I recently read an article by a long time novelist.  He believes that the novel is slowly dying, and that most writers now collaborate and are going to New York to write for television or Hollywood to write for movies as those markets are where the money is.

That's probably not what you want to hear, but it may be the reality.  Teams are pretty much now the norm for virtually all tasks, regardless of industry or service.

Best of luck!

That's probably going to be the trend for some genres of traditionally published novels, but self-publishing will take up the slack.  To some extent it already is.

I just requested to join the group. Beta reading is a great idea and didn't do any of that on my first, just wanted to get it published. I read it and just think WTH at some points!

I'm already researching a second. I tried a fictional piece, but lost creative input. I may work on it here and there, I don't think it will ever go to novel status, but a short story may be the result of it.

I know a number of science fiction authors, some have managed to get some of their work optioned for tv, anime, or movies, but they're still making their main money off of novels.  Collaborations are done when they want to boost a new author, when the authors work really well together, or when one author REALLY wants to play in another author's universe (most of the authors in John Ringo's Black Tide Rising anthology were asked to participate, but several asked if they could be included and weren't originally considered).  Note that at a certain point, a lot of major authors have at least met each other, if they go to conventions.  Or at least they'll know the ones from their region (I typically only do the southeastern conventions, my northern limit has been Roanoke, VA, but that particular convention is dead now).  At minimum, they'll know someone in common, so if they want to work with another author, they can make a phone call to be introduced, if they can't directly call the other one (at least when you get to the major authors you're likely to see with multiple books on the shelves at a bookstore).  Most big authors read at least SOME of what other authors are writing, to refresh their own creative energies.  But it can get amusing when two different authors find themselves approaching the same basic concept at the same time, from different directions and completely independently.  I was there when S.M. Stirling and John Ringo realized they were both working on very similar stories (S.M. Stirling's _Dies the Fire_ series and John Ringo's _There Will Be Dragons_/Council Wars series), they were at a convention talking about their latest projects and then laughed when they realized how close their basic premises were, even though the execution was markedly different between them.  



Is there a move to look at more interactive books?  Certainly.  But production time for interactive media is still a lot slower than for print media, and requires a lot more resources.  As for movies/games/tv shows, only a very small percentage of novels get optioned, I know authors will millions of books in print, including foreign editions, who have never had a book optioned (they'd love to, it's pretty much free money if you've already written it).   I know other authors who have tried to do it, and the efforts have collapsed for various reasons (such as an anime studio closing down).



 

Guys, are these iStock images usable on Amazon KDP as covers?  I assume so since they are royalty free, but curious if you have used them?

I've bought iStock images and used them for covers.

Here is a Facebook page that offers pre-made covers and they also offer non pre-made covers.

Galaxy Seven Design check them out and give them a like and a shout.