Tie-ins and Work For Hire
Aug. 29th, 2004 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msagaraToday, shelving books at the store, I picked up the CATWOMAN movie novelization, and realized it had been written by Elizabeth Hand. She's done at least three tie-ins that I know of (and possibly more -- listen to the sound of me being too lazy to go to amazon.com and look it up), but I always feel a little shock when I see her name on one. Why? Perception, I think. Her novels have always been treated seriously (and they should be), and her writing has always garnered critical praise in the genre (and sometimes outside of it). Which doesn't mean she doesn't need to eat.
There are many reasons to write a tie-in novel. If you love love love the series (Jennifer Roberson's Highlander novel comes instantly to mind), it's not a bad bet; it's like writing the professional variant of fanfic. If you need the money and you can write to deadline, some of the tie-ins have, in past, been lucrative (very, as in 75K lucrative; the Trek novels, at one time, had a base 25K payment, although that was years ago and I think it's gone down since) to writers who otherwise make small midlist advances for their books.
Most tie-ins will not net you anywhere near that much, however, and it's classified as Work For Hire. It occurs to me that I haven't really gotten into that yet, so I'm doing that now, as a semi-digression. Work for hire is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; you don't own or maintain any rights to what you've created in the world. The Weis & Hickman Dragonlance world is a prime example of what this means: You create the characters, the universe, the plot-line, etc. -- but the company can then feel free to do whatever they want with them, up to and including hiring other writers to write books using the same characters, and perhaps not in a way that would make you happy.
In the ideal world, your best bet is to work on creating your own world, as it were. When you have sole ownership, any sales or any acclaim garnered is attributed to you. I'm not actually going to talk about artistic integrity at this point, because that's a hot button, and if Elizabeth Hand and Pat Cadigan can write tie-ins, anyone can. Greg Bear has done them. John Ford has done them. Pamela Sargent has done them. Barbara Hambly. Are they thought of as tie-in writers? No.
Here's the deal. An agent of my acquaintance once said, in years past, that he had a strong preference that his writers not do this for the most part. He felt that it took time away from their writing, and from building their own careers; the work they did for hire did nothing positive for them except bring in money. He also acknowledged that for writers, money is an issue, and never more so than when starting out.
Okay, I lied. There are two digressions in this one.
Writing full-time, like any freelance work, is tricky at best. Writing novels full-time is more so in many ways. It's easier to assign a per word value for a lead column in a national magazine based on the prominence of the column & the magazine itself; it's harder to do that with fiction. Especially novels, when everything is always a gamble. Remember the part about no one caring how long the first book took to write? Well, if it gets a 5K advance, which is common, and it took you ten years to write it, you can do the math. That's not a living wage. Thus the adage Don't Quit The Day Job. If, however, you could sell a novel a month at 5K, which would mean that you could write a novel a month, that's 60K a year, and that's decent middle class. You'd still have to sell a novel a month, and the money doesn't come in instantly. Tie-ins are published at a book a month, roughly speaking. There are a lot of tie-in properties -- comic based, TV based, movie-based, etc.
There is no one who is going to buy original fiction for adults at one book a month -- at least not that I can think of. So… at that point, you could do tie-ins and it wouldn't hurt you; financially it would even be helpful. One book a month and yes, even the agent in question would probably shrug and accept it, as he still gets his cut.
But for others, it's often a choice between writing their own work and the Work For Hire work. I've seen people who, having sold a second or third novel, are bursting with optimism and the intent to go full-time. I would never have done it had I not had children, because I could work full-time and write, and the steady paycheck soothes financial anxiety. I have tactfully asked them how they mean to make ends meet, and -- did I mention optimism? -- the writing! Is the answer. People in this position can often be pushed into media work, because they need to eat, and pay bills. It's for this reason that cautiously cutting out of the day job, rather than leaping off the cliff, makes more sense to me. To Me. As in, IMHO. If you're determined to go freelance, it's a really good idea to try to have 6 months worth of living wages tucked away in the bank. This will also help when your roof starts leaking, your car departs the earth, your appliances die, your children need braces, etc.
Some agents will actively push some of their client roster into doing tie ins. And why do some agents do this, when others don't? (This involves pushing, as opposed to finding work when their clients ask them for it because of money concerns -- and there's a huge difference.) I think it's lack of confidence on the part of the agent. If the agent can get more money for the tie-in than they can for the original novels, and they don't think this is going to change, from a purely business perspective, the tie-ins make far more sense to the agency. They're much less difficult to sell, and the money often comes in more frequently. Okay, end of digression.
