How do I get my book 'A nightmare on Elm Street: The prequel' published ?

Question

Hi everyone, I'm 17 (turning 18 this year), want to be a part-time horror writer in the future. I have written my very first novel during the summer of 2012, 'A nightmare on Elm Street: The prequel' which is a prequel to the 2010 remake MOVIE, 'A nightmare on Elm Street.' I'm currently still updating my novel to make it as better and scary as possible and when I'm done I would like to publish it.... but the problem is, I joined a horror writers association on FB, I told them about this book I've written. They told me I have done a good job in being creative and attempting to make a prequel to the actual movie, but the thing is that they are saying if I'm planning on trying to publish a book based on licensed characters, I'll need to secure permission from whomever holds copyright. As its sure that the characters from NOES are copyrighted, and I could get into a lot of trouble legally by publishing without their permission. My questions is, to whom am I supposed to send (like should I send it to the people who made the movie?)with a hope that they will be impressed with my work and granting permission for the publishing of my book. I really want to know, thanks. :)

Answer 1

Wes Craven holds the copyright. Without his permission, you can't publish.

Answer 2

You can't. They will not give you permission. Tie-in novels are always commissioned from established authors and as it happened the owners of the NOES franchise have already commissioned such novels and released them ages ago (see below), so even if there was any chance of them giving a 17 year old unknown writer permission to write a book, they already have a contract with somebody else.

What you wrote is a fanfiction. You can publish it on fanfiction.net on a purely non-profit basis.





EDIT: also I'm not sure if ricktechguy misspoke or is grossly misinformed, but almost none of his information is correct. You need to be very careful to take anybody's word. Always do a lot of research before considering publishing (Absolute Write below is a good place to start)

- Changing the title won't be enough to make sure you can't get accused of copyright infringement. With movie studios you have to be even more careful. The second you mentioned the knives on his hand, the hat and the green and red striped sweater, they'll know you're talking about Freddy even if you call him Mark and they'll sue. You'd have to change a lot more than just the title and names for it to be a stand alone novel.

- While ebook is the least costly self-publishing option, it is not the least costly publishing option. Rsearch publishing options thoroughly. There's three main ones: self-publishing where you get your books printed and do the rest of the work yourself, Vanity presses who print them, do a few extra services for outrageous prices and then pretty much abandon you to market them yourself and commercial publishing. The first two are non-selective. They accept anybody who pays to have their book printed but the chances you'll actually sell a lot of books are next to zero if you are not a professional business person yourself who is able to deal with marketing and distribution on a large scale. They also do not count as publishing credits with any of the professional writers' guilds - which basically means they won't consider you a real published writer. That's due to the "non-selective" thing. I can have my cat walk over my keyboard, pay them and print my book too. With commercial publishing on the other hand, they pay you. If they accept your book, it's because they have carefully chosen it from a pile of a thousand other manuscripts because they actually believe it will sell.

Answer 3

The characters and situation from NOES are absolutely copyrighted, and there is no way that any of the people associated with this franchise are going to let somebody else write and publish a novel based on their franchise.



The simple fact of the matter is that they have access to plenty of people who could write a novel about this character. If they had an interesting in writing a novel about him, they would find one of these qualified professional novelists. The fact that they haven't had such a book written suggests that they don't have any interest in the costs of publishing and marketing such a book and have no confidence that it would sell.



Keep writing, if you like, and publish this prequel you've written on a Fanfiction site if you like, (nobody will punish you for it), but be aware that there is absolutely NO CHANCE of you ever getting this published professionally.



Sorry.

Answer 4

The easiest way is first ti find out who owns the rights to the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" because I guarantee whoever holds the rights to that will take issue with your work. I suggest renaming it something less obvious like Jason is Born, or something. But either work with the copyright, or make a totally separate storyline.



Now, as far as publishing, you could self publish in ebook format. That is relatively easy and costs the least. You could submit your work to publishing houses. Go to a book store and go to the horror section. Find out who the publishers of horror books are, and contact them.



The first book I wrote I submitted to various publishing houses for over 3 years until I got a response back, but my mother in law's book only took a couple of weeks to get accepted.



Good luck.

Answer 5

You almost certainly can't. What you've written is called fanfiction, and if you go look on a site like www.fanfiction.net you'll find many people, probably hundreds, who've written similar stories to yours.



Movie tie-in novels don't work like original fiction in being written and then sold - they are commissioned from established authors.



I'm afraid the path to publication you are looking for doesn't exist.