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vanceone (vanceone) wrote in [info]wankitywank,
@ 2006-04-24 14:17:00


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Potter for Profit? Maybe!
Is selling your fanfiction at $80 dollars per book bad? Especially when the entire hardback 6 volume original series is only $20 more? Apparently, not if you are a Harry/Ginny shipper.



So, the backstory. Over here a prominent Harry/Ginny fanfiction author has a series of Harry Potter fanfiction novels for sale. The prices seem rather high--the lowest of them is $50.00 for a single book. Particularly when other novel-length fanfictions on the same site are a quarter or half the cost. Additionally, there is an audio book partially available as well, though apparently it's free.

There's been a recent upsurge in posts on F_W regarding fanfiction being sold. In this one, a poster makes a comment pointing out that not only in the Star Wars fandom does this happen, but also the aforementioned Harry/Ginny shipper has done it as well. The first few posters agree it's a bit ridiculous. But then the H/G author herself shows up and claims that it's not copyright infringement to be selling her fanfiction for large sums of money. I guess the reason why is that, allegedly, she makes no money off the deal, so it's a-ok to do this. It's also allegedly a "zine" in theory, though I've not heard of any $80 zines lately, and as far as I know most zines tend to have more than one story and different authors in them.

Needless to say, people who ridicule Harmonians for just about anything show up in droves to defend this author's right to charge very large sums of money for her fanfiction. I guess if a known H/Hr shipper points it out, it cannot be wanky (a H/Hr shipper noticing wank makes it nonwanky? Who knew?), or it's the H/Hr shippers fault for pointing it out. Even mice cannot comment without being lambasted. It's good to know you can sell your fanfiction all you want and for 4 times the price of a regular book as long as you call it a "zine". It's not copyright infringement then, I suppose.

I have here a 200 page fanfic, er, "zine". I'll charge $45 dollars "for publication costs." Any takers?


ETA:While the author of the fanfic has denied making money on this deal, another zine publisher states that they have dealt with the same publisher, and that at these prices, profit is happening, and most likely by the author, since the publisher only takes a commission. Unless directed elsewhere, the author gets the rest of the profit.

ETA II: Apparently, the fanfic author has some correspondence online with the site in question.


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[info]esclaramonde
2006-04-25 01:10 pm UTC (link)
Why is everyone insisting publising a fanfic as zin is far less terrible than to have it on Amazon?

I considered it better because a) zines are traditional &c. and b) Amazon is right out in the open where lots of people can find it. Nothing to do with the price, I think the price is way too high but that's not what I'm addressing.

Who gets the money if not the author?

If you go up to me rewrite of the post, there's a comment the links to an LJ entry about the AWS person. Apparently she contacts people and asks to print their fics and is very shady. I think she's taking the extra and claiming it's for printing costs.

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[info]estrella
2006-04-25 01:19 pm UTC (link)
In which case Barb should be better worried about what she allows to do with her fic (and with here name asociated to it) instead of defending the zine.

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[info]esclaramonde
2006-04-25 02:01 pm UTC (link)
Please point me to where she defends the zine. All of the comments I remember had her saying that she didn't really know why it cost so much, she never saw any money, and that the zine gets her more readers online (the Google for the title and find her fics on FAP).

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[info]musouka
2006-04-25 02:17 pm UTC (link)
Here? I dunno, it was what annoyed me about this whole mess...

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[info]esclaramonde
2006-04-25 02:29 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I could call that defending. It seems a bit more like defending the zine form (er, like "art form" or "book form") than that particular zine, but okay. I just didn't remember that part.

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