The great tie-in fiction debate

[Nuytsia]

Heheh , nah just re the comment above, I am not sure that literary merit is necessarily going to be compromised by the fact that the books have a built-in fanbase and would be expected to sell well based on that alone.

That's not exactly what the argument is saying. What it says is that, because tie-ins will sell anyway, books that are sub-par are more likely to be released anyway.

That is what I thought it was saying.....hmmm I guess I have miscommunicated!

And the fact is that the tie-ins are likely to be more constrained. If it's based on a tv show, it will likely feature the established main characters. Worldbuilding will already have been done to a large degree. And not every author will have the opportunity to unleash worldshaking events, because otherwise the shared world would be doomed every week.
Once again, this is not saying that tie-ins cannot be good, but I can see the issues people have with it.

Yeah I did think well there are constraints due to the existing world, ok big constraints! But you could potentially tell almost any kind of story within a given world.
But yeah, established main characters DO have to be consistent don't they?

Ah well my theory explodes! I was just playing devil's advocate really.
But I DO think 'regular' books are still constrained by the need to be marketable. They just won't get published otherwise. I guess that's where self-publishing may come in, but that's been discussed elsewhere so not much more to add on that!