A&A Official Star Wars Publishing Q&A thread

Thanks @DarthInternous you're a gem.

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So just a little house keeping announcement friends. Not sure what prompted it, but I received a bunch of messages (here and in other places) with story pitches, links to fan fic, etc. in a very short order. Just wanted to remind people that I can't read that stuff. Can't open it, can't even really peek at the titles. It could get me in trouble, and the publisher too.

No big worry, it happens from time to time, but have seen a big uptick lately. Who knows why. Just wanted to give anyone who didn't know a heads up.

Thanks!

 

Getting a bunch of ideas to create stories that you cannot look at?

Sounds like a good idea for a book.

 

@DarthInternous, what was the first Star Wars title you got to work on?

 

@JABoomer

If we're counting my time as an intern back in the day: I think the Essential Reader's Companion is first. Or maybe Scroundrels/Mercy Kill/Crucible. They were all kind of going on simultaneously, but I'm gonna say the ERC.

If we are talking full time - Lords of the Sith. A New Dawn/Tarkin/Heir to the Jedi were are basically done by the time I started as an assistant, so LOtS was my first big contribution.

 

@JABoomer

Just checking there wasn't a specific follow-up to that query? Just want to make sure I didn't miss something.

 

Nope! I was actually just curious, and wanted to know what time-frame you would have "insider" information on the novels.

An unrelated question. I don't recall Legends having young-reader and young-adult novels. The children' books by Bantom weren't categorized as novels. Because
Disney–Lucasfilm Press is now competing with Del Rey with their own Star Wars novels, do you guys share notes on stories, is there a friendly competition, or do you have no contact with the other group?

 

Ah, okay. I have plenty of info on stuff previous to that, from all the notes that I inherited/found when I started working.

They were definitely YA novels, but publishing at the time simply didn't categorize them like that back then. I wouldn't really use the term "compete" since the success of Star Wars as a whole is good for everyone participating on the publishing side (fiction/non-fiction/comics/etc). And individual publishing successes, again have positive ramifications for everyone else. Notes and things definitely get shared and we're all aware of what everyone else is doing. We collaborate in ways large and small depending on the projects. Plus you see us sharing authors, which means we each get to have a hand in finding/cultivating writing talent which is also great.

 

Is Master and Apprentice the next Del Rey release after the Solo Novelization? Or will there be something in between. September to February is a long time.

 

I would hope for some sort of Star Wars: Resistance tie-in novel to squeeze in there but I'm not sure. We've heard next to nothing about the show. Maybe we will get lucky and they'll announce a novel once they start sharing more about the show. The timing would be perfect. Probably just wishful thinking though.

 

Interesting thing about Resistance is that it was announced recently and it's airing in a few months. Rebels was announced in May 2013 and didn't begin airing until October 2014. In between that time, A New Dawn was announced in April 2014, 11 months after the Rebels announcement, and came out in September 2014, a month before the show. The timeline with Resistance makes shoving a book in there a little trickier.

 

@ImperialEwok - Unfortunately, that is one of the types of questions that I cannot answer here. It neither my responsibility nor my right to be making book announcements (even in oblique terms).

(I realize that the above sentence could easily be construed as some sort of *wink wink* confirmation. That's not what I'm trying to do, merely explain.)

What I CAN tell you is that we are indeed working on projects that have not been made public. When/how you will learn about those, I could not say.

 

I'm shocked we didn't get anything about Resistance at SDCC. As far as a tie-in novel goes, I think it's possible. They definitely wouldn't announce it before any there was a single shred of info about the show. And I wouldn't look at it as "shoving" a book in there. If it were to happen, it would have been planned out for a long time. I remember not long ago before Last Shot was announced, people were worried about a noticeable gap in the Del Rey publishing schedule. It was then announced and subsequently released in a short window of time. Just speculation though.

 

Bsmith brings up a good point. Things are often in the works for a long time before they are announced/released. LAST SHOT was in the works for a long time, even though publically it wasn't revealed until just a few months before release.

 

When did you start planning Last Shot? I'm curious how long projects are planned before announcement. How does that process work?

 

Some projects are in development for a really long time. Over a year, maybe even years. Other projects will come together in much less time, under a year. That's not really standard for publishing in general, but licensed publishing moves quicker sometimes. It's one of the reasons you'll often hear "being fast" as a quality desired in potential SW authors.

As for the process overall, some of it is based on timing to a specific event (movie release, tv premiere, game), and other times it's a more general task of scheduling out projects so there is space for them, and production/development time for them compared to other books. You can only work on so many books at once and you don't want to try and manage 3+ manuscripts simultaneously (but, of course, that happens from time to time and we do).

As for the specific projects, I'm not really going to get into that. Last Shot was one of the books in development for a longer time though.

 

Edit: deleted

 

Dude, this is the thread where you can talk directly to the people at Del Rey, and they're telling you they save announcements for specific times. Don't be rude.

 

You're right. I deleted it. Wasn't my intention.

 

That's interesting and really cool! Thanks for the reply!

Also, all of you gave been doing great with the books. I can't wait to keep reading and finding out your next plan. Thanks for the hard work you do.

 

Will initial release paperback Star Wars Del Ray novels ever be a thing again?

 

Leaking books is bad. Don't do it. Don't try to do it. Don't help people do it. Leaking books means you don't care about there being more books in the future. Full stop.If we don't announce a book it isn't because we are being cute, or holding back something from you. Everything we do has an intention behind it.

 

*Del Rey (it's okay, everyone screws that up. Also autocorrect sucks sometimes)*

I can't see the future, so there's always a chance for new paperback original releases, but my guess is probably not. But, we always explore new formats and things to try so perhaps we will. Or maybe we'll try more things with ebooks again or short fiction or I don't know what. We're always having meetings to talk about exactly that kind of thing. So stay tuned.

 

Again, my apologies. Just got a little excited speculating and overstepped. I do care deeply about there being more books! In fact I can't wait to get home and start reading Thrawn: Alliances.

 

I know, I know, focus group of *One*

However, if you guys ever did release Day One Paperbacks or e-book only stories, I hope that there would eventually be a plan to release a Hardcover or a collection of shorts in a Hardcover as I am not sure I would purchase the paperback (maybe the e-book).

I really love the consistency of seeing the hardcovers on my shelf, and even though it is a “special release” the FACPOV being a different size does irk me somewhat. I still bought it, but I wasn’t as happy about it.

Still waiting on Mercy Mission, Bottleneck, The Levers of Power, and The Perfect Weapon to some day join my self. I know that it probably won’t be happening. Eventually, I’ll probably pick up a copy to read from the library on the short stories.


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