Seeking High-Concept Stories

This was a letter responding to an ad for 'High-Concept Stories' to be turned into a graphic novel. I'm going to grant you that 'high-concept' means that it's easy to explain but the truth is that high-concept and lowest common denominator are closely related marketing terms. 

This is one of those situations where I can show the reply to the letter and you tell me if you think I should have spoken to any of my friends about this fellow.

26th December 2017

Hay there (Publisher),

I read your ad on Craigslist for material for a Graphic Novel. Well, I have my own work which is not published, and I happen to know a fellow who is a bestselling Sci Fi author who was thinking of turning his work into a graphic novel.

I’m sure you’d be most interested in the bestselling author, well, I’m going to need to see some art work before I recommend you to him. He’s not the kind of man I’d like to have mad at me.

As for my own work, I have a film/novel I’ve been trying to market. It’s a Cabin in the woods style slasher. It got me an A+ in college as a film script, and then I rewrote it as a novel. I’ve never been good about marketing these things, but it’s definitely high concept. These would be characters you’d like to see face off with Jason or Freddy. The novel goes a step further to include evil bikers and men in black.

I wrote this to be a lowest common denominator kind of work with a possibility for merchandising. I also have some harder Science Fiction but it would be a much more involved project.

In any case, let me know if any of that sounds interesting,


Richard Leland Neal
Reply:
"Lowest common denominator" kind of stuff really doesn't sound too appealing to me. But I would be interested to know what your author friend might be pitching. But I don't want to pretend that my operation is any bigger than it is. I have self-published a handful of comic books and graphic novels over the last decade, nothing big. I don't do any of the artwork myself, and instead hire artists that are a good fit for the material. I act more as the publisher and editor.

My Response to Reply:
"Lowest Common Denominator" is how Shakespeare wrote so you're not interested in anyone who has a 'bestselling Author' stamp and he's not pitching anything. We just had a conversation about turning one of his earlier works into a graphic novel.