guywithviews
New member
I have an idea for a series of books done in a particular genre(I'm going to have to be really vague here). I can control and hold onto the rights for the particular "world" that the series is housed in, however the actual style of the book is not seen on shelves in the age group for which it is targeted and will be an easy idea for the publisher to spin off and create, rather than a series, and entire franchise will dilute my market share. Is there a way of protecting the idea for the franchise as well as the individual series.
For example...
Supposing no-one had ever written formulaic romance novels before (think Mills and Boon) and you took a romance novel to a publisher. They published your series of novels but then spun off an entire franchise of formula driven romance novels thereby diluting your presence in that market segment. Is there any way of holding onto the franchise rights before allowing them to do that.
A good example of this would be the "Fighting Fantasy" series in the 1980's. Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson held onto the franchise rights and effectively contained the ability of the publisher to dilute their market share in the way that the "Dragonlance" and "Forgotten Realms" franchises diluted the authors presence in those series, so the publisher reaped all the benefit and left the authors out in the cold.
Are there any other forums where i might get a more industry specific answer to this question?
Thanks
For example...
Supposing no-one had ever written formulaic romance novels before (think Mills and Boon) and you took a romance novel to a publisher. They published your series of novels but then spun off an entire franchise of formula driven romance novels thereby diluting your presence in that market segment. Is there any way of holding onto the franchise rights before allowing them to do that.
A good example of this would be the "Fighting Fantasy" series in the 1980's. Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson held onto the franchise rights and effectively contained the ability of the publisher to dilute their market share in the way that the "Dragonlance" and "Forgotten Realms" franchises diluted the authors presence in those series, so the publisher reaped all the benefit and left the authors out in the cold.
Are there any other forums where i might get a more industry specific answer to this question?
Thanks