[ SECRET POST #2623 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2623 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #375.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[blueonblue]

I don't care about licensed novels or 50 Shades of Find/Replace, but selling fanfics tends to be very bad for the culture of a fandom. After seeing it happen in several fandoms, now I see BNFs selling fanfic as one of the signs a fandom is declining rather than growing.

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely seems to happen that way.

Happening in the Criminal Minds fandom right now...

[(Anonymous)]

Yep. I've seen authors with wonderful fanfic, but then they file off the serial numbers and it makes bad original fiction. I think with fanfic, there's kind of a shorthand to characters and setting, with in-jokes and deconstructions that you can appreciate because you see it. And then it becomes original, there's none of that behind it, and it's world seems more shallow.

[(Anonymous)]

I will freely admit to doing a filing-off-the-serial numbers thing--more than once, even. And you are absolutely right that it has several pitfalls. The best way to do it (IMO) is to take the ideas and tropes from the works you love and then put your own spin on them. That way, you at least have plausible deniability.

[blueonblue]

With fanfic, you are writing for readers who are already interested in the characters and the world. With original stories, you have to get them interested.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh that shallow feeling is the worst. And if it does work well as an original work, it probably wasn't a very good fanfic. The pleasure of good fanfic is how it interacts with canon!
I read an adapted-fanfic last week, the first one I've read that I enjoyed, and it's hard for me to imagine how it was ever related to canon besides the most basic character relationships.

[forgottenjester]

There are authors who sell fic in fandom.

...oh my.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, not cool, guys.

[(Anonymous)]

why is it different from selling fanart?

[forgottenjester]

Normally you don't offer the art for free first and then make people pay for it. You have your free work and your pay work. You keep 'em separate.

[(Anonymous)]

I could see commissioned fanfic working, just like commissioned fanart is.

But I guess there really isn't a fanfic equivalent for what prints and buttons are.

[forgottenjester]

Yup. I don't think I'd mind someone doing commissioned fanfic* but then I also would worry because they are making money. They could run into trouble with copyright laws if their canon isn't in public domain. Honestly, our laws haven't really caught up with online fic.

*I doubt anyone would pay for it though.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I think it's a question of the potential financial impact of the copyright infringement of using the characters and setting.

No one's going to replace, say, watching a TV show with looking at fanart of the show. But there's a possibility that someone might replace watching the show with reading the fic, potentially costing the original creators money. So if people start charging more often, the copyright holders might come down harder.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, in one of my fandoms, the original work is in the public domain, so it's common for the moment someone's stories get popular, they yank all their fanfic from the free sites to publish for money. They may or may not rub salt in the wound by putting a few chapters back up on the fanfic sites as a "teaser", then the link to their (9 times out of 10 vanity-) published book is in their profile.

/just a little bitter

[forgottenjester]

Ugh, seriously?

[(Anonymous)]

This is constant in the Pride and Prejudice fanfiction world.

[forgottenjester]

That's depressing.

[mautradutor]

Definitely saw as being very bad.

[(Anonymous)]

Why is selling ficwriting bad, but selling fanart is good? :/ (Asks the girl who'd love to do commissions but can't draw worth shit, the only real thing she CAN do is write.)

[truxillogical]

I think--and this is kinda babbly-words happening--that fanfic is closer to what the original work is than fanart. That is, it's a story. Fanart can, to an extent, tell a one-panel story, but that's about it. But most of the original things sell because they're stories that people want to experience. Fanart (and official art/merchandise) is like...an accessory that you can add to it.

Like, I can (in a very gray-area, if they wanted to crack down on it they totally could) sell a print I drew of Hawkeye.

But if I tried to sell my little four-page comic I drew with Hawkeye in it, that would be no good, and potentially get me into trouble, because Marvel already sells Hawkeye comics, and the Hawkeye comics are the primary thing.

I dunno, like I said, I'm kinda babbling. I think it mostly comes down to selling Story versus selling an Accessory.

[feotakahari]

Hmm . . . My mother once bought me a calender filled with beautiful pictures of dragons. The pictures had a shared world, and seemed to have some kind of continuity, but it was all very vague. If I were to write a fanfic filling in the gaps, would that be functionally different from the original pictures? At least, would it be more different than if I made pictures inspired by the originals?

Edit: I was able to track down the pics. They were by someone called Ciruelo. http://www.dac-editions.com/

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, Fiction inspired by that would be functionally different.

If you wanted to write in that world, you would have to invent the world - the pictures give no mechanics, no characterization, nothing more than visuals.

Also, cool pics.

[ceebeegee]

I think it's unfair, because even with fanart you're still using someone else's copyrighted idea for your own profit, and if I were the owner of that copyright I would be on you like a duck on a junebug. That said, I think it's because when you sell fanart you're selling an actual thing, an object you can mount on the wall or whatever. Fiction is more abstract--you're selling a series of ideas.