I need some kind of a knee-destroying accident that's interesting and believable. Something that would allow her to walk again, but not to dance.

There are lots and lots and lots of these. (I mean, in all sports, and as demanding physical sports go, I imagine ballet is more demanding of the knees than most.)

It's probably a bit hard to have someone graceful rip a tendon or cartilage doing ordinary things, but slipping on ice, or falling down a flight of three stairs, or being knocked off one's feet (especially if someone else falls on top) on an abrupt stop of a subway car would do it. Any situation where the top half of the leg goes one way, and the bottom half of it goes another, is potentially a serious injury.

What you probably want to spend more time looking into is the therapy/surgery/recovery options for knee injuries. There are still injuries that will absolutely kill a career (and when all else fails, pull a Barry Bonds and say that the knee got infected, filled up with fluid, and remains balky), but the past few years have seen great leaps in medical improvements. I think you can recover from practically anything except arthritis/deterioration or a shattered kneecap.

Even torn/lost cartilage may soon be replaceable, with silicon gel injections! (Randy Johnson, the New York pitcher, has no cartilage at all in one knee.)

I just figured it to be more of a Sarah Vowell-esque slice o' life thing, since it's not particularly about those television shows. I think almost all the stories can be applied to any net community/fandom.

Basically, this is part of the pitch, right? Figuring out the marketing angle, and how big a market your angle covers.

I agree, it's important to say "This is not a book for fans of X, this is a window into the lives of those people." Although plenty of fans and Allyson-supporters will surely buy the book, the much-larger demographic is hip, high-low brow, media-literate Young Turks. Comparing your book to Sarah Vowell, or to, say, the hijinks of the McSweeney's crowd, is probably more enlightening to a book editor than saying "There are 100,000 people who watch this show, and 60% of them will buy my book."

Actually the book will probably do better among the general Young Turk crowd than among hard-core fans. The book isn't for hard-core fans, right? It's for people interested in the workings of people. Hard-core fans are the ones who will be griping about how it wasn't really like that and you took me out of context.

Randy Johnson, the New York pitcher, has no cartilage at all in one knee.

Really? Ew. That sounds...painful.

I think you can recover from practically anything except arthritis/deterioration or a shattered kneecap.

But if she shattered her kneecap, she could walk again, yes?

It's hard to wrap my head around who would buy it, who *my* demographic is.

Would it help to try and find out some of the other Buffy/Angel books did, in terms of numbers of potential buyers? Such as Slayer Slang and Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, etc.? If you know they did fairly well, then you can put them in a query/proposal.

God, I don't know how you figure out even what the rough estimate is -- start with how many people watched the shows at their peak, what kind of ratings the reruns pull in (do they track those? they must, I guess), and approximate from there?

Nutty's probably right -- the book really isn't about the shows, but I'm not sure how to give a comparison, which I know is useful in an editorial meeting. I can't find any other books about fandom out there in a quick glance, but what about the audience for that movie about Trekkies?

What about giving a rough estimate of how many Buffy/Angel/Firefly boards/communities are out there?

the drabble

"We'll get through this," he says as he fights the pain.

I'm sick of that line.

I don't think I believe in the other side of all this anymore. I don't think there's a "through" to get through--and I don't think I'd trust it even if there was. I don't know how to live in a world where I'm not eternally braced for catastrophe. Like Atlas, the world will collapse if I relax.

Hell is a Mobius. There is no other side.

Actually the book will probably do better among the general Young Turk crowd than among hard-core fans. The book isn't for hard-core fans, right? It's for people interested in the workings of people. Hard-core fans are the ones who will be griping about how it wasn't really like that and you took me out of context.

This is perzactly my thinking on it, Nutty. There's so little insight on the inner workings of Joss Whedon's head I don't see how it would be entertaining to fans on that sort of level who just want to talk about the shows and the stars of them.

It feels weird to me to be marketing it to fans of shows, when so little of teh book actually discusses shows themselves. I'm just talking about people who happened to like these shows, and my zany adventures.

I can't find any other books about fandom out there in a quick glance

Which is a big HOORAY FOR ME! I think, yeah?

What about giving a rough estimate of how many Buffy/Angel/Firefly boards/communities are out there?

Legion.

Ima give it some thought. I think it'd be a mistake to lump it in with the Christopher Golden books, The Watcher's Guide sorts of things.

Really? Ew. That sounds...painful.

The stuff they injected into his knee is called Synvisc, and Will Carrol described it as akin to motor-oil. It is supposed to "promote cartilate growth," but I think what it really is is the stuff you squirt into the hole in a tire, to keep the tire inflated so you can still run on it.

Clearly, Randy Johnson can still run (and pitch 95 mph) on it.

But if she shattered her kneecap, she could walk again, yes?

Yes, almost certainly. It looks like some patellar fractures are recovered from quite well; some require surgery to wire together the pieces of bone and make them grow back together; some actually involve cutting out the patella completely.

This link is kind of technical, but has nice X-rays and MRIs if you scroll down: [link]

I found a few books on fandom on Amazon, but they're heavy on the scholarly, light on the real life experience.

I'm just talking about people who happened to like these shows, and my zany adventures.

But remember that in an editorial meeting, people who don't know anything about this will be persuaded by the idea that if these shows had X number of fans, the book potentially has that number of buyers.

Still, it might be helpful to take a look at how many different kinds of web-based communities are out there (rough numbers, obviously), and possibly what other fandoms do f2fs.

I can't find any other books about fandom out there in a quick glance

I can think of a couple, but they tend to be academic in type, not popular.

A better comparison, in my mind, and based only on the 3-4 essays I read, would be memoirs of people who have done weird jobs or grown up in weird places -- an acquaintance of mine, Rachel Manjia Brown, wrote "All of the Fishes Come Home to Roost," about her childhood at an ashram in India, and that just came out.

Or, those Thrilling Tales collections of short stories, from McSweeney's. Who also put out a "short fiction (and a separate volume of essays) that isn't on your summer reading list, but should be" collection last year.