Some time ago, the Community for Creative Non-Violence, an advocacy group for the homeless, commissioned a Baltimore sculptor, James Earl Reid, to create a sculpture. In due time, his skilled hands produced a piece called Third World America, celebrating the dignity and suffering of homeless people. It was a work that both the advocacy group and the sculptor could be proud of, and they were. But then, as both began making plans to take it on tour, a question arose that nobody had bothered to explore in any depth: Who owns Third World America? The Community for Creative Non-Violence claimed the sculpture was a “work made for hire.” Not only had the group hired the sculptor, but had also imparted to him its vision of what the piece should look like, and had even given him much input on details. Be that as it may, claimed Reid, he was the sole creator of the work and he should retain the copyright.

The dispute triggered a legal battle culminating in a Supreme Court decision that has important implications for writers. For, if you substitute “publisher” or “packager” for the group that hired Reid, “writer” for “sculptor,” and “book” for “sculpture,” you have a perfectly analogous relationship to one quite commonly found on the publishing scene. Under the “work-for-hire” provision of the Copyright Act of 1976, publishers, packagers, magazines, newspapers, and other persons or businesses may copyright in their own names works that they conceive and “farm out” to freelance writers. Like the Committee for Creative Non-Violence, these parties originate the writing projects, furnish writers with detailed specifications, and offer writers abundant editorial guidance. Are they not, then, entitled to claim ownership of copyright to those works? Are they not entitled to exploit those works in whatever way they wish, with no further obligation to the writers?

Click here to continue.

Richard Curtis

After Perseus Books creates and publishes a book from scratch at May’s Book Expo America using the Espresso print on demand machine, you may be convinced that the only thing instanter than books is Nescafé.

The publishing company will take a pre-written 10,000 word book and “edit, design, produce, sell, publicize/promote and publish live before fairgoers’ eyes,” according to Publishers Lunch and a Perseus release.

Though the project has some of the daredevil quality of a circus stunt (and there is no safety net if something goes wrong), the goal is to demonstrate that a combination of spanking-new digital tech and age-old editorial savvy can produce a work that exemplifies the future of publishing.

Where will the text for this book come from? It will, in Publishers Lunch parlance, be “crowdsourced”. Perseus is conducting a competition to “write the first sentence for a yet-to-be-written sequel to any book ever published,” with submissions via a website set up for that purpose. Copies will be run off on the Espresso at a launch party at Perseus’s booth on the Saturday afternoon of the BEA clusterfuss.

“By the end of the day Friday.” Lunch reports, “they’ll have a bound manuscript for reviewers and an e-galley as well.” Then…

“First thing Saturday they will design a web site and Facebook page, write a readers group guide, commence publicity and promotion, record the audio version, offer foreign rights, design and select a jacket, solicit accounts live and more. Booth visitors can watch the process unfold on wall-mounted screens and weigh in at specific stages, including an editorial meeting, and a jacket design meeting.”

E-Reads recently blogged about the Espresso, which one observer described as “an ATM for books”, and our production manager actually attended a demonstration.

“What we saw was a prototype the size of a squat refrigerator, with metal hydraulics pushing the paper around, whooshing and whirring as it shaved off the edges and glued the spine. Final shipping iterations of the Espresso 2 will use electric motors and reduce the noise. For now, the prototype’s pistons were all perfectly visible behind clear acrylic panels on the machine’s sides to demonstrate the mechanics. An inkjet printer on the top printed a color cover, a fast copier on the back printed out the interior pages, both of which get taken up inside and formed into a paperback while you watch. Then after a few minutes, out pops a little book from the dispenser, hot off the press (and a teensy-bit sticky until it dries).”

We’ll be in the throng at the Perseus booth, cheering Espresso – and the future of book publishing – on.

RC

Jonathan Karp is the distinguished publisher of an Hachette imprint called “Twelve”, the name derived from its mission to publish no more than one book per month. Drawing on his “less is more” philosophy, Karp has written a piece for Publishers Weekly distilling what he calls 12 Steps to Better Book Publishing. In fact the innocuous title disguises a manifesto that should be nailed to the door of every publishing company large or small that cherishes a prayer of surviving in the next few years. But one of his twelve harbors a potentially toxic prescription.

Before listing his 12 Commandments, Karp heaps some well deserved abuse on many publisher excesses that exemplify the practices he condemns.

On sale now: A History of Cannibalism. Illustrated! A gift book! The subtitle is stupendously, kaleidoscopically all-encompassing: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths.

Just a few shelves away: Jesus, Life Coach, with the subtitle: Learn from the Best, a companion to the bestselling Jesus CEO, not to be confused with Jesus, Entrepreneur; Jesus on Leadership; or Jesus in Blue Jeans.