However… if you haven't established a name for yourself outside of that, there's an attitude that exists on the part of some publishers, editors and readers that makes it much more difficult to do so after the fact. I don't know why. Yes, there are counter examples to this that I can think of -- but not so many that this isn't true in the majority of cases, and the examples I can think of often involve people like Weis and Hickman, or Ed Greenwood -- people who've shown that they can create their own universes, albeit for someone else.
Perception is tricky. Always has been. Is it fair? Hardly. But I remember when Iain Banks did an interview in which he essentially said he writes for a couple of months each year, because that's how long it takes to write a book; a number of his long time readers were both surprised and disgusted. Why? Because the perception is that time=quality. This is silly. Sadly, though, it doesn't matter if it's silly, because it's almost impossible to combat. If you have one book a year, no one cares how long you took to write it; if you wrote it in four weeks and you take the rest of the year off, no one is going to notice. Tell someone that you can write a book at that speed, and many people will suddenly append the word "hack" to your name.
If, on the other hand, you've established bona fide credentials -- if not stellar numbers -- the attitude is different. Thus, someone like Elizabeth Hand can write a tie-in, and there's no ripple in the attitude of her readers (or at least none that I've heard in the store) when an original novel, like MORTAL LOVE, comes out.
This doesn't mean, if you've done tie-in work, that you're doomed. But the more you're known for it, the more you're likely to be thought of as a production house of your own, rather than a writer in your own right.
I've seen five distinctly different writer reactions to this. One writer I know took on a tie-in assignment, and before he'd finished the first book (it was for three), had sunk into a deep depression. The money was decent, but it wasn't something the writer felt any attachment for -- and on some level, they felt that they were selling themselves short; that they were, in fact, selling out. If this is how you feel, run for the hills. In the end, the author extricated themselves from that contract because they weren't writing much at all. And they didn't do it again, and they're doing really, really well now.
The next example is a writer who is both fast and good. This one had started a couple of series, but they hadn't done stellar numbers. I've seen a number of writers start out in a similar position and in my opinion, given the audience this author was slowly building, I think they could have been Tanya Huff or Charles de Lint. But they were frustrated by the financial fact that the publisher was not willing to pay them more for continuing their own work, when the tie-ins paid so much better, and in the end, they chose not to continue doing the series I thought would eventually take off. They're making a living, and they're writing. But I think they would have been in a better position overall had they stuck it out, or at least continued to do both.
The third example I can think of did a very high paying tie-in, and was astonished at the sheer numbers those books sold. They did a number of them. But after that? Not much of anything. I'm not sure why, either -- except perhaps that in this case, the perception that can accompany (but doesn't necessarily have to, see above) such work was also a self-perception.
The fourth example -- or example(s), because I can think of a number -- have done very, very well writing tie-ins. They've hit the high end, and their books have sold. But trying to establish themselves as their own brand, their own name, seemed hideously difficult by comparison. They're writing less tie-in and more of their own stuff, now.
And the fifth? Look at the list above. They wrote their tie-ins, for whatever reasons they had to do so. They also continued to write their own books, and those books do sell to publishers for decent midlist advances, and they do sell in stores.
At some point, almost every author I know hits the financial blues rut, in which they question their choice of living. They look at everyone else -- lawyers, doctors, programmers (less those, these days <wry g>), Norah Roberts -- and they wonder what the point is . The feeling of being the financial deadweight in a household is pretty darn hideous. When money is tight, it's easy to feel that you're not contributing much; that you're clinging stubbornly to something that has no essential value.
Do not do this. If you feel that you need to -- and are in the position to do so -- seek other work which provides financial relief. If you are capable of writing Work for Hire novels without taking a self-respect hit, that's perfectly valid "other work", but it's not the only option.
And you know what? If my family needed the money and we were in a state of financial crisis, yes, I would do everything I could to sell something that I could write. Period.
That said, is anyone in need of a gmail account?
There are many reasons to write a tie-in novel. If you love love love the series (Jennifer Roberson's Highlander novel comes instantly to mind), it's not a bad bet; it's like writing the professional variant of fanfic. If you need the money and you can write to deadline, some of the tie-ins have, in past, been lucrative (very, as in 75K lucrative; the Trek novels, at one time, had a base 25K payment, although that was years ago and I think it's gone down since) to writers who otherwise make small midlist advances for their books.
