penguinfaery | (no subject)

So. A rant.

It really bugs me how oppose to fanfiction being sold fandom is, verses fanart.

It quite hypocritical.

Now, I don't think writers should make profit off fanfiction. But on the same thread I don't think fanartist should make profit.

But making a profit implies not that you walk out of, say, the convention with $100 bucks in your pocket. It means you walk out of the convention with a $100 bucks you did not spend to get there.

So say I am an artist going to a local convention.

I make $300! Hooray!

Now, what did I spent to get there?

$75 for the table
$50 for my badge
$100 for my room
$20 for gas too and from
$100 for stock (that's get me around 100-150 prints)
$50 for misc (let's say a cash box, table cloth and some business cards)

And oh snap I just spent $395 to sell at an artist alley table! I am now $95 in the hole.

And that doesn't even brush on the cost of supplies (To lay it out, in markers alone I have spent $1000 of so in my career/ Clearly that's not ONLY for this, but making the original art isn't cheap. Even if you do digital, you need a nice computer, a tablet and may or may not pay for editing programs). Plus all those numbers can change (I buy business card, for example, so that's $20-$50). Some people cut prices some place, splurge others, but to have a decent layout you're looking around that price.

Now! My friend, we will call her Jill, over here, she writes fanfic. She puts just as much time and energy into it. She sees me sitting at my table, talking to people, fan squeeing over it, and wants to share her art form the same way.

Now keep in mind, no one in their right mind would pay $0.50 for something printed off and staples together from Jill's home printer. So she get a friend (We'll say me for this example) to make a few piece of art, and gets it all printed up in little perfect bound booklets. Now, assuming she can FIND a place that would print fan fiction, she's gonna be paying $5-$10 a booklet.

$75 for the table
$50 for her badge
$100 for her room
$20 for gas too and from
$100 for stock (10-20 books)
$50 for misc (let's say a cash box, table cloth and some business cards)

And she can make, at minimum, $200 (Cause nobody's paying $20 for a 50 page fanfiction they can find online for free)

Granted writers have way less overhead to MAKE fanfiction. And I didn't include time cost, because a) this is something most of us do ANYWAY and b) that varies too much person to person.

But I don't really see why, if Jill wants to shell out the money, so she can interact face to face with readers, she is condemned by fandom, and I get a whole section of the con set away for me.

Clearly there are lines that can be crossed (Just as there are in the art side of things), and there are licensing issues (but also, OBVIOUSLY that is an issue on the artist side of things.)

It just doesn't seem fair.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The way I see it is, the original content of most fandoms is the stories, so selling a fan story is too close to ripping off the original creator. Obviously it's more complex than that unless your fandom is literature, and some of the original creators do make money selling copies of art, but for the most part, fanart doesn't infringe on anything like what the original creators produce.

Aside from the ethics portion of it, there's also that fanfiction can have questionable quality. Even if there's a good sample, it could fall apart in places or be bad around every other part you read. With fanart, it's really clear what you're getting because you can see it all when you buy it, you're not going to find out that the bottom half of the picture sucks because the editor only really bothered with the front half. This is a risk when you buy any books, but with professional ones you can be fairly certain of consistent quality and have an easy way to return it.

YMMV, those are just the reasons why I'll buy fanart, but wouldn't buy a fan novel (except when published professionally). I do think it's perfectly cool for fanfic writers to have a pay-what-you-will system or request donations, though.

(People also have odd ideas of paying for stories at all. EG libraries are common, but usually have really small movie sections, and why there are movie rental companies, but nothing analogous for books.)

I don't know if I WOULD ever pay for fanfictions, I just think it's unfair that they can't. If they wanna shell out the money they should be able to. But a zine with a bunch of stories collected, with some illustration, essay etc...sure.

I don't...maybe with some fandoms (especially book ones I can see where you're coming from), I am focusing on mainly drawn image centric ones since I sell mainly at anime cons (And weirdly, at sci-fi cons this attitude seems less present. Not so much on the web, but at the cons themselves)

But I have seen enough "I just drew Naruto EXACTLY like Kishimoto draws Naruto, but in a different pose." to feel the... infringement is either an all or nothing thing. Clearly I'd rather go on the "all" then the "nothing" side, but I see enough artist not producing anything original to be a bit jaded on the artist side of things.

On the flip side, there was a table selling fanfiction at Starfest that made me really uncomfortable. But I think that was BECAUSE a) there was no way it was all the persons work and b) it was the equivalent of printed off, stapled together, and sold for way too much.

Also, have a pony Dean.

This pony though.

Not to poison the well, because they're really may be and I haven't read a piece of fanfiction in, literally, 10 years...

...but is there fanfiction out there actually worth buying?

Maybe it's just a market thing--no one out there is attempting to write publication-worthy fanfiction and put it into a marketable media.

I have stuff I would spend a REASONABLE price on. But I also ONLY read fanfiction if someone recommends it to me, so mine is already filtered.

Like..I'd say, that whole "90% of everything is crap." rule with fanfiction becomes 98% of everything is crap.

But if someone had, say, a 150 page anthology of my favorite couple for $5? I'd buy it. Especially if I knew some of the fics/stories.

Well, our local con doesn't have this problem since there's rules about selling anything that's fandom related. Artist alley for Mechacon usually consists of handmade things. The only way you can sell fandom related things is if it's in it's original format. So you can't sell fanart prints, but you can sell the original sketches or artworks. You can sell home made plushies formed after your favorite characters as long as the plush design is original. Same for hats and accessories. Basically you can sell anything related to fandom as long as you create each individual piece. You can't sell it if you can mass produce it. (unless you're in the dealer's room, obviously.)

Anything you sell in artist alley has to, essentially, be original. Prints are technically only supposed to be original characters.

Now, that's not saying some people don't get away with it. It's also why most artists at Mechacon take commissions as opposed to selling art.

You have a point, and lol I've tried selling fanfiction online. Since it's mostly OC/Canon anyway, and writing others characters seemed like fun... then getting paid for it just blocked any desire to do it. :| I can only write on my own terms, not someone elses.

Maybe it's because I've witnessed different fandoms than you, but I've never gotten the impression that fanfic was being viewed that way, just that it really wouldn't sell in a convention setting. But I have seen fanfic being sold (usually in exchange for a donation to a charity rather than strictly profit, but I have also seen it done on commission).

I know NDK doesn't strictly forbid the sale of fanfic (or any other writing).

NDK did last time someone asked (Which was not this year, but last year, so I'm sure the thread is deleted) Someone wanted to sell fics with illustrations and the offical answer was a big old no.

I've never seen charity frowned on, true. But I have also seen people freak out over people selling it. Our friend Julia got caught in a huge online wank for it, I know once, because it is. I think it is less prevalent in older fandoms, and is more an online fandom sort of thing, though. Cause that was ALL Star Trek fandom use to be.

Remember the last time I tried to give fanfic as gifts for people that donated me money and I got on fandom!wank because "fiction isn't worth money." More money is made off of a character's IMAGE than the text of a program - all merchandise is based off of image. So I don't get how fic is MORE infringing upon the character. People are just dumb.