Meta/Rant: It's like deja vu all over again!

[telesilla]

Once upon a time--back in the mid 90s--John Ordover, the then Star Trek editor of Pocket Books, posted on alt.startrek.creative advertising a contest for fan writers. If you wrote a fic that fit into their guidelines--which were the same stringent ones tie-in writers had to follow--you could win a cash prize and be published in an anthology. If I

Comments

[ladycat777]

Oh my god, there are already so many people!

I know there's always going to be someone trying to make a buck - and lemme say seeing names like HarperCollins and Simon&Schuster do not fill me with any kind of relief or trust - on any kind of market, but... so many people!

[telesilla]

Well I think the beta site's been up for a couple of months, so people have had time to load their stuff. There's a way you can import from fanfiction.net, which kind of says it all about the quality involved here.

/bitchy

[ladycat777]

Actually, that's what scares me the most. I mean, I know I'm a snob for saying this, but often the type of fan who posts to ffnet is the most vulnerable to this kind of this -- aspiring writers who think if they write that One Fabulous Story their lives will be set, not having any real idea of how horrible the business can be; people who have that teenager glee and love for something without any realism to temper it.

They're gonna get suckered. Hard. And that - I hate when that happens. I know Barnum said it, but I don't have to like it :(

[telesilla]

*nods* Exactly. And for all I mock the teenies and their utterly atrocious fanfic, I don't want to see them being used by bastards like this.

[icarusancalion]

I think they scooped up a mailing address from everyone who'd posted a fanfic at Gateworld. The thing's been running since March 22.