Then there are the arcane books, the ones that dare to be obscure on the assumption that if people will read about cod, or oranges, anything is possible. Who could resist a history of the potato, titled, of course, Potato. Amazingly, this wasn’t the only work available on the subject. There’s also The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World. Wasn’t it intellectually responsible of the publisher to limit the scope of the subtitle to the Western world?

The best-packaged sex book portrayed a scantily clad woman perched on a saddle—Ride ‘Em Cowgirl: Sex Position Secrets for Better Bucking. The most unusual was Vibrators, featuring 100 of the best devices in the world, all artily photographed. I had assumed this was published by some outré left coast indie house, but when I looked on the spine, I found the HarperCollins logo. My wish for this book is that Oprah will name it one of her favorite things, and NewsCorp will be compelled to print illustrations of vibrators in its next annual report.

Karp then shifts focus to his package of reforms. Among them:

End Kabuki publishing. “I am amazed by how much of publishing today is a Kabuki of ritualized and empty artifice,” Karp writes, spewing venom on such choreographed silliness as launch meetings and sales conferences.

“Stop the copycat books. “They are the equivalent of pack journalism, and most of the time, we wind up looking like a bunch of rats chasing a chunk of stale cheese.”

Be loyal to the book, not the ego. “Today, the only loyalty that makes sense is a commitment to the specific book…When I review catalogues, it seems as if more than a third of the titles on any given list are being published out of obligation rather than enthusiasm.”

And here’s one that may not win Karp a lot of points in the author community:

Pay authors to market their work. “Publishers should contractually require that a part of the advance be allocated to marketing and promotional efforts supervised by the author.”

Eleven of Karp’s twelve steps to better book publishing are cogent and wise, and publishers should take them to heart. But the twelfth has mischief written all over it:

“If a title falls short of the house’s standards, don’t market it. Don’t even distribute it to bookstores. Publish those titles as e-books and print-on-demand only. Don’t waste trees, warehouse and energy costs on them.”

Karp assumes that a Harper or Simon & Schuster or Hachette has the option to release, as originally published e-books or PODs, books that they feel are potentially unprofitable or simply not up to snuff. Here is yet another sign that publishers are growing all too comfortable with the idea of issuing works as e-book originals without first publishing them in traditional print formats. I for one am very ill at ease with the concept. As I recently wrote,

“Original e-book publication by traditional publishers places their feet on a slippery slope. For one thing, there may be no legal basis for it; that is, no contractual provision sanctioning it. For another, authors who bargain for print publication and end up with e-book release may feel they have not been dealt with in good faith. For yet another, the current state of the e-book business is such that e-book publication does not earn a fraction of the revenue that print does, either for publisher or author.”

A baseball player would be thrilled to boast a .917 batting average, so Karp can rest easy that eleven out of his twelve remedies for what ails publishing will help to cure the patient. But that twelfth one bears some serious rethinking. If you don’t think a book is worth printing, don’t buy it. If you buy it, make it worth printing. Major publishers resorting to original e-book release are not only abandoning their mission, they may also be forsaking their identity.

Richard Curtis

“Before you click that download link at a torrent site or megaupload or sendspace ask yourself one question. If I was in a bookstore, would I just drop this book in my purse and walk out of the store? Because that is exactly what you are doing when you download a book without buying it.” So says Delilah K. Stephans in a blog entitled “Think before you download”.

It’s easy to talk theoretically about crime as long as nobody puts a face on the victim. Stephans puts a face on a victim of e-piracy and it’s her own.

“My book sells for $2.99 of that I make just over a dollar on every sale. So if say 50 people download the book those 50 people have reached into my wallet and removed a $50. What if it was a hundred? A thousand? Now, ask yourself would I reach in a stranger’s pocket and take a fifty? Of course you wouldn’t. Recently a fellow author found his book on a pirate site – there were 150 downloads. That’s 150 books or in his case $300.00 that was stolen from him.”

The author asks, “Do I think you are evil if you pirate a book? Of course not.” But why not, Ms. Stephans? Last time we looked, stealing was a breach of the eighth commandment. Some may shrug off e-piracy as a misdemeanor, but there is no footnote for “Thou Shalt Not Steal” distinguishing between e-books and bank vaults.

So, we support Ms. Stephans’s admonition: “Before you click that download button – consider the money you are pulling out of the author’s wallet.”

RC

Now that press baron Rupert Murdoch is officially courting digital technology, we can expect to see a lot more attention paid to e-books in Murdoch-owned media. A good example is Steven Johnson’s How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write, published in the Wall Street Journal. Though the piece has a slightly Johnny-come-lately feeling to it, expressing gee-whizzes that tech and media bloggers have been gee-whizzing for decades. Johnson makes some very significant points and even a few memorable bon mots. Alluding to Kindle’s portability, he says, “The bookstore is now following you around wherever you go.” And this:

Think of [the reading experience] as a permanent, global book club. As you read, you will know that at any given moment, a conversation is available about the paragraph or even sentence you are reading. Nobody will read alone anymore. Reading books will go from being a fundamentally private activity — a direct exchange between author and reader — to a community event, with every isolated paragraph the launching pad for a conversation with strangers around the world.

