Fanfic news that doesn't affect MLP. Yet. · 5:39pm May 25th, 2013
It seems that Amazon.com is starting a fanfic e-publishing imprint, Kindle Worlds, and getting permission from the copyright holders for certain settings. The fanfics will then be sold on Amazon, making money for the author, the copyright holder, and Amazon of course. They will have guidelines about what can and can't be published, but everything is pretty vague right now. The three properties they've announced to start with are Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, and Pretty Little Liars.
(I'll add here that if Hasbro ever let ponies on there, it will be a cold day in hell. I believe they know exactly how much AppleDash innuendo I can fit into an everyone-rated, non-romance fic, and for that reason alone they will never do it. Yes, I'm ruining it for everyone. You're welcome.)
Now, none of the ones they're starting with are the biggest fandoms, they don't compare to MLP, Sherlock, or Supernatural. But they do have active fandoms that currently produce fics. And since one of my hobbies is basically fandom sociology, I'm very intrigued. But I'm not sure how I expect this to play out at all. This could easily be a game changer, for fandoms all across the net, but I'm not sure how. Will more or fewer people write fanfic? Will fandoms involved grow, or implode under infighting? Will people pay for fanfic? Which people? Will you see someone write some My Little Dashie-level fic and make thousands of dollars? I can think of arguments for a lot of things.
So here are some thoughts I have on how this could play out. Some are contradictory, like I said I'm really up in the air on it. But I'd love other opinions on what might happen, including any possibilities I might not have thought of:
1) Fanfiction will be more respected by the literary community. Okay, so it's is still essentially self-publishing, which they continue to stick up their noses at. But here's the difference: very few self published books get popular. So self-publishing has duel stigmas of "thinking you're too good to need an editor" and "thinking that somehow your self-published book will make a million dollars." Fanfiction has the stigmas of "being done by amateurs," "giving away stuff for free that other people would like to get paid for" and "not making up your own world."
Now, we'll probably keep the "amateurs" stigma, and that's fine, because we are and every writer in the damn world started out as an amateur. But, with permission from the copyright holders, and charging for the work, the writers who participate will lose the "giving it away" stigma- the copyright holders are getting compensated in a way they're okay with. And with permission from the copyright holders, it would be hypocritical for authors to be upset about people not making up their own worlds- these setting officially become shared worlds, like the Cthulhu Mythos or Borderlands (Or the Wild Cards setting, so anti-fanfic-George R. R. Martin can kiss my ass.)
But what I really think will make a difference is the money the authors make. Authors aren't dumb, they know you get money where you can. And the fact is that every big fandom has a few fics where, if the author made $.50 for every person who read it, that would be some serious money. So, if Amazon manages to monetize a few fics the level of My Little Dashie, then authors will realize "hey, this isn't just self-publishing. This is self-publishing with a pre-existing fandom behind it! There's gold in them there hills!"
2) Fanfiction will be more respected by non-fans. Now, this assumes that the Amazon guidelines will have some kind of quality control measures, and getting published will be like getting and EqD feature. That being said, there are certainly people in the world who will buy a book from Amazon, but are not going to dive into fanfiction.net. I will use my sister as an example; while she would never in a million years read fanfic, I could easily see her downloading a Mad Men story from Amazon to read on the beach, assuming that there's not much more risk of weirdness than buying a novel.
So if normal, non-fans start checking out fanfic of their favorite shows, that would reduce a lot of stigma associated with writing fanfic. It becomes less "why would you do that?" and more "Oh? Do you have any on Amazon?" (Warning: No matter what, no one will ever understand pony shipping.)
3) Fandoms that don't sign on will lose talented writers, fandoms that do sign on will gain posers. Okay, so I doubt any of us are interested in Gossip Girl or The Vampire Diaries. It's not like we're going to stop writing ponies for that.
...on the other hand, if you need a few extra bucks a month, and you know you can write fanfic, well, where's the harm in checking out the books and trying your hand at it? You might make some pizza money. It's no different then stopping fanfic because you got a new job. Just in this case your new job is writing fanfic someplace else. So is it really a stretch to think that if someone has hundreds of followers here, and is looking across the aisle where they can get paid if they build up hundreds of followers, at least a few of them are going to head over there?
