IP Picks🔎: A Hardboiled Pulp Novel with a Sci-Fi Twist
âž• Why audiences are falling in love with 'romantasy'
Welcome to The Optionist. As always, thanks for reading along.
You’ll notice that there’s a slight change to the column’s format this week. I usually start by offering my take on a trending topic in the fast-paced world of IP here, but this week that market intelligence is embedded within my breakdown of a hit, self-published romantasy novel. You remember romantasy, right? It’s the red-hot fiction genre that I’ve already mentioned several times this year (here and here).
While my weekly picks of the best optionable material offer valuable information you can immediately act on, the broader analysis clues you in on publishing trends and how to capitalize on them before someone else in Hollywood does.
This particular romantasy novel seemed the perfect place to dig deeply into the genre’s growing popularity — specifically, what romantasy offers readers, how it relates to Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight — and insights you won’t read anywhere else on its prospects for the screen.
The book really brought together so many things I've been thinking about since I first started covering Fifty Shades, fanfic and the rise of self-publishing more than a decade ago that I wanted to use the writeup to share what I've learned and how it might shape your decision-making going forward. (As always, let me know what you think about romantasy in Hollywood or IP in general via email.)
You have to be a subscriber to get that take this week, so all the more reason to upgrade to a full subscription! Did we mention that there’s a special offer (👇) still going on for new subscribers?
Now, on to this week’s picks. In addition to the aforementioned romantasy selection, we’ve got a couple of fun novels and two promising news stories.
The full lineup:
A darkly comic mystery about a failing author who tries to spin the death of a man he was having a one-night stand with into a bestseller
A pulpy mystery that has a fiendishly inventive sci-fi twist as part of its setup
A romantasy about a teen girl who discovers that she’s a descendant of Hercules and is recruited to help fight off a monster invasion
A feel-good comedy/drama about a group of teens who buy a struggling pro sports team and try to turn it around
A potential drama/procedural about the butlers and bodyguards who serve the uberwealthy
