 When Ian Fleming sold the film rights to the James Bond novels to Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, he gave permission only for the title "The Spy Who Loved Me" to be used.Since the screenplay for the film had nothing to do with Fleming's original novel, Eon Productions, for the first time, authorised a novelisation based upon the script.This would also be the first regular Bond novel published since "Colonel Sun" nearly a decade earlier.