One truly cogent passage was not so much conjecture about the future as commentary on something that is happening today – the kindlification of “that most finite of 21st-century resources: attention.”

Because they have been largely walled off from the world of hypertext, print books have remained a kind of game preserve for the endangered species of linear, deep-focus reading. Online, you can click happily from blog post to email thread to online New Yorker article — sampling, commenting and forwarding as you go. But when you sit down with an old-fashioned book in your hand, the medium works naturally against such distractions; it compels you to follow the thread, to stay engaged with a single narrative or argument.

This echoes observations we made in an essay entitled Watching Books : “Thanks to television, the Internet, video games and computers, we have come to expect color, interactivity, instant gratification and a complete immersion of the senses from our screens…The fundamental appeal of books is their ability to transport us to the author’s world. The best books immerse us so deeply in that world that we become almost immune to distraction. But screens are breeders of distraction from the sort of commitment to thinking, reflecting, and imagining that books demand.”

Johnson goes on to speculate not just about how books will be read but how they will be written. For all those Johnny-come-latelies who haven’t been plugged into the revolutionary paradigm of digital publishing for the last decade, the Wall Street Journal‘s piece is well worth your time.

RC

Former President George W. Bush is writing his memoir. But why wait when you can order President George W. Bush’s Greatest Achievements today! You’ll see all of his greatest military, economic, environmental, social welfare, health care, homeland security and civil liberties accomplishments.

BUT – before you send for your copy, we have to warn you that it’s pretty skimpy. In fact, the pages are blank! THIS IS A GAG BOOK.

But it’s the perfect gift for anyone who remembers the Bush administration’s accomplishments with something less than affection. However, if you’re a true supporter of the former President, feel free to write into the pages your own assessment of his regime’s achievements.

The author, “Seymour Bollocks”, is a staunch patriot and Republican administration crony.

Print is print and digital is digital and never the twain shall meet, right? Not so fast. Some recent news items would seem to refute those blogger Cassandras predicting the doom of printed books. In fact, it’s the bloggers themselves who’ve lined up book deals. Not e-book deals — book-book deals, dead tree deals. And their crossover success stories point the way to a convergence of old and new paradigms and confirm something that many media observers have been thinking: the only thing wrong with printed books is the way they’re distributed.

New York Times reporter Jenna Wortham tells us about a Los Angeles screenwriter named Duncan Birmingham, a comedy screenwriter in Los Angeles who “got one too many holiday cards featuring miserable-looking pets wearing fake reindeer antlers.” Realizing that the photos were great material for a blog, he launched Pets Who Want to Kill Themselves and invited viewers to send in photos. “Within days,” Wortham writes, “visitors were supplying him with snapshots of bulldogs in bunny costumes and cats wearing wigs. The blogosphere noticed — and so did the publishing world. Within a week, he was contacted by editors and literary agents. By the second month, he said, he had sold a book based on the photos to Three Rivers Press, an imprint at Crown Publishing Group, for ‘enough money to buy a Lincoln Town Car’ — with change left over.”

If viewers can access blogs free of charge, why would they then plunk down $10.00 or more to buy the hard-copy version of the same material? Clearly, it’s because they instinctively understand the difference between the evanescence of digital pleasures and the permanence of tangible ones. A few virally distributed pages of images are wonderfully diverting, but after a minute or two we click off and abandon them. The images vanish and we turn back to the solemnities of life and work.

Not so if those images are in books. We examine books, we handle and caress them, we invest our time and attention in them, we own them, we lend them but (with the expectation of getting them back), we put them on shelves where they define us, become projections of our identities. A visitor sees it and exclaims “Oh, I loved that!” An experience shared, and shared in a way that simply cannot register on a screen.

Whence this kinship between blogs and books? Well, the audience for blogs often numbers in the millions. Book publishers understand that a certain percentage of that audience wants to capture and possess the gratification longer than a few moments. That percentage is large enough to support print publication of thousands of copies. Wortham reports that I Can Has Cheezburger?, a collection of funny cat photos drawn from an immensely popular blog and published by Penguin imprint Gotham Books, “sold more than 100,000 copies and hovered on The New York Times best-seller list for 13 weeks.”

Noam Cohen, also a Times journalist, mentions another print book, this one a collection of “xkcd“, a popular online comic strip by NASA physicist Randall Munroe featuring humor about math, science and technology. Like I Can Has Cheezburger?, Munroe’s collection is headed for print, too, but the approach is radically different, as you will infer from the name of the publisher: breadpig. “It doesn’t need to be in bookstores,” Munroe is quoted as saying.