At the same time, that's not likely to be good for the target fandoms, either. On the one hand, you get great fic. On the other, the people who are writing it aren't "real" fans. Fanfic has traditionally been a labor of love, for the shows and characters and fandom, and people who don't sufficiently love those things are labeled trolls. In this case, the trolls are making money off the fans, if they hide their distaste for the material well enough. If they don't, and they still write good fic, I predict all hell breaking loose in those fandoms.
4) People will not pay for fanfic. Well, not enough of them in any case. First, there will be other fandoms where fanfic is still free, so people who read fanfic will check out those other fandoms for good fic. Then, there are going to be guidelines about what types of fanfics can be published, so you'll still have some authors working underground, for their AU/smut/shipping stories, even in fandoms where it's allowed. Finally, with a lot of big name fans getting dollar signs in their eyes, the second and third tier authors will see an opening to step up, so at least some of them will market themselves with the promise that their fic will always be free.
So if the fanfic audience isn't hurting for free material, how many of them will actually pay for it? What would have to be promised in these fics to make people go to Amazon, rather than finding some free fics to read?
5) People will give up on a fandom where they have to pay for fic. If a fandom doesn't have enough good, free fic, people will just find another fandom. In this case, the copyright holder signing onto Amazon will be a death-knell for a fandom, people know the days of fun and fans writing for love of the world are over. Especially if it's combined with:
6) Copyright holders who work with Amazon will crack down on free fic. One of the big reasons that fanfic flies under the radar for most companies is that they aren't actually losing any money. It's not like Hasbro is selling books marketed at adults about MLP, and even with things like the comics there's not way their output can keep up with fandom demand. So there's no real harm in people writing fanfic, they'll still buy the official stuff and the copyright holders can't figure out how to make money off it anyway.
Now they can. Now, it's their fanfic vs. free fanfic. I would not be surprised if settings where legal, paid fanfic is available are no longer allowed on the big fan sites lie fanfiction.net. I wouldn't be surprised if private sites and archives for those fandoms get C&D letters all of a sudden. They've become actual competition for the copyright holders.
7) This will get so big that every copyright holder will want in on it. Right now, the three properties being offered on launch belong to Warner Bros (when you get to the top of the chain.) So WB will be getting the profits for it, and what do they have to do? Not a damn thing. So if there are enough profits, other companies will see that and figure out that they want part of that pot.
Now, I think that owners of largely children's properties will be the absolutely last to sign on. Fandoms are not exactly trustworthy when it comes to protecting the innocence of the characters, and they have to keep their brand name away from us. But there may come a day when even they get in on it, because it's just a part of their profit plans.
What do you guys think?
1103908
Bah, you can totally appeal to the mainstream, if you want to. Writing commercially is a decision you can make, a skill you can develop, if you care to.
Set your phasers to panic!
I have no idea. At this moment, I would think that MLP-related stories one would have to pay for would be a detriment to all, but I don't know enough about marketing or copyright laws to be sure.
1103930
Ah no. Towel day says: Don't Panic!
This is a great blog post and more people should read it.
I don't know if I'd consider getting paid to write fanfics myself. Is there a market for explicit fanfiction? Oh wait...
media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/manually-added/fifty-shades-of-grey-cac1d39d5bb5c20810b1314bcbf61dee35d8219b-s6-c10.jpg
1103947
I wish I could thumb-up comments more than once.
That's... actually pretty interesting.
I have no idea where this is gonna go, but I'm certainly interested in finding out.
Think they'd let Fluttershy Kicks a Puppy onto a kindle?
Too bad I like shipping as much as I do. I'd just get reject notices over and over again, "You can't have the mane six kissing. This is the third time we've told you this. We're getting ready to auto-reject your submissions."
