to tolerate that manipulative, semi-nepotismic crap.

But not too put too arch an spin on it...in a situation like that, which is very similar to submitting on-spec scripts to TV shows, the editor goes through the proposals, cherry-picks elements he likes, then hands the list to the established writer he long ago chose to actually script the thing.

Ronin--Yeah, if Bandai owns the English translation rights, that would be the company you should approach.
 

Richard White

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Ronin,

First off, don't write anything yet! And don't even mention that you have "50+ pages of episode summaries prepared." (shudders) They're not going to just turn their product over to you to do with as you wish. Not going to happen.

Unless you're filthy rich, you're not going to be able to "buy the rights" (which will definitely run into the tens of thousands of dollars). I would approach Bandai and inquire who has the novelization rights to the show, (if anyone). Odds are, they probably haven't cut a deal with anyone. Only a few anime series are being done as novelizations right now (Kenshin, Robotech, Love Hina come to mind). Most of the license holders are more interested in doing English manga translations, which are selling very well now, than original works (which take longer to produce and don't sell as well).

If a publisher does have these rights, you'll need to write to them and find out if they're accepting pitches for the series and what their guidelines are. Do NOT send them anything other than that to start. Anything you might send them before they specifically ask you to do so will be thrown away unread. They have to do that for legal reasons.

If they have an opening, either in their novel line or a short story anthology, they will tell you what they're looking for (up to a point). While they want you to knock their socks off with your writing, you will be required to write to those specifications. If you aren't willing to write what they want, instead of what you want, then don't go into tie-in writing.

Take your time. Ensure they know you're familiar with the product but don't come across as an otaku. That'll turn them off for certain. Also, remember, if you do get the gig, you're not writing just for the fans, so keep the in-jokes and obscure references to a minimum. Write as if someone reading this knows nothing about the series and you'll be 1000% ahead of the average fan-fic writer.

Not trying to rain on your parade, but you have to take baby steps first. You're a long way from writing anything yet.
 

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I recently met with an editor at Tokyo Pop about doing novelizations of some of their manga properties...and like Richard says, publishers look for people who have solid writing credentials. In my case, I have a background that straddles comics, straight prose and adaptations.

I'm certainly not saying someone couldn't break into the field with a short story or something along those lines, but keep in mind who the competition is.
 

Dancre

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I recently met with an editor at Tokyo Pop about doing novelizations of some of their manga properties...and like Richard says, publishers look for people who have solid writing credentials. In my case, I have a background that straddles comics, straight prose and adaptations.

I'm certainly not saying someone couldn't break into the field with a short story or something along those lines, but keep in mind who the competition is.

I'd love to write for TokyoPop. Did they call you or did you call them? I'm going to submitt my novel to TP and see what happens. Maybe one day we could be co-workers? LOL!!!

kim
 
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