“Are we seeing an all-too-rare example of the triumph of print books over digital content?” asks the Times‘s Cohen. “In fact,” he answers, “the xkcd story previews the much more likely future of books in which they are prized as artifacts, not as mechanisms for delivering written material to readers.”

Both Cheezburger and xkcd exemplify a much-overlooked reason that people buy books: they make great souvenirs. I remember wondering, as I watched huge numbers of customers waiting patiently in line for Bill Clinton to autograph his 957 page memoir – how many of these people are going to read that book? I concluded that most of them were not going to. They were not buying a book to read. They were buying a souvenir of Bill Clinton (“He actually shook my hand and asked me how I spell my name!”) And that’s okay. There are enough books bought to be read (or intended to be read), so that we can forgive those who buy books merely to remind us of a happy experience.

Printed books will remain a staple of human culture. What must change is the is the stupid and scandalously wasteful way that they are are distributed. Print on demand points the way to solving that problem. We’ll have a lot more to say about that in due time.

Richard Curtis

Quick quiz for bloggers. You’d be happy with 100 million visitors and 5 billion hits a month on your website, right?

Before you respond, here’s part 2: would you be happy with all that traffic if you were losing $40 million a month to service it?

If you’re Google, the answer is emphatically yes. The website in question is YouTube.

How could that be? Well, about three months ago we noted that despite a veritable Niagara Falls of visits to its site, monetizing YouTube’s content and making Google’s $1.65 billion investment back “has not proven to be a slam-dunk thanks to the complexities and potential liabilities of copyright.” Even all that advertising revenue generated by billions of clicks did not add up to break-even let alone a profit.

To turn things around, Google realized it was time to stop giving content away. Furthermore, it had to recognize that it is an entertainment medium that has every right to monetize that content. In short, Google had to go Hollywood.

Google has now gone Hollywood.

Brian Stelter and Miguel Helft of the New York Times report that the company has reached agreement with such glittering media outfits as Sony and MGM to bring law, order, and revenue to what is now a slapdash enterprise. The vehicle for this turnaround is professionally made videos generating advertising revenue. They cite Hulu, a site that carries reruns of TV shows like “The Office”, as the competitor to beat. But they are also aggressively developing a music videos program. “Last week the site announced a joint venture with Universal Music Group to create Vevo, a separate destination for music videos,” the reporters tell us.

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt assures us that the site would continue to carry non-professional videos.” They may not be the financial lifeblood of the company, but they are its driving spirit. We certainly hope that will be the case. As we wrote when the scheme was first announced, “The very zeitgeist of the 21st century represented by the ingenuity, the spontaneous combustiveness, the wacky hilarity, the instant, viral, visceral responsiveness of a public that knew what it loved and voted for it with billions of mouseclicks, may now be giving way to the slick creations of Hollywood television and film companies backed by studio and network money, branded sponsors, and calculating marketers.”

How do we feel about the westcoastification of YouTube? Here’s one opinion – mine:

Well, Hollywood, there are millions of us who don’t want YouTube to mature. We like it just the way it is — embarrassingly sophomoric, amateurish, LOL hilarious, pathetic, dopey, dirty, funky, and utterly counterculture. It belongs to We the People. Can’t you go co-opt some other industry? We can think of a lot of them that could use your genius, your money and your values.

Richard Curtis

Over the course of these columns I plan to drill down on the business end of work-for-hire by examining the way gaming companies view tie-in novels, the way TV/Film companies approach them, and the important role publishers and agents play in the process. That includes why companies commission tie-ins, what they look for in writers, and how the selection process works.

In order to obtain background information for this column I interviewed Sony Senior Producer Frank Simon, who works with Insomniac Games. A group known for best selling games like Resistance: The Fall of Man 1 & 2, Ratchet & Clank, and Spyro the Dragon.

I also interviewed Franchise Development Director Frank O’Connor who works for Bungie, which continues to partner with Microsoft, the company that owns the Halo franchise/intellectual property.*

More on the interviews in a moment. First let’s take a look at some market statistics: According to data provided by the NPD Group, which specializes in providing consumer and retail marketing research data, the total market for video game consoles and portables (PC games are measured separately) topped $11.82 billion in the U.S. alone through September ‘08. A 26% increase over the same time period last year. Total 2007 sales reached $18.82 billion vs. $12.5 billion in 2006.

According to NPD’s consumer panel (2.5 million consumers, with an average of 40K surveyed per week on various topics), 25% of Americans “…play video games daily or at least several times per week,” while close to 31% game one time per week or less often, but still play video games. All of which points to a healthy and growing market for not only the games themselves, but related tie-in items including books. That’s in marked contrast to a declining tie-in market where the TV and Film industries are concerned. A phenomena I plan to address in my next column.