Most tie-ins will not net you anywhere near that much, however, and it's classified as Work For Hire. It occurs to me that I haven't really gotten into that yet, so I'm doing that now, as a semi-digression. Work for hire is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; you don't own or maintain any rights to what you've created in the world. The Weis & Hickman Dragonlance world is a prime example of what this means: You create the characters, the universe, the plot-line, etc. -- but the company can then feel free to do whatever they want with them, up to and including hiring other writers to write books using the same characters, and perhaps not in a way that would make you happy.
In the ideal world, your best bet is to work on creating your own world, as it were. When you have sole ownership, any sales or any acclaim garnered is attributed to you. I'm not actually going to talk about artistic integrity at this point, because that's a hot button, and if Elizabeth Hand and Pat Cadigan can write tie-ins, anyone can. Greg Bear has done them. John Ford has done them. Pamela Sargent has done them. Barbara Hambly. Are they thought of as tie-in writers? No.
Here's the deal. An agent of my acquaintance once said, in years past, that he had a strong preference that his writers not do this for the most part. He felt that it took time away from their writing, and from building their own careers; the work they did for hire did nothing positive for them except bring in money. He also acknowledged that for writers, money is an issue, and never more so than when starting out.
Okay, I lied. There are two digressions in this one.
Writing full-time, like any freelance work, is tricky at best. Writing novels full-time is more so in many ways. It's easier to assign a per word value for a lead column in a national magazine based on the prominence of the column & the magazine itself; it's harder to do that with fiction. Especially novels, when everything is always a gamble. Remember the part about no one caring how long the first book took to write? Well, if it gets a 5K advance, which is common, and it took you ten years to write it, you can do the math. That's not a living wage. Thus the adage Don't Quit The Day Job. If, however, you could sell a novel a month at 5K, which would mean that you could write a novel a month, that's 60K a year, and that's decent middle class. You'd still have to sell a novel a month, and the money doesn't come in instantly. Tie-ins are published at a book a month, roughly speaking. There are a lot of tie-in properties -- comic based, TV based, movie-based, etc.
There is no one who is going to buy original fiction for adults at one book a month -- at least not that I can think of. So… at that point, you could do tie-ins and it wouldn't hurt you; financially it would even be helpful. One book a month and yes, even the agent in question would probably shrug and accept it, as he still gets his cut.
But for others, it's often a choice between writing their own work and the Work For Hire work. I've seen people who, having sold a second or third novel, are bursting with optimism and the intent to go full-time. I would never have done it had I not had children, because I could work full-time and write, and the steady paycheck soothes financial anxiety. I have tactfully asked them how they mean to make ends meet, and -- did I mention optimism? -- the writing! Is the answer. People in this position can often be pushed into media work, because they need to eat, and pay bills. It's for this reason that cautiously cutting out of the day job, rather than leaping off the cliff, makes more sense to me. To Me. As in, IMHO. If you're determined to go freelance, it's a really good idea to try to have 6 months worth of living wages tucked away in the bank. This will also help when your roof starts leaking, your car departs the earth, your appliances die, your children need braces, etc.
Some agents will actively push some of their client roster into doing tie ins. And why do some agents do this, when others don't? (This involves pushing, as opposed to finding work when their clients ask them for it because of money concerns -- and there's a huge difference.) I think it's lack of confidence on the part of the agent. If the agent can get more money for the tie-in than they can for the original novels, and they don't think this is going to change, from a purely business perspective, the tie-ins make far more sense to the agency. They're much less difficult to sell, and the money often comes in more frequently. Okay, end of digression.
However… if you haven't established a name for yourself outside of that, there's an attitude that exists on the part of some publishers, editors and readers that makes it much more difficult to do so after the fact. I don't know why. Yes, there are counter examples to this that I can think of -- but not so many that this isn't true in the majority of cases, and the examples I can think of often involve people like Weis and Hickman, or Ed Greenwood -- people who've shown that they can create their own universes, albeit for someone else.
Perception is tricky. Always has been. Is it fair? Hardly. But I remember when Iain Banks did an interview in which he essentially said he writes for a couple of months each year, because that's how long it takes to write a book; a number of his long time readers were both surprised and disgusted. Why? Because the perception is that time=quality. This is silly. Sadly, though, it doesn't matter if it's silly, because it's almost impossible to combat. If you have one book a year, no one cares how long you took to write it; if you wrote it in four weeks and you take the rest of the year off, no one is going to notice. Tell someone that you can write a book at that speed, and many people will suddenly append the word "hack" to your name.
