There is a card game called 'Magic: The Gathering' which has been around since 1991. I myself have over 1,000 of these cards, and the game itself is great. Don't think, however, that it's a kid's game; the average player is between 20 and 30 years old, and the complexity of the game generally keeps people under 16 or so from being able to understand, and thus play, the game.

The problem is the source for the storylines that the cards and sets are based off of.

Every set of cards is based on a fantasy world, which is fine. Sometimes the world changes, within the whole 'planes of reality' idea, making it possible for characters to travel between worlds by traveling between the planes. This concept also allows the worlds to have a feasible reason for having similar rules of magic (where spellcasters get their power, how that power is structured, etc.).

Each set has a trilogy of books associated with it. These books give insight into the fantasy worlds, and some are incredibly well-written. By some, however, I mean the books pertaining to the older sets.

I tried to read a trilogy for one of the newer sets (I can't remember which one), and I couldn't even get more than 5 chapters into the thing - I had counted well over 200 grammatical errors, punctuation errors, storyline inconsistencies, and other such things that should make the publisher kick the author to the curb.

Thus, if you want to get published, it seems to me that all you would need to do is contact the people making this card game with a set of books that adheres, however slightly, to the structure of magic and such of the game and its concept. The quality of the books, in my experience, is no longer a factor.

As an example, D&D is owned by Wizards of the Coast and only a very few authors are allowed to write novels for their persistent worlds, Salvatore being among the best known as well as Hickman, of course. They don't even take submissions or queries for those.

However, it wouldn't hurt to check and see who owns the rights if you want to give it a try.

Edit: Hah. That's funny. It looks to me like WotC also owns 'Magic: The Gathering'

That is one of the most competitive markets in spec fiction.

Here is a quote directly from their submission page http://ww2.wizards.com/books/Wizards/default.aspx?doc=WriterResources :

quote:

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Book Department Writer's Guidelines
Thank you for your interest in publishing with Wizards of the Coast, Inc. We do not accept unsolicited submissions for our shared-world fiction lines: Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Eberron, and Magic: The Gathering.

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They do have other imprints which have open submissions AT TIMES. I haven't read any WotC novels recently, although I know someone who had a sale to one of their other imprints. I suppose any imprint can mess up. I've never heard whether they do more often than most.

Here is another quote from WotC for their imprints OTHER than their persistent worlds:

quote:

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Submissions Are Now Open

Submissions are accepted annually between the dates of September 1st and February 1st. Any submissions received outside of that timeframe will not be read.

This is not a contest! It is a call for proposals from professional authors and aspiring professional authors.

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They are (and can easily afford to be) highly picky.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 23, 2007).]

Apparently the editing and publishing is now done by people who know how to create games, but who may not know much about editing.