...I am casual friends with an award winning writer who--before she was published--also started writing fic for a spinoff series that didn't exist--that is, an RPG framed as a spinoff as a real show. Which developed back-story, and a Next Generation...

And now has one novel published, the second going to press, the third being written, and the fourth under contract. I get a lot of amusement out of finding the shadows of the source series in the published book, though it's subtle enough that you have to know what to look for.

There's a couple other stories in this world I'd like to tell, and I'm idly looking at a couple of books that would be handy for world-buliding....