So I have a bit of a quandry.
I’m in the process of novelizing (and finishing) my epic space opera Twin Stars. Twin Stars was my attempt to do an massive space adventure story in Audio Drama format, and I produced two seasons of it for a total of 20 episodes of full cast science fiction adventure. Thanks to my actors and some dedicated fans, Twin Stars was nominated for a Parsec Award, and my podcast has had over 250,000 downloads- the bulk of them people listening to Twin Stars.
I ended up stopping the show after two (of the planned five) seasons for personal and professional reasons, but the show stops at a natural breakpoint that isn’t the end, but could be called “the end of the beginning”. I want to finish it, but it will be in novel form, and that’s what I’ve been working on.
So now the question- should I bother to even try to market it to a traditional publisher? Or should I just go directly to the self-publishing e-book route? Or, should I try something in between like a small press publisher?
My concern with doing the traditional publisher route is that I’m not sure any of them will touch it because of the audio drama. They seem to be pretty skittish about works with a history, especially one which involves new media, and technically two fifths of the story is already available for free. (Although the novelization does expand on the audio drama quite a bit, and could be considered the proper version of the story while the audio drama was the rough.) I think this would make it a tough sell, and possibly waste time that could be better served doing the eBook route.
Of course, then there’s the smaller press publishers, who might take an interest in it and help it along quite a bit. Hmmm…Still working on the first novel right now, but these are the thoughts that are bouncing around in my head as I work.
Rob
