Requesting input on fan fiction/novel

[Havelocke]

Hello Playgrounders, I have a question for whoever is so interested in reading this. I have a concept in my head for a series of novels based on a campaign for D&D I have had for about two decades now. I was curious to know if anyone had input on how I could:

1) get something like that published.
2) in said publishing, would I get crushed by the "Wizards who own all"?
3) is there any possibility of making anything in the way of profit should I succeed in said venture?

Has anyone attempted to do this before? If so have you been successful with any of the points above? Thank you for your interest in this thread in advance. :smallsmile:

[Duck999]

I don't know about being crushed by Wizards, but I know books can be published online. They would not be advertised as well, and may not sell as well as if they were published by a larger books company, but there are publishers online like createspace (https://www.createspace.com).

I don't know if anyone can help you with being crushed by Wizards, since that may fall under Legal Advice, which I believe is not allowed on this forum.

[Havelocke]

Thank you Duck, I agree that things of a "law" nature are not allowed so I won't go there. I appreciate the direction to go through an online publisher though. I have a co-worker who has successfully created (and published) a pair of children's books, however she is not sure about using copyrighted material. I was not sure if I can use the specific pantheon or location names, or should I just make something up entirely. It appears that an Orc is an Orc, no infringement on LoTR, D&D, Battlehammer (changed name for them due to being "crushed" by big name company, i'm kinda nervous about that, allergic to lawsuits and all that.) :smallwink:

[Zmeoaice]

Just change the names of Gods, species, spells, and locations that are specifically from the game and I think you're fine. Plus originality is a good thing to have regardless.

If anyone is willing to go in more depth, they can request for you to PM them.

[Artman77]

I've heard Amazon Kindle will now publish your work digitally for free. I haven't checked, but with essentially zero overhead, risk vs reward is probably high enough to do that. They give you a royalty from the sales you get through their site.

For example... This is how the Fifty Shades of Gray series got started. The author wrote some Twilight fan-fiction, people said "hey these stories are good, I like them" and she changed all the names and published through Amazon. Bing-bang-boom: She's a millionaire.

[Kianlon]

I know there's tons of Warhammer 40k novels out there and a quick google search reveals that people have written Dungeons & Dragons novels (the first being written in 1978). So you should be fine.

[Havelocke]

Thank you both. Artman, I didn't know Kindle did that, that is wonderful! I know GW has a LOT of different authors working for them, but they are rather heavy handed with there IP as well, many other web comics were crushed by GW because of that. I may pursue that Kindle approach though, fingers crossed!