[ SECRET POST #2364 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2364 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 098 secrets from Secret Submission Post #337.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

12. http://i.imgur.com/LdAf2PL.png

[(Anonymous)]

wtf is that ad tho?

[vethica]

Seems pretty accurate to me.

[electromouse]

So wait, you're telling me that if I read fics at that site, I will get muscly men out of the blue? Sounds pretty legit.

[(Anonymous)]

What's fanlib and why was it a monster?

[elaminator]

Yea, I don't think I've ever heard of it.

(That is one goofy ad, though.)

[illiadandoddity]

Oh my god, Fanlib... I'd forgotten all about that fiasco.

[(Anonymous)]

What IS FanLib? And what happened?

[anarchicq]

http://life_wo_fanlib.livejournal.com/

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is the screen-capture of an internet advertisement featuring a skinny fan and then a muscular man. The ad says: "Life without Fan Fiction" (picture of skinny man); "Fan Fiction at FanLib.com (picture of muscular man)" "fanlib: where the stories continue... get started"]

I want to see fanlib succeed. I don't think they were the monsters fandom made ouf of them.

Notes

[transcriptanon]

Quoting from a brief part of the FanLib page from the website fanlore.org:

Fanlib was a commercially-owned, for-profit multifandom fanfic archive, run by Chris and David Williams, which was open between May 18, 2007 and August 4, 2008. It began with 3 million USD of starting capital, and was heavily criticized until its buyout by Disney. Like Fandom, Inc., it was widely perceived as an attempt by outsiders to profit from the work of fans. FanLib was part of the original inspiration behind the OTW, notably Astolat's "We Need an Archive of Our Own" post[1].

However, unlike some failed startups, Fanlib did attract a number of fans, many of whom considered it their internet "home". This group of fans was not only alienated and left homeless by the site's closure but also felt unwelcome in many other fandom spaces that were hostile to Fanlib.

http://fanlore.org/wiki/FanLib

Re: Notes

[cassandraoftroy]

Thank you for doing the research on this one, transcriptanon. You've convinced me of the usefulness of the Notes comment.

[(Anonymous)]

No, they were ragged on for a reason. Fanfic for profit is a bad idea, even in a post 50 Shades world.

[myth]

And now we have Amazon with Kindle Worlds. Not the first, not the last.

[(Anonymous)]

Yup. If Kindle Worlds fails, they'll start back up somewhere else in a few months and call it something else. If it succeeds, I look for them to throw everything they have at shutting down the free sites.

And that's the real problem I have with FanLib, Kindle Worlds, whatever. Yeah, they want to make a quick buck off a property they own without doing anything (classic corporate rent-seeking), but I guarantee that their main objective with this is to get rid of the free sites. So anyone who wants to write, but just not through the officially-sanctioned pay site, will wind up with a C&D. So I really hope this fails on the grounds that the ultimate effect would be terrible for fandom.

[truxillogical]

It's a lose-lose, really. Free sites with less freedom, but also, from the point of view of professional and aspiring-professionals, it's pretty lousy. For the same reason that most artists get pissed off when they see naive young things doing their art for free or for peanuts, this is bad ju-ju. Any time a company can get something acceptable, if not stellar, for cheap or free, it makes making a living that much harder for folks up the ladder.

There's a whole host of bad with the Kindle Worlds. I hope fic-writers are smart enough to stay away (hey, congrats, the company now owns all your ideas and can use them whenever they like without paying or even acknowledging you, while you earned enough to buy a chalupa!), and that the whole mess just fizzles out.

[(Anonymous)]

Has there been any much debate about that? I'm kind of out the loop because I can't tumble, but I heard about this Amazon thing through mainstream media. With the fuss that was about Fanlib back in the day, you'd think there was *some* kind of fannish reaction to a gigant like Amazon trying to make money of fanfic.

[deadtree]

all of the reactions I've seen from fans have been EXTREMELY negative, thankfully

[myth]

tumblr is not very big on fanfiction and I haven't seen much about this there (thought I haven't really searched). You'll have more luck with JournalFen or LiveJournal.

[(Anonymous)]

I know Fanlib had issues, but I do miss it sometimes. I made some really good friends there.

[(Anonymous)]

for those who remember, what was fanlib like? Just curious.

[(Anonymous)]

Mostly, we sort of avoided all of the drama happening around us. There weren't a TON of members, but there was a core group. I'd say a good percentage of the members were fans of the Uglies series, due to the fact that there was an ad for Fanlib in the back of one of the books. (I didn't read them until years later, but my name is Tally, so it came up 95% of the time I introduced myself.)

The biggest part of Fanlib was probably the forums. I couldn't tell you what we talked about, but I definitely spent a good amount of time on them. It's the real reason nothing ever really replaced the site, though there were attempts made on ffnet and LJ.

Because everyone was so close on the Forums, it was very common to get feedback on your works even from people not in the fandoms. I'd say that the best and most thoughtful feedback I've ever gotten was on Fanlib.

When they announced the site was closing, they made it so we were able to download copies of our works and comments, which was nice.

They would also feature fanfics on the home page, and, if your fic was featured, you got a free t-shirt with a quote from your fic on the back. (I used to wear mine constantly.)

There was also a blog with various fandom related posts, such as primers for some of the more popular fandoms on the site and general intro to fandom posts with basic fandom terms and history.

Another element (seriously, I just keep remembering more things--this is really bringing me back!) was challenges. Anyone could set up challenges that anyone could participate in. I don't remember the logistics of it all that well, but I do remember it being another big part of the site.

[(Anonymous)]

I am yesterday's "FFnet never paid attention when asked to merge the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Ninja Turtles categories" anon. As FanLib basically copied FFnet's list of fandoms to populate their lists of fandoms, they carried this mistake on their site. I asked them to fix it and they did, less than 24 hours after.

Also, (at least) a fan that worked on FanLib went around LJ posts about the site, being very polite and respectful about people's concerns, despite other fans harsh words and, yes, attacks. So the fans working there and the members were nice people.

The owners though were two-faces, which I understand because users and possible investors are different; but they unashamedly offered to their potential clients fandom/fans/fan!works as commodities, and weren't prepared for their commercial speech leaking to the fans and for the uproar it would cause.

[(Anonymous)]

I was just looking back through some of my old LJ posts about Fanlib and my emails from Fanlib (I haven't deleted anything but spam in about 8 years.) I would totally agree with this. The people behind the site were extremely nice to their users, encouraged feedback, and were very quick to change minor things based on good suggestions.

And all that's great, but it doesn't take into consideration the issues with the TOS and the way that the closing of Fanlib was so sudden and without explanation.

For all the drama surrounding it, I have nothing but positive memories surrounding the site. (Minus when it closed.)

[(Anonymous)]

They were also a blatant pair of dudebros trying to market their site to more dudebros. They were mindblown when it was pointed out that fanfic is largely a female-driven thing, with a good proportion of older than teenaged women at that. They had no idea who their target population actually was, or how to deal with us.