I have a feeling things will go more the way of a whimper than a bang with this. I use 'monetized webcomics' as an example, where the ones that have succeeded spectactularly (such as Order of the Stick, Penny Arcade, and Homestuck) are creator-driven rather than imprint-driven. Marvel has pay webcomics that nobody knows about, because people are willing to support ad revenue and buy merch, not pay for the content itself. For something where the content creator is removed even further from the equation, you're left with folks who are extremely unwilling to pay for anything, I'd think.
On the other hand, a lot of properties have 'official fanfiction' all the time. I've read some rather enjoyable Batman novels and there's more 'official' Star Trek and Star Wars fan content than there is official content, and neither of those sources have dented the fanfiction world. I could see a similar situation remaining even if this idea takes off.
One point that you didn't touch on is plagiarism. Now that people could have the possibility of actually profiting from story theft I will be quite interested in how Amazon goes about setting this up.
1104019
Yes, but part of the reason the Star Wars and Star Trek novels don't matter to fandom is that they still work on a traditional publishing model- if I write a Star Trek fanfic, I'm going to have a hell of a time getting it published, I might as well have written original fiction. And the only other option is giving it away for free.
Now, if I write a Vampire Diaries fanfic, I have the (presumably easier) option of submitting it to Amazon.
And, while neither of us are big authors, but I bet if we told people they could buy our next fic on Amazon for a dollar, some of them would do it. It's not really an investment, and you know some of the money is going to the author. I think the most likely model would have to be for an author to build up a following on a free site, and offer paid stories as kind of "bonus" stuff. Of course, that depends on the copyright holders not cracking down on the fanfic community.
That's kind of the difference from your webcomic analogy- in this case the people currently producing the content are on shaky legal ground to start with, and a few cracks of a whip from Hasbro (or WB or Disney) could make our lives much harder. A more apt analogy would be if Penny Arcade was owned by Marvel, who then came out with a pay webcomic. How long would they let Penny Arcade content stay free?
1104042
This is all true, but for webcomics I'd wonder how long Penny Arcade would survive in the hands of a pay model is what I'm getting at. Yeah, if they were owned by Marvel they probably wouldn't stay free for long, but what that means as far as wecomics are concerned is probably a death knell for PA. I could easily see folks like us or bigger names than us like SS&E or Penstroke making some scratch off of 'bonus $1 stories' through Amazon. Heck, some writers have already started monetizing like that in some ways; Kits is going to small-print publish Twilight's List and others have done so before. From that stance, it's a viable model.
Where it stops being viable is in a situation where that's all that's available vs. most free and occasional pay. PA makes money off of book collections (among a million other things), not from their primary content. If the primary content source becomes pay, like Marvel webcomics, folks will gravitate away. At least, that's what I see happening.
>At the same time, that's not likely to be good for the target fandoms, either. On the one hand, you get great fic. On the other, the people who are writing it aren't "real" fans.
The people who write the scripts for any existing show aren't "real" fans. Star Trek, Dr. Who, & My Little Pony all have an abundance of fans who know, understand, & care about the show much more than the show's writers do. Many existing episodes of My Little Pony would have been blasted with criticism if posted as a fanfic, because the characters act wildy out of character (Luna Eclipsed), they suddenly introduce characters that couldn't exist in canon (Canterlot Wedding), introduce a sudden plethora of anachronisms that change the century the show appears to take place in (Read it and Weep), or have events wildly out-of-character for the MLP world (e.g., murdering all the extra Pinkies).
1104065
That is exactly true.
But the stamp of canon approval from Hasbro makes us regard those writers are (somewhat) worthy of respect, and their creations as canon, while the same stories in fanfic would be bashed.
So what happens in a situation where someone does not have the stamp of canon, writes a good fanfic for the show, makes money off of it, and then talks about how boring the show it, how they hate all the characters, and they only do this to make money? I mean, obviously this person has killed that cash cow. But if it's not just one individual, it's a handful of people, with more who are smart enough not to talk about that, what does that do to a fandom?
I don't know if you've seen the "fake geek girl" debates, where there are some people who make stupid comments about how girls aren't real fans of various fandoms, they just like how all the guys pay attention to them. Now, this is obviously ridiculous because fandom is a labor of love- if someone is putting work into a Wonder Woman cosplay, there's no reason to believe she's not a fan of Wonder Woman, whether or not guys pay attention to her. But if you have a situation where one group of people is getting paid for fanish activity, then this is something that might matter. The question of "Why the hell would I do this if I didn't love the show?" is easily answerable. And there are many people who care about if a fan content provider is a real fan.
