As the Bond character could not be copyrighted, and to retain rights in the Bond product, Glidrose decided to commission a sequel. Initially the company approached author James Leasor to write a continuation novel, but he declined. Glidrose then commissioned Amis, who wrote "Colonel Sun". Critic and future novelist Sally Beauman noted that it was "unusual, not to say unprecedented, for an established author to pick up the torch in this way," though she admits that "Bond too big, and too profitable, a property to be placed in the hands of an unknown."