[ SECRET POST #2651 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2651 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #379.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Except that people do buy fanfiction, when it's published as either a novelization, TV/movie tie-in (hello Star Wars and Star Trek!) or sequel to something in the public domain. Take a look at all the Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen sequels on the market.

So yes, you can do that with some fanfiction. It's not a question of people not buying any fanfiction, the OP's referring to fanfiction based on copyrighted works vs. fanart also based on copyrighted works.

[fleshisyummy]

Okay, I should have specified that people really only buy fanfiction if it's actually published and marketed, but it seemed obvious to me that that OP was talking about independent fanartists and fanfic writers so that was what I was referring to.

[(Anonymous)]

If people were willing to pay for the output of "independent" (not really sure what you mean by that, tbh) fanfic writers, their work would get published and marketed, too. But I'm not sure that's even correct. Fanart is unofficial and lacks a marketing campaign too, and people buy that. People are less inclined to buy amateur fanfic because of some imaginary mental rule, not because it's unofficial and lacks a marketing campaign.

[(Anonymous)]

Y'know, I used that argument when I was younger, but...no. It's not really the best comparison. Fanfic and Franchise Fic are two drastically different things, in style, execution, and quality control. Which doesn't mean franchise fic is always better, just that it's at least had a professional editor look at it usually. But the whole feel of fanfic is different--it's pretty much it's own separate medium. But those Franchise Fics rarely exist for the same reason Fanfic does.

[(Anonymous)]

It tends to be genfic rather than ship-centric, but that's not a hard and fast rule. I don't think that citing quality is a solid argument for saying they're two different things. They're not. While tie-ins are done by writers who are specifically hired for that job, Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen are two HUGE fandoms that don't function that way. Nearly all the writers who publish legit books in those fandoms were amateurs, just like people you'd find on AO3.

[(Anonymous)]

Those are also two properties that are in the public domain, for what that's worth.

IMHO, I don't feel like the people usually saying IT'S NOT FAIR re: fanart fanfic are really upset at not being able to sell their Sherlock Holmes or Jane Austin fic because...if it was sellable, they could literally just publish it and sell it. Even self-published. There's pretty much nothing stopping them from doing that for anything fallen into public domain.

[(Anonymous)]

This particular discussion isn't about fairness, though.

It started with fleshisyummy's statement that "no one is going to buy fanfiction", which was amended to "people really only buy fanfiction if it's actually published and marketed". Then another anon tried to draw a distinction between fanfiction and works written as tie-ins to a franchise to suggest that published fanfic is a whole different animal than amateur fanfic. My pointing out that Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen doesn't work that way (with the copyright holders hiring someone to write more works) and they're still legitimately published was to support my argument that quality isn't necessarily the sole criteria of legitimate vs. illegitimate fanfiction.