If, on the other hand, you've established bona fide credentials -- if not stellar numbers -- the attitude is different. Thus, someone like Elizabeth Hand can write a tie-in, and there's no ripple in the attitude of her readers (or at least none that I've heard in the store) when an original novel, like MORTAL LOVE, comes out.
This doesn't mean, if you've done tie-in work, that you're doomed. But the more you're known for it, the more you're likely to be thought of as a production house of your own, rather than a writer in your own right.
I've seen five distinctly different writer reactions to this. One writer I know took on a tie-in assignment, and before he'd finished the first book (it was for three), had sunk into a deep depression. The money was decent, but it wasn't something the writer felt any attachment for -- and on some level, they felt that they were selling themselves short; that they were, in fact, selling out. If this is how you feel, run for the hills. In the end, the author extricated themselves from that contract because they weren't writing much at all. And they didn't do it again, and they're doing really, really well now.
The next example is a writer who is both fast and good. This one had started a couple of series, but they hadn't done stellar numbers. I've seen a number of writers start out in a similar position and in my opinion, given the audience this author was slowly building, I think they could have been Tanya Huff or Charles de Lint. But they were frustrated by the financial fact that the publisher was not willing to pay them more for continuing their own work, when the tie-ins paid so much better, and in the end, they chose not to continue doing the series I thought would eventually take off. They're making a living, and they're writing. But I think they would have been in a better position overall had they stuck it out, or at least continued to do both.
The third example I can think of did a very high paying tie-in, and was astonished at the sheer numbers those books sold. They did a number of them. But after that? Not much of anything. I'm not sure why, either -- except perhaps that in this case, the perception that can accompany (but doesn't necessarily have to, see above) such work was also a self-perception.
The fourth example -- or example(s), because I can think of a number -- have done very, very well writing tie-ins. They've hit the high end, and their books have sold. But trying to establish themselves as their own brand, their own name, seemed hideously difficult by comparison. They're writing less tie-in and more of their own stuff, now.
And the fifth? Look at the list above. They wrote their tie-ins, for whatever reasons they had to do so. They also continued to write their own books, and those books do sell to publishers for decent midlist advances, and they do sell in stores.
At some point, almost every author I know hits the financial blues rut, in which they question their choice of living. They look at everyone else -- lawyers, doctors, programmers (less those, these days <wry g>), Norah Roberts -- and they wonder what the point is . The feeling of being the financial deadweight in a household is pretty darn hideous. When money is tight, it's easy to feel that you're not contributing much; that you're clinging stubbornly to something that has no essential value.
Do not do this. If you feel that you need to -- and are in the position to do so -- seek other work which provides financial relief. If you are capable of writing Work for Hire novels without taking a self-respect hit, that's perfectly valid "other work", but it's not the only option.
And you know what? If my family needed the money and we were in a state of financial crisis, yes, I would do everything I could to sell something that I could write. Period.
That said, is anyone in need of a gmail account?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-29 09:15 pm (UTC)I think a lot of enthusiastic authors see Stephen King and J. K. Rowling and think, "Oh, I can do that too!" not realizing that there are so many more writers who are lucky to get even one book out and never publish again.
In a sense we're an entertainment industry. Yea, we have our Brad Pitts and so on, but do you think evey extra in TROY made as much as he does? Not likely! So it is in writing. You have your stars, the rest of us have to work for a living.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-29 09:42 pm (UTC)I do not at all regret the first work-for-hire contract I took on, from which I learned a lot.
Someone once said, when the subject of work-for-hire came up, "Do it, but only do it once."
Given that the second work-for-hire project I took on did fall apart (to be fair, this wasn't for lack of trying to make it work on my part), I kind of wish I'd followed that advice. (wry g)
There was also a ghost written book between the two, which was pleasant enough to work on, and ultimately did neither harm nor good, but wrote itself without much fuss and was paid for as promised.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-29 09:43 pm (UTC)For me, right now, the self-respect/financial deadweight issue is manifesting as a rabid desire to learn-to-drive and return from NY and get a job, even though I'm not sure it'd offset the cost of childcare unless I could get a night or weekend part-time job. The writing would happen anyway (such as it does). It happens because, y'know, without being able to drive, there isn't much else I know how to do. I should've majored in accounting rather than the theoretical end of math. *wry grin*
Right. Back to working on those short stories that probably have me in the red...:-)
not really on topic but...