I asked Simon and O’Connor a series of nearly identical questions regarding the process by which tie-in projects come into being and the results were interesting. When asked if the Insomniac/Sony team was thinking about tie-in books while working on the first Resistance game Simon said, “Yes, definitely. It was discussed at the beginning of the process. But it was never discussed what the tie-ins would be. It’s not only a way of generating additional revenue,” Simon added, “but how to get the message out to the players. If you build quality tie-in items, they can lead new buyers to the game.”

Does that mean Simon believes that tie-ins can bring customers to the company’s products—as well as working the other way around? Yes, it does… A counter intuitive philosophy that makes the process of commissioning tie-in novels and choosing authors to write them that much more important.

When I asked O’Connor if the Bungie/Microsoft team was thinking about tie-ins while creating the first Halo game he answered this way: “It wasn’t even a tertiary thought honestly…. The launch of Halo involved a console launch as well, so with that to deal with, the team was entirely focused on the game.”

He went on to say, “When we make those decisions (commissioning a tie-in) it is to satisfy the fans first.” By which O’Connor means that Halo fans demanded certain kinds of tie-in items which the company felt an obligation to produce in order to please them. However, “The books have been so successful,” O’Connor adds, “that they are quite profitable in and of themselves.”
Having written one of those books I can attest to that. HALO fans are so hungry for HALO related tie-in books that my novelization of the second game sold more than 500,000 copies. Again, that’s a novelization rather than new novel, which means that half-a-million people were willing to read a narrative of a game most of them had already played.

Still, like Simon, O’Connor insists that tie-ins are about more than money. “Believe it or not revenue is kind of a secondary consideration,” he says. “An example would be Kotobukiya. They are a high-end Japanese toy manufacturer that produces sculpture rather than playful action figures. They make so few, and the margins are so tight, that we do it to service the market. That translates to trying to please customers who want Halo stuff. Especially high-end Halo stuff.”

When asked to describe the payoff from tie-ins Simon puts it this way. “I would say the first criteria is are the people who are working on the project enjoying the process? Is it cool? We need to be fiscally responsible,” he adds, “but it’s rarely a problem. That’s usually the least concern.”

Taken together the responses from both men convey a very important point about gaming related tie-in projects. Ultimately tie-in writers are dealing with teams of people who don’t look at the universe in “take the money and run” terms. They want to make money, yes, but they are also focused on producing “cool” stuff. And that includes ancillary materials like tie-in novels. So if you agree to write one be warned…. Your ideas will be judged according to what a group of people think is “cool” rather than an opinion rendered by a single editor. So in order to succeed it’s necessary to immerse yourself in the game, become a member of the creative team to whatever extent that’s possible, and participate in a consensus style of management that may seem foreign to those used to working in a word-cave by themselves.

Given how much they care about what they’re doing, it isn’t too surprising that when companies like Bungie/Microsoft and Insomniac/Sony go shopping for a publisher they’re looking for more than a quick buck. O’Connor indicated that the primary criteria for choosing a publisher can be summed up as, “Are you at the top of your game in a particular market? That’s why we’re with Tor. (Tor is Bungie/Microsoft’s current publisher.) The sit down meetings we have them are truly collaborative.”

And Simon responded to the question by saying, “We traditionally look for partners. We’re not looking for someone to take the ball and run. We’re looking for someone to partner with.” To which he added that initiative is a good thing, but it’s imperative to retain overall creative control, lest bad things happen.

So if that’s the way publishers are chosen, how about tie-in writers themselves? Are they chosen by the publishers? Or do the gaming companies play a role? O’Connor had this to say: “No, it’s a joint choice. We look at a list of suitable people.”

When asked to define “we” O’Connor replied that, “It’s a small core group within Bungie/Microsoft. You’re unlikely to be talking to more than two Bungie, or two Microsoft people at any given time.”

Simon gave a similar answer. “The team was (referring to a recently commissioned novel) actively involved in the decision. We put together a list of people that we thought would be good—and asked Del Rey for their opinion. It came down to a consensus decision between Insomniac/Sony and Del Rey.”

What I found interesting about these comments was the fact that gaming companies often approach publishers with a list of preferred tie-in writers and participate in making the final decision. So what are they looking for? O’Connor’s response was brief and to the point. “Availability and suitability. Is their writing good, would it fit, and can we get them quickly?”
Simon responded by asking, “What have they written? What kind of expertise do they have? How easy is it to work with them? You don’t know going in—but you find out quickly! That’s where you rely on the publisher. They work with the authors so they know. They (the authors) have to be flexible, opinionated when they need to be opinionated, but always for a good reason.”

