J.K. Rowling turns 43 today. That not only seems impossible, but also kind of unfair. She published Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 1997, which means that she was only 33 when she reaped her first big success. The UK’s Sunday Times Rich List now estimates her fortune at $1.1 billion, with many more marketing/movie tie-ins to come.
So in the interest of keeping up with the Rowlings (as opposed to that heinoustry of a family and their not-hot mess of a show, Keeping up with the Kardashians), let’s hear your ideas for a mega-selling book series. Wizards, vampires, and werewolves are doing brisk business of late; how about the bizarre sea monster that purportedly washed up on the tip of Long Island yesterday? We could call the book The Sad Little Sea Monstee, and garner publicity for it with a cameo on Lost, or maybe The View’s Hot Topics. (A generous hat tip to my colleague Michael Slezak, who brainstormed this last bit during a Diet Dr Pepper-fueled burst of inspiration this AM.) Nevermind that the sea monstee is more likely than not (a) Photoshopped and (b) dead.
You have any good sci-fi/fantasy book ideas? If so, spill ‘em! We’ll be laughing all the way to the bank (or the funny farm).
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I believe I’ll be keeping my $1.1 Billion idea to myself. Good luck though!
True story – in the way, way back, when my obsessions over westerns and scifi/fantasy juxtaposed, I dreamed of writing a book about a beautiful, brilliant (of course) scientist who creates a time travel machine and acts as the first guinea pig, sending herself back in time to the wild west, where she becomes involved with a hunky hot (of course) cowboy/gunslinger and together they foil a plot by some evil-doer that would change the course of history for the worse. How ’bout that? lol
I’d really like someone to write a story about fairies. I used to read about flower fairies when I was a kid and I miss those days.
Something to do with the REAL purpose of the Antikythera Mechanism.
I too shall keep my three works in progress to myself however I will mention that one has to deal with the sunken city of Ys; another with Excalibur and past lives; and the last with a world that lies parallel to our own.
My fantasy book involves me meeting the impossibly beautiful and rich author of a beloved series chronicling the adventures of a boy wizard. We fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. The end.
My idea is for a kids book called ATTACK OF THE PIZZA MONSTERS.
A delivery truck full of pizzas for school lunch crashes into a toxic waste dump. The pizzas mutate into monsters.
The pizzas are mistakenly delivered to a midwestern elementary school, where the fun begins.
The Pizza monsters eat the surly cafeteria lady. Then they hide out all over the lunch room and eat all the teachers who come to investigate. The well-liked principal, the mean old vice principal, and the strict lunch supervising teachers all get eaten by the pizza monsters.
Soon as all the kids arrive at the lunch room, the pizzas run out of their hiding places. Bedlam ensues and our rag tag group is forced to retreat to the Janitor’s closet, where they find bags of sawdust. By accident they discover that the sawdust can kill the pizza monsters.
From there, they set up an eleborate scheme and save the day. Too bad for the teachers….
Will kids dig it?
Ep Sato, that sounds like a story of EPIC WIN. It would be like the second coming of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! And kids would want to be pizza monsters for Halloween and you would become a gazillionaire. The end.
I actually wrote a book that I’m trying (quite unsuccessfully) to get published. Unforunately, it’s not as hip and cool as sci-fi is right now. It’s chick-lit, but that doesn’t stop me from praying it will be as big as one of Rowling HP books, which I won’t read in jealous protest, lol.
I will admit that every since Harry Potter came out, I’ve been trying to squeeze ideas for my own sci-fi franchise. So far, I don’t have any good ideas.
themediacloset.blogspot.com
K–hang in there! I’ve written a young adult (not-sci fi) novel that I’m trying to get published as well. Doubt I’ll ever be a gazillionaire, but it’d be nice to see my name in print.
Like you, I’ve also tried to think of something sci-fi ish, but I don’t think my mind works that way.
If I did have ideas for sf and fantasy stories (and I do) I certainly wouldn’t post them on a blog comment page. I’d write the books and then try to sell them… duh.
I’m a man of a billion ideas but dont count on me to ever share a single one of them mainly because I’m too lazy.
I’m going to write a book about a boy Warlock whose name is “Barry Trotter”. I expect big things!
Too late, BC…
Actually, I paged through the first one and thought that it was awful.
http://tinyurl.com/584f2o
Or do you just write really fast?
I actually did write a fantasy novel (part 1 of 3, as they all are, hahahaha) and sent it to publishers and everything but alas…was cruelly rejected. I’m still working on part 2 but I have to wonder: what’s the point?