Amazon Jumps Into the Fanfic Business

[jimhines]

Amazon announced Kindle Worlds today, describing it as “the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so.”

I didn’t know this was coming, but I’m not surprised, exactly. Amazon has been a very successful business, and if

Comments

[beccastareyes]

I've wondered why this hasn't happened before, to be honest. All I hope is that it doesn't bring the lawyers down on people who want to keep writing fanfiction for free. One of the aspects of fan culture I enjoy is the interaction between writers and readers (which are fuzzy categories since many people do both), and I worry that charging for fanfiction would limit that, especially given the number of shorter works that aren't worth the dollar that tends to be a minimum on eBook sales. (You could collect them, I suppose.)

And the element of pseudo-anonymous posting; I am consistent in using Becca Stareyes (or sometimes Stareyes) as my fannish handle so I can establish an identity as a fan, but I try not to link it to my real name, mostly so people looking for my work-related things can find those (and people looking for fiction don't run into scientific papers on Saturn's rings). I wouldn't mind signing a contract under my real name, but I'd rather publish using the name I interact with fandom with.

Does this mean fanfic could

[naomikritzer]

Sherlock Holmes is a REALLY INTERESTING EXAMPLE, actually

[beccastareyes]

Oh, neat. Thanks for telling me that.

[sylviamcivers]

Licensing for Sherlock Holmes, really?

I've been reading Laurie R King's Holmes-got-married series, and now I wonder if she had to pay for the right to use his name.

[naomikritzer]

I'm sure she did. Or her publisher.

FWIW, I googled and found the Conan Doyle Estate's page:
http://www.conandoyleestate.co.uk/

They do not, however, tell you how much they charge.

[socchan]

Some of it is fear that as soon as you involve money, the lawyers will come and shut everything down

This is mostly it, to the best of my knowledge. There's a great short story available for free online that says pretty much exactly that: The City Boy, the Peasant Women, and the Dragon in the Tower: A Fable. It's pretty fantastic, and makes references to at least two prior incidents of people attempting to start an actual business via fanfic writers.

There's also the individual authors who try to get away with it; they're usually shut down in short order. We don't want to jeopardize our community, see: the dragon in the tower.

I'm pretty sure that most of the reason we feel like we can "get away" with charity drives is because not only do we never get any money from it, we never even handle the money, electronically or otherwise. We're ultimately just providing donation incentives.

Incidentally, I'm keeping my eyes and ears open for any fandom charities related to the Oklahoma tornado. [/frequent offerer]

[beccastareyes]

Incidentally, I'm keeping my eyes and ears open for any fandom charities related to the Oklahoma tornado. [/frequent offerer]

I know I saw someone doing something, but I'd have to check my friendslist back a couple of days. (The incentives didn't match my usual fandom haunts.)

[socchan]

fandomaid is usually my go-to for fandom charity efforts these days, but it doesn't look like they have anything set up at the moment. Considering the work that I'm sure goes into it, I certainly don't blame them. I've also checked communities with the "charity" tag on both LJ and DW and haven't seen anything that looks particularly promising (disaster-centric rather than religion-centric). If you have the time to look up a link to them, I'd be interested in finding out more.

Edit: Argh, I can never remember whether it's user or cut that requires a hyphen on LJ these days. *sigh*

[tenillypo]

I think it's actually more than just the fear of being shut down, actually. I mean, that might have been the genesis of the fan-fiction-as-gift culture, but there's also a very strong sense of commercialization as an evil for other reasons that's arisen as a result. At least in the corners of fandom where I've traveled.

In general, the gift economy encourages a certain amount of freedom that I think monetizing is perceived to jeopardize (and rightly so, given the kind of restrictions we're already seeing). But also, a culture in which stories are told in exchange for only the time and praise of the readers also fosters a different kind of camaraderie and community than one in which people are writing for money. It's a culture in which fandom often uses fanfic as just another part of the on-going conversation and commentary on the original show/book/movie, and that exchange of ideas is the compensation. The kink memes and fic exchanges are all sprung up out of this kind of back and forth between authors and readers and other authors

[martianmooncrab]

and this will then explode with plagarism, where some free fanfic will get lightly sanded down to meet Amazons rules and the original shippers will get squat. I wonder what Amazon will do about that sort of behavior?

[seldearslj]

I suspect Amazon won't care, so long as they're getting paid. There's no incentive for them to correct the plagiarist, in fact, there's more incentive for them to encourage the plagiarists, since more work being 'sanded down' and published means more money for them, whether it belongs to the 'author' or not.

Published authors have legal rights; fanfic authors...not so much, historically.

[martianmooncrab]

New and Improved! CanOWorms! An Amazon exclusive!

[seldearslj]

Doesn't matter if it's a can of worms! It's making money! It's Capitalism! Capitalism is Good!

[martianmooncrab]

Wyrm O Gratin, and other fine uses..

[dayzdark]

This was the first thought that entered my mind when I read this news. Amazon has had enough trouble with folks plagiarizing self-published authors by slapping a new title/cover on it and putting so many titles out on KDP under pseudonyms that the numbers add up