In other words when a licensor sits down with a publisher to discuss which writer they want to work with the reputation each one of us has knowingly or unknowingly established becomes quite important. Simply put if you’re pleasant to deal with, willing to work as part of a team, and capable of meeting what are often short deadlines then game related offers are more likely to come your way. And, given the fact that the game market continues to expand, there will be more and more opportunities to go around. Remember to be cool though…. There’s no substitute for that!

My next column will focus on TV/Film licensors, their perspective on tie-ins, and market trends. If you would like to provide feedback regarding my column, or make suggestions regarding future columns, please send them to bill@williamcdietz.com.

* Disclosure: William C. Dietz has written tie-ins for both Bungie/Microsoft and Insomniac/Sony through Del Rey.

Traditionally most tie-in novels have been based on movies and television programs. A quick check of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW) website provides dozens of examples including Maverick, Murder She Wrote, James Bond, Batman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, STAR WARS, Diagnosis Murder, Highlander and many more. But how do these deals get done? Who initiates them? And how are writers chosen?

In order to answer those questions and more I interviewed two experts and asked them a set of identical questions. I found their comments to be instructive–if not very encouraging. So it looks like my plan to support myself by writing Brady Bunch tie-ins isn’t going to work. (Yes, there were some.)

Lee Goldberg is a two-time “Edgar” nominee whose many TV writing and/or producing credits include Martial Law, Spenser: For Hire, Diagnosis Murder, The Cosby Mysteries, Hunter, Nero Wolfe, Missing and Monk. He’s also the author of many books, including My Gun Has Bullets, Beyond the Beyond, Unsold TV Pilots, Successful Television Writing, The Walk, The Man With The Iron-On Badge, as well as the Diagnosis Murder and Monk series of paperback originals.

Goldberg is also a co-founder of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
Paula M. Block is Senior Director of Product Development and oversees the publishing division of CBS Consumer Products (formerly Viacom Consumer Products), which includes the Star Trek titles published by Pocket Books. She was the co-editor and judge of the annual Strange New Worlds series, and contributed the story “The Girl Who Controlled Gene Kelly’s Feet” in volume I. She has also worked on Where No One has Gone Before, The Paramount Story, The Tribble Handbook, and The 4400—The Official Companion. With husband Terry J. Erdmann, Block co-wrote Star Trek: Action!, The Secrets of Star Trek: Insurrection, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, Monk, the Official Episode Guide, the recently released Star Trek 101 and the introduction of the Prophecy and Change anthology. I would like to thank both for Lee and Paula for agreeing to be interviewed.

Dietz: “Do TV/film production companies think about tie-in books and other merchandise before they go into production—or is that a follow-on activity?”

Goldberg: “It’s usually an after-thought. It’s so far at the bottom of their list after trying to get eyeballs onto their screens…. It’s less about the content of the books than the promotional value. The show has to be up and running for awhile before publishers become interested.”

Block: “Actually, the production companies/producers seldom think about tie-in books and merch. It’s the rare exception that do—like George Lucas, whose interest in such products really made licensing into the industry it is today.

It’s typically the consumer products (CP) department of a studio that thinks about tie-ins before the shooting on a film or TV show begins—that’s what they’re there for, after all. They help contribute to the bottom line of a studio’s revenue.

The CP department keeps in touch with studio execs to find out what films have been green-lighted, or what pilots are a go for the coming season. The CP folks discuss internally and decide which projects have the most potential for spin-off products. Certain genres are better than others at lending themselves to adaptation and are the most successful—say science fiction, fantasy, action, and teenagers doing what teenagers do. After that the CP department reviews their prospects with legal to see if merch is even possible. Some actors and/or producers have zero interest in merch, some love it—(this is sometimes addressed in their contracts) and then typically CP will initiate communication with the production company.”

Dietz: “At what point during the process is the decision made to commission a tie-in novel?”

Goldberg: “I was the Executive Producer of Diagnosis Murder for many years–and nobody came to us looking to do tie-ins. That program skewed too old…. After Murder She Wrote went off the air, Penguin/Putnam started doing Murder She Wrote tie-in novels, and they have been a tremendous success. They’re up to thirty some titles in the Murder She Wrote series.

“So Penguin looked at the success of the Murder She Wrote book and said we need to do something else like that. And looking at the demographics that’s how they came to do Diagnosis Murder. For Paramount that was found money. So they were licensed, I wrote eight of them, and they were successful….”

Block: “….If the film or TV show is based on an existing book, obviously a tie-in novel is out of the question, although you may be able to do other ‘merch,’ like toys or t-shirts. You may even be able to do a behind-the-scenes making of a book about the film. But if a movie/TV show is licensable, and it’s not based on an existing book, doing a novelization tends to be a given, and plans for that are initiated immediately, since a book tends to take longer to produce than a t-shirt.”

Dietz: “Why do production companies license tie-in novels?”

