Publishing fanfic through Amazon and Kindle?

[mijan]

Guys, take a look at this:

http://saathi1013.tumblr.com/post/51111214437/cats-dogs-living-together-a-response-to-the-kindle

I'm not sure what I think. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Comments

[elfflame]

Not going to use it. My top three reasons?
* Not allowed to do anything adult, which will likely include any non-heterosexual relationships, unless they're already canon.
* We won't have creative control over if the owner of the copyright decides to use anything from the story we write, up to and including the characters we create.
* While we'll get paid, we get about a third of the profits, and no control or payment if it is repackaged elsewhere.

I'd say those are good enough reasons, don't you?

[mijan]

Oh, I had NO plans to use this thing myself. I was just trying to consider the implications on a broader scale.

[elfflame]

*nods* I honestly doubt any of the people who have been in fandom for long will, really.

[mijan]

I agree... most experienced fandomers won't touch this with a 20-foot pole. But some will... and I wonder what will happen.

[leianora]

I haven't had my hot chocolate yet, so I'm kinda not coherent, but my first thought is... "Wha? Huh?

It actually makes me scared to put any more fan fic on the internet.

[mijan]

Why scared to put fanfic on the internet in general?

[leianora]

I think my main reaction stems from the paranoia that someone will pull my fanfic from the net, claim it as their own and then try to publish it using KW. Of course, aI know that that can happen anywhere at anytime, but this makes it all the more worrying for me because of the payment issue. SinceI, like so many others, consider fanfic a gift to give to others as well asosomething I do for fun, the thought that someone would get paid for my hard work, or anyone else's that this person decided to claim as their own makes me sad.

[elfsausage]

I think I'm sick of big business trying to find more ways to squeeze as much money out of the peasantry as they can. And you can bet that as soon as they find authors willing to accept this shitty deal, they'll find a way to make it illegal for the rest of us to share our fanfic for free. I'm broke as hell, but the piddling amount of money I'd get from something like this isn't worth the sacrifice of my creative integrity. Such as it is. Nor is it worth the vast sums of money that could be lost to Amazon should something actually take off, like 50 Shades Of Grey. Wouldn't you kick yourself if you signed away your rights to profit from something like that for the sake of a tiny e-book pay cheque?

[mijan]

Yeah, that rubs me the wrong way, too. I feel like they're just trying to leech off the creativity of fans.

[furiosity]

Companies in the West have been trying to profit from fandom for decades, so that's not really new -- but I can see this shit being a problem for actual fan fiction writers whose free product would get in the way of Amazon's (and whatever entertainment/media company's) profits. Personally, I have zero respect for anyone who actually wants to get paid for writing fan fiction.

[mijan]

I totally see how this would be a problem for regular fic writers whose stuff comes into conflict with the "product" on Amazon... but I'm curious... why do you have "zero respect" for anyone who wants to get paid for fanfic? I mean, every Star Trek novel, Star Wars EU book, and so on... those are all published fanfic where the authors get paid. Do you have "zero respect" for those authors? And do you feel the same way about fanartists who get paid for their art?

[furiosity]

haha no, licensed novelisations are not like fanfic in that they are done within constraints set by the publisher with the expectation of getting paid. They are not created out of pure love for the source material, which makes them a priori not fan fiction. Like, i'm sure it's happened that someone had written a Trek or whatever fic (or even floated an idea for one) and the creators found it and approached the ficcer offering some compensation in exchange for licensing/publishing rights, but that's not generally how tie-in novelisations happen. Tie-ins are not fan fiction because they are usually written by professional writers [some of whom may be fans] for profit, not by fans for fun. Somebody who approaches fan fiction with compensation (in way of money, or the fandom "currency" of popularity) in mind is just not the sort of person I want to hang with. Ditto for people who approach fan art with compensation in mind (i.e. not "oh, I'll do some commissions and have fun drawing these characters I love" but "oh, that pairing looks

[cluegirl]

This is a terrible idea. There are many, many reasons why this is a terrible idea, but John Scalzi's made a start on some on his blog, and I've made a start on some others on my tumblr.

Seriously. Bad. Idea.

[mijan]

While I feel like the idea of giving fanfic legitimacy is good... yeah, I see far more shit coming out of this than most people can possibly imagine right now. I agree - bad news all around.