Publishing New Gamebooks

[King Gillibran]

Hi I have got a gamebook that is fully developed 400 paragraphs that I would like to see if I could get it in print. it is set in Khul and is called The Sword of Excelisar. Does anyone know who I should ask?

[CharlesX]

Don't * exactly * know but the FF websites may have details or possibly the current publishing company for FF (Scholastic these days). The harder part will be getting an acceptance letter - you'd have the double hurdle of writing something that's of a very high standard (not being a celebrity), and writing for a struggling marketplace. These days J & L and Scholastic probably won't be interested in new works, even if they are the next Slaves Of The Abyss or Siege Of Sardath. In the unlikely event all those things come to pass, you would be paid a paltry amount as Sleepyscholar points out.

   Good luck!

[King Gillibran]

I would not really want to be paid I would just want to see my book in print.

[CharlesX]

You would have to pay several hundred £s to voluntary publish for maybe 10 copies to show to your mates, don't think tha's worth it. My middle-class parents did that with some drossy book my granddad wrote, because it wasn't good enough for mainstream publishers. Thee would be big copyright issues even with very small commercial publishing houses - we've established you're using the FF universe and\or system.

   As commercially publishing it isn't an option, other than giving up (which I think is your best bet here ) you could pay a small fortune to self-publish for under 100 copies. There are dodgy publishing houses out there that charge a thousand for you to publish in the pretence you will eventually make a fortune back 'vanity publishing', they are scams.

   Why don't you give it some good artwork, print it out and stick a black ring-binder around it? That is what I'd do.

[thealmightymudworm]

Sept 30, 2022 6:23:04 GMT King Gillibran said:

Hi I have got a gamebook that is fully developed 400 paragraphs that I would like to see if I could get it in print. it is set in Khul and is called The Sword of Excelisar. Does anyone know who I should ask?

Probably contact all three of Scholastic Books, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. However...

Getting this published as an FF book is going to be very difficult. Getting any publisher to consider a book for publication is difficult – people usually have to employ a literary agent to encourage someone at the publishers to bother reading it. Given that there is no sign that the Steve/Ian/Scholastic are interested in commissioning new unknown authors, that's an even higher bar.

If you really wanted to try that, at the very least get some people like us lot to evaluate it first to make sure it looks utterly brilliant just in case it comes under serious consideration. You may assume that the quality control process would be much harsher than it would be for Messrs Livingstone, Jackson, Higson etc.

Publishing as an FF book is probably a pipe dream TBH. Once you've exhausted that route, there is probably a significantly better chance of getting it published with locations, stats etc altered to avoid copyright issues. That's been done successfully by some. You would have a somewhat better chance with a publisher but certainly in terms of getting something crowdfunded on Kickstarter or Unbound. There would be people who could advise on that, a couple of whom post on here.

[The Editor (Alex B)]

Sept 30, 2022 6:23:04 GMT King Gillibran said:

Hi I have got a gamebook that is fully developed 400 paragraphs that I would like to see if I could get it in print. it is set in Khul and is called The Sword of Excelisar. Does anyone know who I should ask?

Unfortunately FF is a closed shop - meaning you can't submit material for print for it. Scholastic seem to be relying on SJ& IL plus high profile people who've already written elsewhere (Higson, Pratchett) only (although I note Jon Green has a "with" credit on Salamonis).

If you send something to Scholastic all you will get in return is a polite letter telling you that they are not accepting submissions for the FF range.

[The Editor (Alex B)]

Sept 30, 2022 11:52:34 GMT King Gillibran said:

I would not really want to be paid I would just want to see my book in print.

Even if you don't want to be paid, if you attempted to sell copies (even at a price where you just covered print & postage) you would be breaching the copyright held by Scholastic, Ian & Steve.

[kieran]

Could you remove the FF-related content and then self publish?

[tyrion]

I'm in the same position as you. You're not going to make any money, but you can submit it here or on the Facebook group.

[King Gillibran]

I think my best option is too do some editing and show it on this site to see if fans even think it worth a try. Hope it will be okay.
Or I could send it to Steve or Ian and credit it to them like Legend of Zagor.

[paperexplorer]

Just a note on self publishing, it actually isn't as expensive as made out above unless you hire editors and illustrators or pay for typesetting software.

You can self publish a book through amazon.com at no cost. You won't pay for publishing because it's a print on demand service, so it's only printed when someone orders a copy.

But as other have said, clear any reference to FF world, rules etc so as not to infringe any copyrights