crossing the streams
I've been making occasionally bitchy comments on Twitter, but I'm feeling the need to talk in a bit more depth about this whole Fifty Shades of Gray debacle.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, long story short: girl writes popular AU Twilight fic with BDSM, decides to change the names and self-publish it as a trilogy, it sells a ton of copies, so much that it hits the NYT bestseller list, and Random House decides to buy the books for a ton of money. Women across America are discovering the world of dirty fanfic, but stupidly paying for it instead of getting it free on the internet.
(I also found out through Fandom Wank that this was pretty much this chick's plan all along, to try to make as much bank as possible.)
So what do we think about this? To my mind, the first Rule of Fanfic is Don't Sell Fanfic. And while it bothers me that she did this in the first place, does it bother me more that she is making a shitton of money off of it? Am I just mad at myself for being too ethical to do it myself? LOL. Am I mostly pissed that it's a truly shitty piece of fanfic? *g*
Seriously, though, what really bothers me is that now publishing is turning its eye to fic, for example the site Dear Author is doing a whole series on it, and I just feel that can't be a good thing. We could have more authors coming down on anyone who writes fic about their stuff, hell, we could even have TV/movie studios looking more closely at everything to make sure no one is making any money off of their intellectual property. I'm sure that most fanfic writers have dreams of just filing the serial numbers off their fics and getting them published (and let's be clear, authors before Snowdragon Icequeen or whatever her name is have done it), but in general, my philosophy is Don't Cross the Streams.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
ETA: because I wasn't clear -- I have NO ISSUES with someone taking a fanfic of theirs and completely reworking it to try to sell it. I do have an issue with this book being 89% the same as her original fic.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, long story short: girl writes popular AU Twilight fic with BDSM, decides to change the names and self-publish it as a trilogy, it sells a ton of copies, so much that it hits the NYT bestseller list, and Random House decides to buy the books for a ton of money. Women across America are discovering the world of dirty fanfic, but stupidly paying for it instead of getting it free on the internet.
(I also found out through Fandom Wank that this was pretty much this chick's plan all along, to try to make as much bank as possible.)
So what do we think about this? To my mind, the first Rule of Fanfic is Don't Sell Fanfic. And while it bothers me that she did this in the first place, does it bother me more that she is making a shitton of money off of it? Am I just mad at myself for being too ethical to do it myself? LOL. Am I mostly pissed that it's a truly shitty piece of fanfic? *g*
Seriously, though, what really bothers me is that now publishing is turning its eye to fic, for example the site Dear Author is doing a whole series on it, and I just feel that can't be a good thing. We could have more authors coming down on anyone who writes fic about their stuff, hell, we could even have TV/movie studios looking more closely at everything to make sure no one is making any money off of their intellectual property. I'm sure that most fanfic writers have dreams of just filing the serial numbers off their fics and getting them published (and let's be clear, authors before Snowdragon Icequeen or whatever her name is have done it), but in general, my philosophy is Don't Cross the Streams.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
ETA: because I wasn't clear -- I have NO ISSUES with someone taking a fanfic of theirs and completely reworking it to try to sell it. I do have an issue with this book being 89% the same as her original fic.