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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white_serpent
2006-04-26 01:12 am UTC (link)

Fan fiction isn't a gray area -- with certain exceptions (e.g., parody) it's clearly copyright infringement.

This is also my understanding; it infringes upon the exclusive right of the copyright holder to produce derivative works.

However, I must admit to curiosity about "bad" fanfiction in which the characters are only recognizable because they share the same names as the characters in the source work. Is this, in fact, a derivative work?

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phosfate
2006-04-26 08:21 pm UTC (link)

That's actually a good question. There's a lot of commercial (albeit small-press and POD) uberXena* available on Amazon, but it doesn't infringe because, other than the main characters being a largish brunette and smallish blonde, you'd never know it was fanfic.

The bizarro AUs would likely be considered derivative, because the names are the same and (when illustrated) the likenesses are obvious. I suppose they could be remade into original fic if the muse demanded, though that would remove a whole lot of the fun.

*In case anybody asks, Xena fanfiction that derives from several episodes' premises involving the characters' future/cracked-out AU selves.

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white_serpent
2006-04-26 10:23 pm UTC (link)

In addition to "bad" fanfiction (that of the "any two guys" variety), I admit that I was thinking of a particular uberHercules slash novella. It's far more of an erotic Georgette Heyer parody than anything else-- and, in fact, if you changed the names, you'd never know it was based on Hercules.

The Uber genre seems (to me) to tap into the fandom solely for a ready-made audience, though it could potentially be cleanly copyrighted and sold as original fiction. Of course, that's of limited utility: I'm not certain how broad an appeal these stories have, and that may make professional publication unrealistic.

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