Doing their novel cover for would be a real step up in terms of prestige for Elmore. It is worth noting that to the artists working in Lake Geneva, painting fantasy covers for the New York publishing houses was seen as the big time. Could they get him the job of painting the cover of the first novel? When artist Larry Elmore heard that Weis and Hickman would be departing to write fantasy novels for Bantam, he wanted a piece of the action. Success at TSR meant that Weis and Hickman could leave TSR. Bantam was offering them more than their annual salary per novel. The capitalist calculus of it all was brutal and swift. She called Tracy Hickman to tell him the good news, and that was when they decided to leave the company. The company was paying her like a freight handler or entry level graphic designer. That’s for each book.”Īt the time, Weis said that even though she was a bestselling author whose work had helped keep the company afloat during troubled times, she wasn’t making $30,000 a year. She said, “We’d been getting a pittance from TSR” for the novels they’d been writing so $30,000 for the trilogy seemed like a great deal of money.Įnthused, Weis said to Puechner, “$30,000 for three books!”Īnd Puechner said, “No no no. “And they’re going to offer you $30,000.” (That’s almost $75,000 in today’s dollars.) Puechner said, “And they want the whole trilogy.” A few weeks passed, and the pair’s agent, Ray Puechner, called Weis to say that Bantam wanted to make an offer. Weis and Hickman then took the Darksword Trilogy to Bantam Books. The books would tell the story of a man born into a world where everyone has magical powers, but he was born without them. Weis and Hickman proposed another book series, entitled the Darksword Trilogy.
All the while spending money on wasteful projects such as remodeling offices and promoting self-interests (such as Buck Rogers).” Weis said, “I never really interacted a whole lot with Lorraine, but when I did, I really didn’t like it.”įurthermore, TSR was simply not paying Margaret Weis what she was worth.
#Dragon spring a bit block m in bantam how to#
After he was ousted, management seemed to care only about making money, though without any real idea of how to do it. She said, “The creative spirit in the company seemed to die when Gary was gone. She clearly felt that Williams took the company in the wrong direction. When I asked Weis why she left, she immediately spoke of Lorraine Williams. The company had a vested financial interest in keeping Weis right where she was, producing Dragonlance novels. And why couldn’t the company convince her to remain? It had discovered her, groomed her, and marketed her as an author for years. Why did Weis want to leave? Her work at the company transformed her from a book editor to a New York Times-bestselling author. Margaret Weis said that the success of Dragonlance, “changed my life,” because it allowed her to leave TSR. It was a fate that would also befall Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It happened to Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. So New York Times-bestselling authors and pioneering game designers would be discovered, nurtured, and then allowed to leave the company. Once these worlds were created, management's attitude seemed to be that these great minds could be replaced with cheaper labor.
Yet it was less than careful about retaining them. It went to great lengths to find creative souls to employ. The company knew it needed brilliant minds to do this work. TSR was a company that discovered geniuses, and paid them to create worlds for the rest of us to live in.
0 kommentar(er)
