Nieman Foundation at Harvard
Fan fiction — fan-written stories featuring characters drawn from pop culture properties, like a tale in which Chewbacca and Boba Fett become star-crossed lovers in 1950s New Jersey — is a huge phenomenon. On one end of the scale, the Fifty Shades of Grey books started out as fan fiction and became the publishing success of 2012; on the other, hundreds of thousands of people put their favorite characters into unusual situations in stories posted free on hubs like Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.Net.
The problem with fan fiction as a publishing business is that it’s of questionable legality. The creators of those characters — the writers of movies, TV shows, and books, or the corporate entities that control their rights — don’t want people selling new stories involving them. (Chewbacca’s love for Boba Fett was always a forbidden love.) And making the licensing arrangements necessarily to publish fan fiction for a profit was generally too much of a bother for anyone to pursue. The result was that turning fan fiction into a business has been somewhere between impractical and impossible.
Amazon took a big step toward slicing that Gordian Knot today by announcing it had made licensing agreements with three fanfic-popular properties — Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Vampire Diaries — that will allow fics for those properties to be published for the Kindle, with revenue split between the author and the rightsholder. More deals are on the way.
The new Kindle Worlds platform will enable any author to publish stories based on these characters and then make them available for purchase through the Kindle Store. Amazon will then pay royalties both to the author of the fan fiction and the original rights holder. The standard author’s royalty rate — for fiction that is at least 10,000 words in length — will be just over a third (35 percent) of net revenue.
This has major monetization potential — if fan fiction communities used to getting their fix for free (and in an open, episodic environment) buy into the idea of paying for it (or others getting paid for it).
Family self-promotion alert: If you’re interested in the subject of fan fiction, you should look into Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World by University of Utah professor Anne Jamison, which will be published later this year. (And edited by my wife, Leah Wilson.)
9 comments:
While as a sometimes writer of fanfic, I have to say I would love to be paid. On the other hand, considering the quality of 75% or better of the fics I have read, there’s no way in Hell I would pay for the privilege! A penny is too much for some stories, believe you me.
I am more curious as to how Amazon is going to handle the copyright issues. Do they think that if that they throw enough money at it, all obstacles, rivals, etc, simpy melt away? (yes, I am still upset about them buying Goodreads–does it show?) However, I’m guessing that they’ll have to go to all of the individual property-holders and make their deals. So some will never be on Kindle, either because they’re too small or they’ll refuse. FF.net has a list of “worlds” they will not and cannot accept, such as Nora Roberts and Archie comics; those folks aren’t likely to suddenly change their minds. I’m thinking the biggest franchises, such as Star Trek or Star Wars, will likely also say no.
This is the worst idea I have ever heard of in regards to fan fiction.
I don’t write my fic to get paid money; I write my fic as a gift to the fandom, and my pay is the thanks, comments and reviews of my fellow fans. Getting paid turns it into work and drudgery.
Fanfiction and other fanworks are part of a very special gift economy. Money will just gum up the works and allowing the amount of control being demanded to participate in these corporate sponsored schemes are going to put shackles on the creativity that is inherent in fanfiction.
After all, you don’t think they are going to allow you to write crossovers with properties they don’t own, or allow you to come up with an AU that’s not approved by the rightsholders, do you?
Why does every friggin thing in the world have to be “monetized”.
From what I’ve read of the contract details, these will be pretty much works for hire, the rights holders are getting tie-ins for free instead of paying authors up front–and they’ll own all your ideas too.
There are a lot of reasons I don’t think this will have a major impact, like Barbara above, I think the fanfic subset of fandom is a very specific culture which has resisted monetization and I hope it continues to do so. People write, whether badly or well, out of love, out of need, and because they want to spend more time with these characters that have become their friends and yes, sometimes stretch the boundaries of the permissible. None of that will go away. And none of that will fit into any Amazon mold.
Have you ever thought about publishing an ebook or guest authoring on other sites? I have a blog based upon on the same information you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my audience would appreciate your work. If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to send me an email.
I think one of your advertisings caused my web browser to resize, you might want to put that on your blacklist.
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