# co-authoring: how does it work when you want to publish?



## InnerFlame00 (Jan 11, 2015)

So my friend and I collaborated on world building for one of my books, and we came up with ideas for several books that we want to write within this world. However she isn't writing any more, and most likely won't be writing again any time soon (if ever).

What we wanted to do was something like co-authoring, where I write some books in the series, she writes others, and we help each other edit. But will that make it impossible to sell any of my books to a publisher? I absolutely do not want to self-publish, but it's pretty much a certainty that I could write upwards of three books in this series while she may get none done. Despite this she still would like the chance to write some later within this universe.

She and I agreed that if we have to we will just make our worlds different enough to not be the same one and publish separately, but we'd like to keep it all in the same universe.


----------



## TJ1985 (Jan 12, 2015)

Could you do a byline that is, for the book you wrote, "by InnerFlame00" and "with InnerFlameFriend00" in smaller text? Reversing this when your collaborator writes a book to  "by InnerFlameFriend00 with InnerFlame00". 

William W. Johnstone wrote many novels in the spaghetti western genre and upon his death his family selected another writer (his assistant and understudy) to carry on the novels in the same style. Each carry a byline of "William W. Johnstone" in large font with "and J.A. Johnstone" in smaller font below. This is the nearest comparable situation that I have seen in published work. 

TJ.


----------



## InnerFlame00 (Jan 12, 2015)

Wow 200 views and only one response. Is this more complicated than I thought? lol


----------



## popsprocket (Jan 13, 2015)

The short answer is that it's not a simple thing to sort out.

Technically speaking, if you developed this world together, but you are the sole author of any given book, you would hold the copyright because it was you that created the copyrightable expression of the idea. That's about as simple as I can make it. Should your friend ever decide to pick up the pen again and publishes something she'll have problems if you were first to market.

As with any and all other things, I'm sure that a publisher would be willing to accommodate a collaborative work that was good and had potential to sell. So long as all parties to the collaboration sign on the dotted line it's fairly simple. 

In your situation you probably need to go into it as collaborative partners who have signed a contract with one another right from the start. Both your names go on the books and you can work out who gets what money with a publisher.

Write your books and if it ever comes time to query, sign a contract with your friend that says you intended to share the work equally from the start.


----------



## Caragula (Jan 13, 2015)

I started reading Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon, and in a prologue, not sure if particular to that paperback edition, he talked of having collaborated deeply on world building with a friend, ostensibly for their roleplaying, before he ended up writing this series of books using all that info.

I don't know if his website or other googling might throw up some info on how he managed it?


----------

