In my ever expanding desire to promote literacy through narcissism, I've written an essay in this Sunday's LA Times about the writing of The Fix. Here's a snippet:
You could spend your entire life sitting in Starbucks next to people hunched over laptops, and you'd never hear a single one of them divulge that their dream is to write a television or movie tie-in; you know, those novelizations that magically appear in the airport bookstore rack with the screen stars on their covers.
Me? I've published two novels and a collection of stories that have afforded the kind of notoriety one rarely reads about: I've lost all the awards I've ever been nominated for, my most ardent fans number in the tens of hundreds, and I'd need the Jaws of Life to pull me onto the bestseller list. In short, a career in the literary fiction trenches, where acclaim is something you hang your hat on, since you haven't made enough money to buy a hat rack.
You can read the rest here or in tomorrow's print edition.
4 comments:
This is all very interesting. I've got a novel coming out next year from Robert Hale. I think I'll try to get into the tie-in market. Do you pitch stuff on spec at all?
To learn more about breaking into the tie-in market, visit the ARTICLES page at the IAMTW site...www.iamtw.org.
Most tie-in assignments are given by editors to authors they already are familiar with. It's not really a "spec" market (with the possible exception of STAR TREK novels).
Lee
Maddie Again,
I was directed here by lee. I am very aware of rejection in my future, and I'm guessing somewhere along the line there's a tie-in novel in my future, simply because it's a paying writing job. (Any tie-in writers can stop to laugh here if it doesn't work that way)
I'm a writer that doesn't want to do the starving artist thing.
The only question that doesn't seem answered on your site is, how much is the pay. I am working on my own novel, that's a given. I just want to know how to stay in stores when the time comes. I could be prolific with origional works, but one major flop and that's all she wrote or so I hear.
We don't know any writers who want to do the starving artist thing.
You can find out what tie-ins pay by reading the ARTICLES section of the Iamtw site...www.iamtw.org.
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