Goldberg: “Eyeballs on screens, royalties to lots of people, and there’s some ego involved. The creator of a show likes to be able to walk into a book store and see books on the shelves. And sometimes they see it as an opportunity to tell stories or explore characters in a way they can’t on the TV show. Others find it to be a total irritant and they hate it. That’s why there’s been one Law and Order book—and one Jag book.”

Block: “On the most basic level, a tie-in novel serves as good publicity for a film or TV show. That’s the studio’s point of view. And it brings in a bit of revenue although not very much unless you’re talking about a blockbuster production or the hottest TV show of the year….”

Dietz: “When the typical production company goes to choose/cut a deal with a publisher what criteria come into play? And which are the most important?”

Goldberg: “The production companies don’t have much to do with it. The studios like Paramount, Disney, Sony, Universal all have big licensing departments. And when a show begins to break out like Burn Notice, if publishers haven’t already started to court them, they go out to find a publisher…. The criteria the execs use may not be solely financial, it may have to do with personal relationships, corporate relationships, and which writers the publisher might be able to bring to the project.”

Block: “Well, not to sound crass but money has a lot to do with it. Everybody wants to cut a good deal, right? But a publisher doesn’t necessarily want to pay what the studio wants. So there’s a lot of give and take in that area.

“But beyond mercenary reasons, there are people in our CP department who have enough experience to know which publisher is going to do the best job on a tie-in. Company ‘A’ may have an amazing production department that will create the most beautiful book you can imagine—but they can’t afford a big licensing fee. In that case, the CP department may accept a lower bid because they are concerned about the quality of the end product.

“Novelizations are different—the publisher is almost always locked into using some kind of approved key art (one-sheet art) for the cover, so there’s not much room for creativity, other than who the publisher chooses as the author. But more often than not, the CP department doesn’t know in advance who the publisher will choose to use, so that doesn’t tend to be much of a criteria. Speed may be a more important criterion—can they find an author who can turn in a manuscript in a month? That may be the most important thing to the publisher and the studio. You just have to hope that somebody who can write fast is also a good author!”

Dietz: “When it comes time to hire a tie-in writer is that decision left to the publisher? Or does the production company team typically get involved?”

Goldberg: “It depends on the deal that the show runner (the Executive Producer and/or creator) has. Sometimes they have approval rights and sometimes they don’t. It really depends on the deal that the creator struck. Any deal I pitch always gives me control over what tie-in writer will be hired if I get a deal.

“One of things IAMTW is trying to change is the perception that tie-in writers are hacks. Unfortunately some tie-in writers are hacks. And that gives everyone a bad name.”
Block: “That decision is almost always left to the publisher. On an extremely high profile movie, a producer may want to be involved, but that’s not always a good thing. They may want an author who they’ve heard is hot, but who charges a huge fee. That’s not so good for the publisher, who may know of an equally good author, good in the particular genre, who will cost them less.

“Fortunately, not too many want to get involved. As for veto power, they only have that if the deal they made with the studio says they have it. Very few have thought ahead to request such power. Novelizations are not exactly the top thing they’re thinking about when they cut a multi-million dollar deal with a studio.

“I know that may disappoint the writers out there. To them I say: ‘Write screenplays.’ The producer still won’t think much about you, and you still won’t have much power–but you’ll have more money to keep you warm at night!”

Dietz: “What sort of qualities/background are production companies typically looking for, assuming that they participate in the choice of an author?”

Goldberg: “They want to be wowed by the writer. They want someone with a serious history. They want someone with some success besides writing tie-ins. They want someone with a track record of success. It says this isn’t just a tie-in—it’s a book! It says something if the writer has been a success on his own.”

Block: “I think I covered that above. There are occasional happy exceptions. Every now and then a producer will actually know what he or she is looking for, beyond a big name. Some producers actually read! My husband (Terry Erdmann) had the rare experience of being requested for a tie-in book because the producer had read an earlier book of Terry’s and really liked it. But that doesn’t happen very often.”

Dietz: “When it comes to dealing with tie-in writers what sort of virtues are production companies looking for?”

Goldberg: “They expect the tie-in writer to be not that much different from a freelance television writer. They expect the tie-in writer to be someone who can work with the room (the writer’s room) and the creator to capture the voice and color of the show and to, as we say in TV, articulate the franchise. Capture what makes the show unique and sets it apart from other shows in the same genre.”

Block: “Depends on the type of book. Timeliness is always next to godliness in everyone’s mind. With a behind-the-scenes book, someone with good communication skills is a blessing, because he/she must have a professional demeanor in addressing/interviewing the actors and other people in addition to skill at putting the manuscript together. The author of a novelization generally doesn’t have to worry about that.”

Dietz: “What’s the worst sin a tie-in writer can commit from a production company point of view?”

