"New Fantasy Brand Looking for Licensing Opportunities" Topic

In June of 2008, my young adult fantasy novel, Noggle Stones was published by Dailey Swan Publishing. Noggle Stones is currently available at such online booksellers as amazon.com, barnes&noble.com, buy.com, and others. It is also available at brick-and-mortar stores through distributors Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and Midpoint Trade Books.

In fact, Midpoint Trade Books named Noggle Stones one of the top young adult novels of 2008. They reserved a booth specifically to promote Noggle Stones at Book Expo America 2009 in NYC in May. I was on hand to sign copies of Noggle Stones as well. You can read the press release here…

nogglestones.com/bea2009.htm

Noggle Stones takes place in the American Midwest in 1899. The world of humanity is suddenly thrust together with the world of fantasy creatures, such as goblins and ogres. The mad goblin scholar, Bugbear, must unite with a human stage magician named Martin Manchester to solve the mystery as well as to face an ancient evil which has been awakened by the merging worlds.

And you can look at some character designs and promotional artwork here¦

nogglestones.com/art.htm

Plus, you can read, hear, and watch some newspaper, radio, and television interviews I have done here¦

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Many professionals have praised Noggle Stones for its unique storyline and characters.

"It's great fun!" – Barry Cunningham, the Publisher who discovered J.K. Rowling

"Brilliant! A work of genius! Noggle Stones by Wil Radcliffe is an American treasure." – Yvonne FitzPatrick, Angelus Associates

"In the tradition of Tolkien and Rowling, Wil carves out his own territory in the fantasy genre with this fast-paced, richly peopled tale." – Ernie ColĂ³n, former DC Comics editor.

I am currently represented by Chamein Canton of the Canton Smith Agency in New York.

We have several licensing deals in place for Noggle Stones, including an archery line with 3Rivers Archery, the world's largest traditional archery supplier.

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Sanguine Productions is also producing a Noggle Stones role playing game to be released in 2010.

If any game or miniature manufacturers would be interested in developing a line of Noggle Stones miniatures, or a Noggle Stones miniatures game, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for your time.

Wil Radcliffe
wil@nogglestones.com

"The world of humanity is suddenly thrust together with the world of fantasy creatures"

So its Earthdawn/Shadowrun then?

Noggle Stones takes place in the American Midwest in 1899. It's been called "Lord of the Rings" meets "Huckleberry Finn".

As far as I know, Shadowrun takes place in the future, like Rifts. I'm not that familiar with Earthdawn, but isn't it a more traditional fantasy setting?

From what I've seen, there aren't too many fantasy novels out there like Noggle Stones. If you were going to compare it to anything, it might be along the lines of "His Dark Materials", but without the religious references.

congratulations….

looking at it from a miniatures manufacturers point of view, the age group is a bit to young for metal mini's.

I'd look more towards a comic book/graphic novel, or card games.

I think you'll find most of us here are to small a fish for any license deals, and most of the followers here to steeped in historicals to care. Now if you had set it during the civil war you might have had more people interests here…

Those characters look very cute. Good luck with your novels.

Napthyme and WarWizard, thanks for the feedback. Actually, Noggle Stones is aimed towards Middle School and High School… about 12 – up. I've had readers from 8 to 80 read and enjoy the book. As for license deals, I may be shortchanging myself, but for a product like this, my agent and I are willing to offer the exclusive license FREE for one year. If after one year, it doesn't work out, no problem. If it does work out, then we start getting royalties from the sales.

And yes, the goblins are cute. Thank you. :D

However, there are some nasty villains with whom they must contend!

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Oh, and actually, this post has already paid off. Got contacted by a film producer, if you can believe that! :)

film producers usually want the rights to everything that are not a printed book so they can sell the rights themselves, so that pretty well blows out any minis, toys, or other games not made by you.

Well, we haven't discussed any rights other than the film rights so far.

And anyway, from what I've seen, film producers typically get the toy rights to the film, but not necessarily the book or comic upon which the film is based. For example, Marvel Comics has a lot of toys out there based on Spider-Man and the X-Men that have nothing to do with their respective films.

Anyway, it's all very early to worry about that. At this point, film is film and miniatures are miniatures. :)

napthyme – from my experience, film producers ask for everything because that is the start of negotiations. Also it depends on the size of the studio backing the project. And the author is going to share in royalties on anything that is made. It's all down to the final negotiations.

as I said before were all small fish here, so not likely any of us has the advertising budget to reach your readers…

I work in marketing, and I realize that advertising can be an effective way of getting the word out. At the same time, word of mouth is the best advertising there is. And each product promotes the other… the book promotes the archery line, the archery line promotes the rpg, the rpg promotes the miniatures, etc. You don't need a huge advertising budget to be a success. You just need smart marketing, a little PR, and a good product. Plus, when you sign with me, you also get my agent working to promote the line as well. That can't hurt. :)

I think Wil is looking for someone to produce some figures for the RPG. (I may be wrong, but I can see the tie in here)

Wil, why not contact Eureka and see what they could do. I think your story has a lot of interesting characters that fantasy gamers might pick up a figure here and there for their own collection even if they were not playing the RPG. I know as a person who plays the odd fantasy RPG now and then, you can never have enough unique characters for a game.

Yes. Something to go with the RPG mostly. But I'd also be open to developing a miniatures game or a board game based upon the book.

Are you talking about Eureka Miniatures in Australia?

Yes, They have that 100 club. It might be a start. Look at the Frog stuff they are releasing at Historicon this month (top of this web site). The company does some very nice stuff.

Earth Dawn is the prequel to Shadowrun. In the setting, magic ebbs and flows along a roughly sinusoidal path. If you get enough magical energy in the background, spells start working, dormant sections of DNA become active, and stuff starts coming over from the other side.

45thdiv, thanks for the info! I'll be sure to stop by their site and see if there's any interest.

blackscribe, thanks for clarifying this. If that's what Earth Dawn and Shadowrun are about, then I can assure everyone that Noggle Stones is nothing like that.