Discussion Post #97

[empressearwig]

Change of plans! We were supposed to talk Brandon Sanderson today, but instead, we have bumped that back to next Saturday. And yes, that's technically June, but sometimes the calendar just works that way. In the meantime, you should go here to nominate books for us to read in June. Our theme is summer reading, which you can take as broadly or

Comments

[katayla]

I grew up reading lots and lots of Star Trek books and I don't know. I liked them (PETER DAVID!), but there are the limitations--which sound like will be in these works, too--of not being able to go against canon or change canon. And people still wrote Star Trek fic. (And slash fic at that. Kirk/Spock stories were written and distributed in fan magazines decades ago

[katayla]

Oh yeah, and I forgot to say, the Brandon Sanderson novella is great! It's a much faster read than I anticipated, so there's plenty of time left to read it for next week.

[katayla]

Here are the restrictions:

Pornography: We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts

[empressearwig]

And those restrictions are why I don't think this will work. They seem to want plotty gen and/or g rated ship fic and I think they're overestimating the amount of both of those things. Also, to a certain extent, the size of the fandoms. Gossip Girl the tv show doesn't even have its own section at ff.net and the only one of any substantial size is TVD, but again, I suspect a lot of what there is is porn.

Idk, I have enjoyed tie-in novels in the past and if this were being presented more as that, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Or at least I'd have less of one. Instead, it feels like Amazon (and the publishers) trying to capitalize on something they don't really understand and I think it's going to flop.

[katayla]

I could see people being interested in writing stuff specifically for this, but, yeah, this isn't really what most fanfic is about.

[dudski]

I'm gonna make fun of this program FOREVER but honestly I don't think it has anything to do with fandom, nor will it, other than providing some authors with a slightly easier path to getting paid than self-publishing original ebooks would be.

Fandom's not about to start paying for fic, nor would Amazon expect a culture that's had free access to something for years/decades to start paying for it just because. We're not the target consumers. The target consumer is a PLL/TVD/GG fan with a Kindle with some money to burn who's never been on FF.net but comes across a story about Blair and Serena spending a summer in Paris meeting boys or whatever and thinks what the hell, might as well spend a dollar to check that out.

We're also not the target content providers - I think it's pretty telling that in their initial announcement, all of their author testimonials are from profic authors on what it's like to write fanfic, not from fanfic authors on what it's like to write for Kindle Worlds.

[empressearwig]

I think that's all true, and I still don't think it will work. I mean, admittedly, I am not the target audience, but that's not how I search amazon, you know? If I go there looking for a book, I'm looking for a SPECIFIC book, or if I'm browsing, it's usually just to see the best-sellers in specific sections. So unless they're going to promote the hell out of these world whatever titles, I don't even understand how people are supposed to find them.

The inclusion of Gossip Girl is a really weird one to me, too. I know it's owned by the same company that owns the other two, but canons for both are closed. The books are done, the television series is done, and it ended with horrific ratings and only got to end properly (hahahahaha) because the CW is allergic to open endings. So is there a market? I guess we'll see, but I just cannot fathom there being that many angry Dan/Blair shippers that want to rewrite season six or whatever that was in PG form to take advantage of this.

[irishmizzy]

"FINALLY, AN OUTLET FOR THIS DAIR FIC WHERE THEY RUN AWAY TOGETHER AFTER BLAIR'S ALMOST-WEDDING TO LOUIS BUT NEVER, EVER, EVER BANG," said no one, ever.

(I agree with everyone that we're obviously not the target demographic for either writing OR reading, but whatever. YOU DO YOU, AMAZON, AND I WILL LOL HEARTILY WHILE DOWNLOADING FREE AO3 FIC DIRECTLY FROM MY KINDLE BROWSER.)

[redbrunja]

"FINALLY, AN OUTLET FOR THIS DAIR FIC WHERE THEY RUN AWAY TOGETHER AFTER BLAIR'S ALMOST-WEDDING TO LOUIS BUT NEVER, EVER, EVER BANG," said no one, ever.

PREACH.