Tim Hildebrandt Dies

Tim Hildebrandt, one half of the identical twins known as the Brothers Hildebrandt, died on June 11 due to complications from diabetes. I never knew Tim (or his brother Greg), but I loved their artwork from an early age. Their renditions of Tolkien’s words brought Middle-earth to life for me as a kid, and they defined fantasy artwork in my mind. As a writer, I can only hope I can craft stories half as vivid as the images, Tim and Greg created together.

Comic-Con Panelists?

Comic-Con has asked me to put together a panel of game industry professionals for the show. The panel will run from 11—12 on Saturday, July 22. If you qualify to be on such a panel, will be there, and have the time free, please use the link in the sidebar to drop me an e-mail.

If you’ll be at the show but can’t be on the panel for one reason or the other, please be sure to stop by and chat with us. I’m looking forward to having a great time.

Knights No More

This morning, Nina Hess, my editor on the Knights of the Silver Dragon line, gave me a call. That should have been my first clue something was wrong. You see, in this age of the internet, I’d yet to speak with Nina even once. If she’d picked up the phone to talk with me, something had to be up.

In her kind way, Nina told me that, while Secret of the Spiritkeeper had sold well, the Knights line as a whole hadn’t kept up with Wizards’ hopes. The editorial team had made the hard decision to cancel the series.

Now, I’d known for a while that the line would come to an end–just not this soon. Not too long ago, Nina had commissioned two more novels in the series from me, which were slated to be books #17 and #20. The 20th book was meant to be the series’ capstone.

However, Wizards took a look at the numbers and decided that it would be better to end the series now. Book #14, The Dragons Revealed, will now be the final book. Look for it on shelves this August.

I don’t hold any ill will against Wizards for this decision. I’ve been a publisher myself, and publishing is a business. You have limited resources, and if you find that something isn’t generating the money it must, then you have to cut it loose.

Also, since I’ve only had one book in the series published to date, I can’t take it too personally. In fact, I’ve been going back and forth with Nina on a proposal for a whole new series, and with luck you’ll hear something good about that soon. She’s been wonderful in every interaction I’ve had with her, and I’m looking forward to working with her again.

In a way, it’s fitting that the line end with The Prophecy of the Dragons and The Dragons Revealed. The two-book story offers a huge shakeup to the setting and resolves a number of dangling plot lines, while still offering the hope of future adventures. That’s pretty much how I’d intended to end the series, albeit a bit later. Still, it should ring true.

So, no pity for me. Just go out there and pick up those last two books when they come out. Prophecy is due out June 13–this Tuesday–and Dragons hits stores August 8, the Wednesday after my birthday. And let me know what you think.

The Art of the Pitch

Over on his blog, Lucien Soulban asks about novel pitches and submissions, “How do you approach submissions and is rejection our constant companion?”

Among the other excellent answers, I replied:

It’s always a crapshoot. Not only do you have to have a great idea, but it has to be one that catches the editor’s attention, hasn’t been done before (or isn’t in production), doesn’t conflict with anything else, and seems fresh and original while firmly grounded in what’s gone before. It’s a tall order and nearly impossible to get right.

When I get asked to pitch something, I like to come up with anywhere from three to ten ideas and write an elevator pitch for each of them. None of these are longer than three paragraphs, and they each usually incorporate a high-concept zinger that attempts to reduce the idea to its base elements.

I’m lucky if the editor likes one of them. When an editor asks for more about a pitch, though, I counter by asking exactly what they’d like to see. It seems like everyone’s different, and I don’t want to waste their time or mine by giving them anything that deviates too far from what they’re most comfortable with in terms of content, format, and so on. Most times, the editors are only too happy to guide me in the right direction.

Celebrity Gamers

I’m amassing a list of celebrity gamers–that is, famous people who play tabletop games. Games Quarterly Magazine has asked me to interview such personages for their pages, and I’d like to know just how large my potential pool of interview targets happens to be.

See after the break for a full list of what I’ve come up with so far. Names with asterisks after them are ones I’m pretty sure I can confirm. If you know of any others or can give better details about the ones I have, I’d appreciate it.

The next question, of course, is who on the list would you most like to see interviewed?
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Comic-Con

I just made my reservations for Comic-Con International. It’ll be a quick trip for me. Although the con runs from Wednesday through Sunday, I’m in on Thursday morning and back out on Saturday night.

While I’m there, I’ll be on a panel or two and sit in at a book signing. If you’ll be there, be sure to drop on by and say hi!

Thrudbowl 2006

On July 22 & 23, if you’re anywhere near Bognor Regis (on the south coast of England) and love Blood Bowl, be sure to head to the Bognor Regis Community College (Upper School) for Thrudbowl! This is a Blood Bowl tournament featuring Carl Critchlow‘s Thrud the Barbarian, complete with Carl’s blessing. With luck, they’ll have some autographed copies of my Blood Bowl novels there to hand out as prizes, along with all sorts of other stuff.

All profits from the tournament are to be donated to breast cancer research. So, get out there and play dirty for a good cause!