According to Zahn, Lou Aronica of Bantam Spectra had negotiated a book deal with Lucasfilm in 1989, and the publisher put Zahn's name at the top of their list of possible authors. He said, "My original instructions from LucasArts consisted of exactly two rules: the books were to start 3–5 years after "Return of the Jedi," and I couldn't use anyone who'd been explicitly killed off in the movies." Zahn used information from the original film trilogy as his primary source, but supplemented that with details from the many sourcebooks created for West End Games' "", saying that they "saved me from having to reinvent the wheel many times". In turn, each novel in the trilogy had its role-playing game sourcebook created for it by West End Games.