Mystery Scene is Tied In

The current issue of Mystery Scene magazine (with Dennis Lehane on the cover) includes a rave review of  TIED IN: The Business, History and Craft of Media Tie-In Writing and some photos of vintage tie-ins. Reviewer Jon Breen says, in part:

If this is the Golden Age of anything in the popular fiction field, it may be the tie-in novel [...]There have always been formidable writers doing tie-ins, but they have generally been dismissed, not unreasonably, as quickies tossed off for a fast buck. That image has been improved somewhat by the quality work of editor Goldberg, the late Stuart Kaminsky, Max Allan Collins, and some of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers members contributing to this volume. [...] With it's helpful how-to tips and articles, the book is primarily directed towards other writers, and established pros at that. But many fans and scholars will enjoy the inside-the-business stuff.

Breen goes on to single out chapters by David Spencer, John Cox, and Max for praise. I hope this will give a jolt to sales of the book, proceeds of which go to support the IAMTW. Lee

Tie-In Synergy

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting piece on the shrewd way that Hyperion has handled publication and cross-promotion of their CASTLE tie-in novels. They said, in part:

Publisher Hyperion, which had success with similar projects connected to sister company ABC's soaps "One Life to Live" and " All My Children," decided to bypass a traditional TV tie-in and instead go with a Richard Castle-authored book after seeing the greenlit pilot. Castle's name alone appears on the books, without any nod to a real-life scribe. "The main character's a writer! How perfect is that?" says Gretchen Young, an executive editor at Hyperion and its editorial director for ABC Synergy.
[...] The show plays with fiction and reality: On it, Castle has talked about his upcoming publication commitments with his agent (yes, Hyperion will be publishing two more) and played poker with real-life mystery writers James Patterson and Stephen J. Cannell, who died in late September.
In an upcoming episode, "Heat Wave" — a novel written by a fictional television character — has been optioned by Hollywood. "It gets very meta in the show," Marlowe admits, laughing.
And in person. As part of Hyperion's release last year of "Heat Wave," Fillion appeared as Castle at two Southern California bookstores.

It's not a new idea. The MURDER SHE WROTE books are written by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain, and she was a mystery novelist, too. But the producers didn't integrate the tie-ins into the TV series as cleverly as the CASTLE folks have (or at all, if memory serves). But now that HEAT WAVE has become a bestseller, you can expect more TV tie-ins to follow their example...