I have one thing.
What is an author who isn't that well known (50 followers, average of 30-50 thumbs per fic) hits gold with a fanfic that starts out as free. Say he publishes the firs 3 chapters, and reaches 400+ thumbs.
He sees dollar signs, and drops an update saying he will only sell it on Amazon.
Result; he forces people to buy if they want to read
1104100
That could be self-correcting. His audience will quickly shrink to those who are either already willing to pay, or who don't know that any new fic posted for free will be a bait-and-switch. As an added "bonus", if it gets big enough, it'll show up on file-sharing sites, too. Don't laugh; I've seen "fanfics with the serial numbers filed off" and web-published original fiction show up on The Pirate Bay when the authors decided to pull them down and self-publish.
1104172 well, the only thing we can do is wait and see.
but i'm positivve for this as a whole. Sure, some fics might be only available for money, but it helps support pro writers who use theri spare time to write
Innuendos... Innuendos everywhere...
Imagine all the cloppers... getting somewhat rich. And they say this would be good, but i think it sucks. And they say say it would be fun, but I think it would really suck
with apologies to paul mcartney
1104242
Well, in the current model being proposed, clop/porn isn't allowed. They're going to have some content restrictions that keep the fanfic in line with the canon version of the setting, so unless there's sex in that, there probably won't be in the fics.
Of course, no one knows how far that's going to extend. It's vague right now, but it's a pretty safe bet that the first thing they're crossing off the list is sex.
(Also, that's Lennon.)
I don't like it. No, I don't like it one bit.
There's a plethora of legal reasons as to why this could potentially turn out very badly for the community and sites like fimfiction, but to write fan fiction for profit just doesn't seem in the spirit of the community or fandom.
Number six scares me. It absolutely terrifies me to think of that possibility. But then, I know I will be the first to fight against their cease and desist letters, even if I have to fight nose to nose with them and take it court regarding fair use. The good thing about the internet is that the people on it, don't understand the meaning behind C & D. Even if the companies say no, we'll find a way to share our fanfics with the world. They can't ever stop us.
This whole thing with Amazon could get very ugly, very fast. Or it could just be a paid version of fanfiction.net.
There are a lot of variables here, hard to predict.
On the one hand, the possibility of making money will change the motivations of people writing fanfics. This is very true. Also, both Amazon and Hasbro have brands to protect and a lot of legal clout to use if they want to.
On the other hand, against money, is the Internet. Nobody pays for content who really doesn't want to. No idea is totally suppressed, and no secret stays that way long.
I used to read Megatokyo online (before Robert Jordan Syndrome set in) and then I would go buy the books when they came out. If it wasn't free, I would have gone on to something else that was and no one would have made any money off me. Since it was free, I tried it, liked it, and then gave them my money. So yes, phase one: give away free stuff. Phase three: profit. It actually works.
The good news: Hasbro, at least, knows this. They give away MLP on YouTube. They could completely shut that down (or this site) any time they want, whether to protect the brand or their profits from DVD sales or whatever of no reason at all. But they don't, because if no one watches, no one buys the dolls. And dolls = profit.
So regarding the effect of this new model on Firefly fanfics, I got nothing. Effect on MLP? Slim to none. Hasbro is actually very good at this.
Now go but a doll and prove them right.
The bane of fanfiction cometh
... Fuck.
Time to start downloading stories before they get tossed into the frying pan.
Ugh.
I'm not gunna lie....I've been trying to figure out a way to get paid for fanfiction since I started writing them.
Not that my work for MLP could ever be published by anything that's licensed. I mean, I have a few works, only one big enough to warrant posting as an eBook on Amazon that is kosher enough that I can edit out the shipping and put it more into undertones in the story (but it's a bit of an AU, so I'm not sure how that would play out). That would mean any other fanfiction I put up would basically be putting stuff up that I couldn't not write, but couldn't make money off of, but still loved writing it anyways. As you said: labor of love ^_^ Plus it's good marketing - people could check out the works I have done and decide if they like my work enough to buy something I wrote.
