Four fantasy writers are doing something we think may never have been done before: we're releasing the first original series in publishing history to be created, written and published simultaneously by a team of independent authors: The Drifting Isle Chronicles. Joseph Robert Lewis, Charlotte E. English, Kat Parrish and MeiLin Miranda collaborated on this world's creation, and then we each wrote our own standalone novel in it. We consulted with one another, solved problems together and bounced ideas around, but in the end we have four different novels, written in very different styles and set in the same place around the same series of events. As of April 2013, the first three novels of this series are out.
The world of the Drifting Isle is a combination of classic fantasy magic and wonder mixed with industrial steampunk toys and politics. It’s a city of steam and steel, as well as flying islands, talking birds, musical enchantments, and shadow-walking assassins.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because Book 4 (Starcaster by Kat Parrish) will be out later this year, and Books 5 and 6 will be out next winter, and I’ve heard a rumor of a Book 7 being developed for next year as well. We don’t plan on stopping any time soon, but we also don’t plan on doing this alone.
We are opening up the Drifting Isle universe to accept book proposals from outside writers. That means you can write a DIC novel, novella or short story and tap into the series' support ecosystem.
There is a catch. To be officially recognized as a DIC novel--use the logo, be listed in other DIC books, get on the website, get a push from the rest of the DIC writers--we have to approve your work, including use and characterization of any existing characters by the authors who created them. Every author owns their intellectual property and gets 100% of the revenue. There is no royalty split. We write and publish separately; we just share the universe.
We have a private wiki we will be opening to the public as soon as we have it updated; it contained all our notes and drafts and isn't 100% to canon. In the meantime, we have a beginner's guide to the DIC universe as well as the three books in the series. If you want to write in this universe, you need to know it intimately, and the books are the place to start. If you have further questions, please contact us.