Date: 2004-08-30 03:51 am (UTC)Re: not really on topic but...
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 04:04 am (UTC)If your tie-in novel sells poorly, however, the blame will likely be laid at your feet -- "This should have sold much better; after all, it's Star Wars. Must be the writer."
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 05:06 am (UTC)Now I feel really glad I didn't do that, because I was in fact ready to write a novel and taking my novel-writing career in that direction would have been a Bad Thing in ways I couldn't imagine then. I didn't have a novel writing career, I had an RPG career and a part-time job editing an events guide and a full-time job being Zorinth's mother. But however good a first novel Everway tie-in I'd have written, I'd never have been nominated for the Campbell.
The other thing about writing tie-ins is that they do take time and energy from writing original things, and I think you can end up, if you do a lot of them, by coarsening the way you write, the things you think it's possible to do. I don't think it's just pride you can lose, I think it's horizons. If Elizabeth Hand were to write fifteen more tie-ins before being able to afford to get to her next original novel, I think it might well not be as good as it would have been. I've seen a couple of writers I used to think were very good come back to original fiction after writing a pile of WFH tie ins where I felt their work had really suffered from it.
The real message here is that, as I liked their original work, I should have bought it in hardcover to ensure that they had enough money to live on while writing their next good thing. I should have bought copies for all my friends...
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 07:21 am (UTC)* Feel less personally invested in the novel while I'm doing edits... I didn't feel bad cutting favourite scenes that didn't help advance the story.
* Develop good habits for planning/writing. Unfortunately, all my organization has fallen apart during the revision stage.
Would it be possible to use a pen-name during work-for-hire? And would that help?
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 09:50 am (UTC)I have often mused on this subject. I've read some tie-ins that are crap. Mostly in the WotC/TSR empire. When I worked for Locus, we didn’t cover any tie-ins. WotC kept sending them and we kept not listing or reviewing them. That was the editor's choice. However, I've read some good tie-ins and I know that some well respected authors do tie-ins. I just completed a novel submission for a WotC open call.
I did that knowing what I was getting into. Knowing that I could forever be thought of as a "tie-in" writer because if I get this contract my first novel will be a WotC novel. Knowing that even if I do a good job, I will still be judged as one of "those" writers. Which sucks. It sucks to think that by trying to break into the field, in any way possible, I will be considered less than good for my choices. I want to become a writer full time. I will do nonfiction articles, interviews, short fiction stories and novels (and hell, even nonfiction books!) to do this. To me, that is what a full-time writer does. If I believed I could do it all on my fiction, I would. Currently, that is not an option.
If absolutely necessary, I will use a pen name. I've already got one picked out for any erotica work I do [whether or not people want to find me I don't want some teen to look me up on Amazon and get an erotica when they were looking for fantasy]. I don't mind using another for tie-ins. Will it hurt me when I try to cross-over? I don't know. I know I could get a bigger advance if I had a "following", but I don't know if I could get the advance if I was already pegged as a tie-in writer.
I hate that perceptions can do this. On the other hand, I have my own set of perceptions as a reader. And I believe that the vast majority of tie-in work is not the author's best material. Not on purpose. Not because "they didn't try". But because most authors work best when it is *their* world. And it shows. I know I was happier with any of my original stories than with my novel submission. But others liked it.
Zhaneel
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:Just friended you...
Date: 2004-08-31 05:21 am (UTC)I haven't read any of your books, nor have I heard of you. I don't mean this as an offense, I'm just saying so because I don't want to sound like a babbling fangirl. :) Anyway, just thought I'd say hi. If I bother you too much in way of comments of questions, just tell me to go away, and I'll be happy to oblige. :)
Re: Just friended you...
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 10:04 am (UTC)I didn't like the time frame -- while I can write a book in three months, I'd really rather not because it means that all I'm doing for three months is writing that book and that plays hell with relationships -- and I had rather a lengthy and heated argument about conservation of mass (dealing with wererats) that I sort of lost, but generally, it was fun applying D&D skills to a novel. (a reader told me once that I was clearly the only gamer they hired for that series)
I'm still very fond of the book and think it might do well in reprint outside a gaming audience but we can't pry the rights free.
I can't remember what I was paid for it but it was equal or close to what I was making for original work at the time since the editor came looking for me. Mind you, it's not making me anything now and if it hadn't been work for hire it still would be.
Would I do it again? Probably. So if Jerry Bruckheimer drops by, let him know I'm available for a Pirates novelization.
(no subject)
From: