Writing fanfic for money... legitimately

[dmacabre]

Fandom is abuzz with the news about Amazon's Kindle Worlds, which lets you publish and earn royalties for certain fandoms. So far, the list of permitted fandoms is short: Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries. This feels weird on so many levels, really. People already license media tie-ins of selected properties (like all the

Comments

[startraveller]

Yeah, doesn't seem like great terms to me. (I'd love to get paid for writing fanfic--especially since I spend a stupid amount of time on that hobby.) I think I'll pass, though.

This also implies that readers will *pay* to read fan fiction, right? Because right now, I can read it for free. Just sayin'. The only fanfic I ever paid for was 50 Shades of Grey (and I regret every penny).

[dmacabre]

Yeah, that's another hurdle. I think readers might well agree to pay for fanfic if the circumstances are right, though. 50 Shades of Grey is a good example. That book made its money largely off people who weren't aware of its existence as a freebie.

Personally, if money's changing hands then I'd want a higher quality of writing. But that means Amazon would have to trick decent writers to accept those terms, and it'd be a shame if that happened.

[startraveller]

Good grief, I didn't even think about how this could exacerbate the plagiarism issue in fandom.

I haven't worried about it, merely because while it would certainly make me cranky to have my work stolen, at least the dummy wouldn't be making any money off of my blood, sweat, and tears.

But to have my work stolen so someone can sell a quickie Kindle tale. Supremely uncool.

[dmacabre]

That would definitely be bad. I imagine we'll all have to wait and see what repercussions this will have on fandom and fanfic writing in general. People have tried to monetize fanfiction before, but nobody as big as Amazon. This is kind of a test case on many levels.

[dmacabre]

Good point. The guidelines on their site already mention that it's the author's responsibility to see that they're not infringing copyrights, but it's not clear what, if any, steps Amazon's going to take to monitor that.

[themsmine]

Hmmm. I don't have anything insightful to say about my reaction to this news because I just got home from work and its after 8pm and I haven't had any food so my brain is pretty much wtf? But I kinda think that on further reflection that reaction will probably still hold.

I know I don't want to have to pay to read fanfic, and I won't because, you know, the dubious quality of writing out there. I've already given up on the free ebooks because the cost in the hours of my life that I'll never get back is just not worth "free."

I can see this becoming a thing, though. Only time will tell...

[dmacabre]

Yes, I've heard similar points. The thing about free fanfiction is that you have to sift through a lot of crap to find the good stuff but at least it doesn't cost you anything but time.

I suspect, though, that this Kindle Worlds is aimed more toward people who aren't in fandom, much like 50 Shades of Grey was. In the meantime, thanks to the dodgy terms the license-holder gets to mine whatever fanfic is submitted for free ideas that they can use however they want. That's pretty crappy. :-/

[lone_gothic]

The Kindle Worlds Self-Service Submission Platform will launch soon and enable you to submit your original works for publication.

... who's their editor, and why did not they think that sentence through?

As for TVD - they don't mean the LJ Smith books do they? Because I know they already sell tie-in novels for the TV series, completely divorced from the novels, and I don't like the idea of that already, let alone people writing fanfiction of fanfiction.

[lone_gothic]

... oh. Oh wait. I just read that LJ Smith lost her right to say what would be going on in her novel-->TV adaptations.

No wonder it sucks. :(

[dmacabre]

Yeah, I heard about that. The whole LJ Smith situation sounds... odd and tragic. I've only read one or two of her books and didn't realize they were part of a work-for-hire series. Talk about a nightmare scenario for any author...

[startraveller]

Honestly, I had never heard of write-for-hire before what happened to LJ Smith. I assumed that every novel was the property of the author. I feel bad for her, but as someone working towards getting published, it was a very important cautionary tale for me.

[themsmine]

Okay, on further reflection, yes, this seems shady on many levels and I'm concerned. I'm particularly concerned, or would be if I were someone who would consider participating in this, about your point (2) above. I know a lot of fanfic writers use fanfic to practice and try things out, etc. SO what if they want to take a plot or big chunks of story that they wrote as fanfiction and turn it into something original? Now they can't? And the original copyright holder can? And you're just handing over your ideas?

[themsmine]

Also! What will this mean for fandom in general? Say this takes off, and original copyright holders are enjoying their fanfic royalties, will there be a massive shift in "allowing" people to write fanfic? Right now there are only a handful of people who say no. What if it skews the other way where they only allow people to write "paid" fanfic so they get their cut?

[dmacabre]

I suppose it's possible that copyright holders might want to do this, but frankly, I don't see how they can possibly stop all the people from writing whatever they want. It's like illegal stuff on youtube-- sure, you can shut down one account, but users can easily open up another, or post it elsewhere, etc. etc.

Whether or not this takes off probably depends on how well this particular experiment works. I'm not too worried about it becoming an epidemic just yet, though.

[dmacabre]

Well, if you took Amazon up on this offer then I imagine it'd be a lot harder to file the serial numbers off a fanfic in order to publish it as original fiction. In the meantime, if they wanted to use any new ideas an author came up with in a fanfic, they could. Without compensating the writer.

Some fanfiction writers might be okay with that, because after all, they're not getting any money from their fanfic now. But I think they'd be doing themselves a disservice to let a big company make money off their ideas for free.