I read what someone above (too lazy to scroll back up) mentioned about someone putting up a fic, seeing it get popular, deciding to publish, and telling people the rest of the story needs to be read. I've actually seen that happen on a Phantom of the Opera fanfic I was reading. It was very annoying, but she had a warning in the description, and I decided not to read farther than the first chapter since I didn't have the money to purchase it. I'm not sure how that would play out for an author, though. Would they lose readership? I think a better model to go about it is if someone wrote a short, and if people asked for a continuation or extended version, and the author was really into it, they could probably make it longer and put it for sale. But they should warn people beforehand if they DO do that, they would probably make it for sale. And personally, I'd rather just put the whole finished work for sale, and maybe post a snippet or two in a journal entry...if the license allowed that, that is.
Anyways...
I think about money and marketing too much in my everyday life, so I'm gunna stop right there.
Because I think you're right about 1) the crackdown on licensed companies on things like FIMfiction, and 2) Hasbro is trying to dissociate themselves enough from Bronies and reclaim their brand as a brand for little girls. I really don't think that MLP would be affected by it unless Hasbro WANTED to keep playing with this brand that ran away from them with this fandom they can't quite predict.
However, if I ever decided to start writing fanfic for other fandoms, and they happened to be licensed products, I could probably use what fans I have in MLP as a sounding board for that.
But I really don't see that happening.
I'd rather create my own characters and worlds. MLP is one of the few fandoms that caught me up sooo much that I HAD to write something for it. And now I have about 30 stories in queue....What we do for love, eh?
So, TL;DR: This is an interesting idea, but I could never benefit from it, so I'm going over here now...
My gut says this is a terrible thing for fanfiction.
My head agrees.
I'm very concerned. I honestly hope it fails, but the fangirls in those initial communities are gonna eat this up.
The real trouble here is that fanfics are usually so bad, who is going to be dumping money on them?
Most fanfics are terrible. You would have to actually have written enough good ones to actually get people to buy your stuff...
At which point I have to question whether it wouldn't be a better model to go with ads instead, so the content is free, but paid for by people reading it.
I mean heck, if Hasbro owned this site and put ads on it, they'd make some money, I think.
1104065
Given that several of those are amongst my favorite episodes (Luna Eclipsed and Too Many Pinkie Pies are wonderful, and I greatly enjoyed Read It And Weep), and I certainly didn't mind A Canterlot Wedding...
I also don't really see what you mean by the cast acting out of character in Luna Eclipsed. Luna's personality was nonexistent prior to that episode, Fluttershy being scared was perfectly reasonable, Pinkie Pie was just having fun, Rainbow Dash loves pranks, and Applejack warmed up pretty quickly (and let's face it, the last time she saw that swirling mane, Nightmare Moon was boasting about how they were doomed). Twilight was pretty comfortable with her and tried to help her out.
Also, I don't think being a fan is helpful for writing fanfics. The truth is that most stuff isn't written by fans, and a lot of that stuff is good. A lot of fan-written stuff tends to be of lower quality precisely because they ARE fans, and they don't realize that part of writing is having characters develop act a bit different - or they derail them into whatever THEY want to happen, which often isn't what is best for the story.
1104832
Okay, fair use is something a lot of people misunderstand, but I think it is pretty vital to understand it.
Fair use is quite limited in nature. If your story isn't a parody and isn't educational in nature, then it is not going to fall under fair use.
Almost every fanfic on this site would lose under fair use. The main thing that protects them is that Hasbro doesn't want to rock the boat.
https://kindleworlds.amazon.com/world/GIJOE?ref_=kww_home_ug_GIJOE
4170397
It's important to have standards.
Though that's interesting. I mean, GI Joe is technically a kids property, and technically owned by Hasbro. I guess it's safer than MLP being not as popular among kids these days, and featuring adult, human characters. But even so... I wonder how long before Hasbro would consider adding MLP.