Author Delilah S. Dawson Outlines How Writing For IPs Like Star Wars Or Star Trek Fails To Pay And Is, In Essence, A Publishing Scam

One of the biggest traps for authors in science fiction and fantasy publishing is I.P. tie-in work. The system is designed to use and spit out authors without them having much to show for their hard work, and now Star Wars author Delilah S. Dawson has posted an expose on how little reward there is for the work for hire in publishing.

A large corner of the sci-fi and fantasy publishing industry is I.P. tie-in work. You may have seen original books such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Warhammer 40,000, Battletech, and more, adaptations, additional stories, and sometimes original characters taking place in these company-controlled settings.

An author comes in as a work-for-hire on these properties. He or she is usually a wide-eyed fan who wants to be published or start a career in hopes that writing for the I.P. will garner him or her a following, which most of the time never happens. Readers of I.P.s read just for the fandom of that property itself, and most of them view the writers as interchangeable. They only follow authors to their independent work in rare circumstances.

Delilah S. Dawson has written for Star Wars for some time and posted to BlueSky, showing how tough it is.

When someone asked, “Is writing IP books worth it?” she posted,

Okay, a thread on writing IP! That means intellectual property, and it's writing in someone else's world. First of all, here's a thread I wrote on how to go about getting IP jobs: www.whimsydark.com/blog/2020/8/... But to answer the questions posted here...

1. The amount of freedom in writing for a particular IP depends on the franchise holder. An active IP with tight lore will generally have less freedom, while something older often has more. There's plenty of freedom in the storytelling, but the characters + worldbuilding can't deviate from the lore.

2. In my experience, Star Wars, Firefly, D&D, and Disney are very particular with their lore, as they should be! I had more freedom with Minecraft, The X-Files, Adventure Time, Rick & Morty, and starting a new era of Spider-Man with Miles and Gwen.

3. The pay depends on the IP + how vicious your agent is, plus how established you are. Writing IP is a very specific niche. Not all writers will enjoy it/are cut out for it. You have to be able to write 120k words in about 45 days and then be cool about major edits--and turn them around in a week.

4. That's why writing IP isn't based on who loves the franchise more-- it's who loves it, understands it, and can fit its voice and style while working extremely quickly. And then you have to have a tough skin, because it's gonna big a big edit letter and 7 people in the comments, correcting you.

5. The biggest intangible benefit is getting to contribute to a world you truly love. The first time I named a planet in Star Wars, I got very emotional. You get to contribute to lore, connect with other fans, and maybe even impress your kids/family, always a rare treat. It's a dream job!

6. One thing to be aware of in IP is that some IP work does not come with royalties. Meaning, if you sell 1,000,000 copies, you won't see a dollar more than your original fee. You're a contract worker. They could make a shot-for-shot movie of Phasma, and I would get $0. Read your contracts!

7. But! You get a lot of exposure to new readers. If you're writing for a bigger franchise, you might hit the NYT list, which is a title you can keep forever. There may be more chances to travel-- to comicons, book festivals, or franchise-related sites. I was at the Galaxy's Edge openings at Disney!

Even though couched optimistically, the points she outlines present a warning to writers looking to do I.P. work. She focuses on “intangible benefits” rather than being profitable for a career.

While it is nice to get invitations to conventions to speak, work in a world you love, and get exposure, that doesn’t pay the bills for authors.

Most authors of a tie-in fiction get an advance on royalties from anywhere from $500 to $10,000 depending on their experience and the I.P. Some I.P.s do not pay advances at all, letting an author sink or swim based on what they bring for sales.

However, for an author writing an 80,000 to 160,000-word manuscript, this often can be three to six months’ worth of work for such a fee, making the advance amounts impossible to live on in the United States.

It gets worse, according to Star Trek author Greg Cox, who discussed how royalty splits work on a Star Trek message board. He posted, “It should be noted that the reason authors get smaller royalties on tie-in books than on original novels is because the publisher also has to pay royalties to the licensor, which means any royalties get split between the author and the copyright holder. Same slice of the pie, but cut into smaller slices to serve more people.”

“For example: Let's say a publisher is offering a 8% percent royalty on paperback copies. On an original novel, the author would get the whole 8% (provided the book earned out), but on a tie-in novel that 8% would be divided between the author and the licensor--with the licensor typically getting the lion's share because it's their characters and universe after all. So the writer might get 2% and the licensor would get 6%, adding up to the same 8%.”

With most e-books (where the majority of sales are generated) posted at around $9.99 for IP properties from traditional publishers, an author earns only a royalty of twenty cents per book sold under such a contract.

For an author to earn a small yet standard advance of $2,000 to start earning royalties, one would have to sell at least 10,000 books under such conditions, which in the case of any I.P. smaller than Star Wars, is very unlikely to occur. It confirms, as Delilah S. Dawson said that it’s more about exposure and love of working with the I.P. than the actual payment.

Christopher L. Bennett, another Star Trek author, pointed out they rarely get later royalties, saying, “^Well, as we've been saying, the bulk of our income is from advances, not later royalties.”

In most professional industries, this model would be considered a scam situation. Because IPs are so popular, these publishers can get hordes of people submitting work aspiring to become creators, essentially abusing the fandom for their own profit.

Christopher L. Bennett has found that writing Star Trek doesn’t appeal to many fans either. -Despite being a beloved, long-time author, his fiction Patreon has only 35 members.

One can also see how his Star Trek readers don’t translate to his original fiction by looking at the number of reviews the books have on Amazon. While the Star Trek novels Bennett releases garner around 500 reviews, his highest-reviewed original novel only has forty-two reviews as of this writing. Most of his original books have under ten.

While reviews don’t directly translate to sales numbers, they are a good indicator of how many fans are coming in and reading by comparison. And Bennett is not the only one with this problem.

Authors rarely transcend their I.P. fiction to become popular in their own rights. Only a handful actually garner their own followings, like Timothy Zahn, who still sells far less of his original work than his acclaimed work on Star Wars’ Thrawn.

Moreover, companies sometimes fail to pay out royalties due, which makes the prospect even worse. Alan Dean Foster sued Disney over its failure to pay out royalties over Star Wars.

Smaller companies like Topps Inc. also fail at this level. Blaine Pardoe is currently suing to get paid for contracts on his Battletech fiction.

Returning to the original question, “Is writing IP books worth it?”

From the standpoint of becoming a professional author or getting paid for your work, the answer has to be an unequivocal “no.” The only benefit it seems to have is clout within an IP’s fandom, which illustrates that this whole publishing system takes advantage of eager, aspiring authors.

What do you think of IP fiction like Star Wars or Star Trek and how companies fail to pay for the work? Leave a comment and let us know.

For a great alternative science fiction story with thriller action, read The Stars Entwined on Amazon!

NEXT: Baen Books Author Larry Correia Trashes AI Fiction Writing As "Vapid, Souless S***"