Goldberg: “Not capturing the show…. Where the book would actually do the show harm. It doesn’t feel like the show—a badly written book that reads like a hack job. It has to stand on its own as a book. The last thing they want is published fanfic.”

Block: “Two sins come to mind. Publishers need to remind their writers about ‘pecking order’ so to speak. If the writer says he/she needs something, say photos for reference or an updated script, that request should go to the editor, who will then contact the CP department, which has the authority to request such things from personnel at the studio. Some writers get a little too proactive and start making phone calls on their own to the production people and invariably this gets back to the CP department—generally in the form of complaints from the higher ups. ‘Why is so-and-so calling and asking me for a script? Who the hell is he?’ At that point, the author has muddied some strategic waters and now it becomes more difficult for the CP department to get what he and the publisher needs.

“The other sin would be to change too much in translation from the script to the book. That would include changing dialogue because the author feels the screenwriter’s words ‘didn’t flow…’ or adding too many of the author’s own inventions including extra characters, extra scenes, plot changes. As someone who reviews the manuscripts for the books, I’ve developed my own policies in this regard. I do allow authors to add things by extending scenes, and sometimes filling in missing gaps that don’t mess with the main plot. I know that readers enjoy that kind of thing. But I don’t let them run wild with the story and make it theirs. Consistency with the movie is the cardinal rule.”

Dietz: “If a writer has been involved with other tie-in related projects is that good or bad?”

Goldberg: “The publishers like experienced tie-in writers because they know what they’re going to get. Producers approach it differently. They want to be impressed. Who are you getting for my show? Producers want to be seduced. We got you an author who is a best selling author of romance novels. Or he’s a Spur winning author of westerns. Or something like that. Of course there are some shows that just don’t care.”

Block: “Experience is almost always a good thing–so long as the writer doesn’t assume that each experience will be the same. Sometimes it’s clear sailing for him, so the writer may assume that the liberties he/she took in the previous tie-in will apply here as well. But it ain’t necessarily so. This particular time, the studio or the producers may insist on doing things a different way, maybe a more restrictive way, and the writer’s attitude will rub them the wrong way.”

Dietz: “How does the future look where TV/film related tie-ins are concerned?”

Goldberg: “My limited experience is that the midlist is shrinking. The great attractiveness of tie-ins is that they bring with them the great promotional machine of TV shows. Using my Monk books as an example, my books come out the same week as the new season, so my books have the advantage of all the bill boards and the show itself…

“That said there are fewer and fewer shows that can support tie-ins. Few shows are lasting long enough to generate that kind of viewer loyalty, much less reader loyalty, and how many people read? Are Knight Rider people going to pick up Knight Rider books? I don’t know.
This year the number of viewers for network television is at an all-time low. The TV audience is becoming fragmented. It’s getting harder and harder to get a show on the air that can sustain an audience much less a readership. Book sales are down…. People are reading less.”

Block: “The Sixties, Seventies and Eighties were good for tie-ins. These days, it’s the rare tie-in that does exceptionally well. That’s why you see fewer of them. They were a novelty for quite a while, and it wasn’t a surprise to see long-running series of books based on one property. Star Trek is probably the most successful tie-in ever (with over 500 novels in print!), and STAR WARS is certainly popular, but The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and even Sabrina, The Teenage Witch had their day in the sun, with more than 20 titles each. But all good things… You know the saying. I think the existence of the internet and interactive gaming has taken the place of the desire to read adaptations, at least for younger readers.”

Dietz: “Do production companies expect to make substantial sums of money from the tie-ins they license?”

Goldberg: “They know there isn’t a lot of money to made from books. But it is one more way to sustain viewer loyalty. All of the combined stuff makes some money—but it’s mostly about promotion.”

Block: “As I mentioned above, to the studio the publicity value is the premium. To them, it’s a good way to actually get paid a bit to have a publisher put your key art on a book and splash it around. But sadly, substantial sums are a thing of the past except for true blockbusters, like adaptations of Spiderman, Indiana Jones, and so forth. Publishing used to be one of the top sources of revenue for consumer products departments. Sadly, that’s not true anymore.”

All of which means that the process by which media related tie-ins are commissioned will continue to be inaccessible to most of us. However, once a book has been commissioned, it’s clear that publishers usually get to decide who they will approach. How does that work? What are they looking for? And how is the tie-in market doing? I’ll tackle those questions in my next column.

In the meantime here’s something to think about…. Did Paula Block say something about turning out a manuscript in a month? Yes, I believe she did. And, amazingly enough, there are quite a few authors capable of such a feat. (Many of them belong to IAMTW.) Still, it’s a daunting thought for most of us…. And one of the things that makes work for hire so challenging.

My next column will focus on publishers, their perspective on tie-ins, and market trends. If you would like to provide feedback regarding my column, or make suggestions regarding future columns, please send them to bill@williamcdietz.com.