Wait, Wait... What?

[shipperx]

(Sorry for spamming. )  

I'm killing time at my desk at lunch (hence the sudden patch of posting).  Anyway, I hopped over to Audible.com to see if there were any new downloadable books to listen to, and what to my wondering eyes should appear...

Look at the bottom of the page.  The link/advert to - Pamela Aidan - Best of Jane Austen Fan-Fiction

Wha-huh?!

I'm in no way surprised that there is such a thing as Jane Austen fanfic.  I mean, I pretty much take as a given that there's probably fanfic for everything from Care Bears to the Bible.  And I also realize that due to when they were written that Austen novels have no copyright restrictions.  Still, this is a commercial site.  This stuff is being sold.  An outlet for commercial books is calling some of its offerings 'fan-fiction.'  In fact, they're selling it as an audio version of fanfiction.

Does anyone think that this may set a sketchy precedent?  I know that there  have been a ton of published faux-sequels to Austen books, and that these Audible entries are almost certainly published "sequels. "  But Audible, a commercial site, referring  to published novels as 'fanfiction' makes me uneasy.  You just know that there are fanficcers out there who think they can get book deals (Er, I mean other than the ones who already have. And I'm not talking original novelists who also happen to write fanfic.  I'm referring to some of the craziness that's happened in the Harry Potter fandom and that crazy self-published Star Wars fangirl on Amazon.com a couple of years ago).  

It seems to me that businesses attempting to blur the lines between fanfiction and commercial fiction can lead to fandom troubles.  (Of course, everything always seems to, but still...)  There truly are people who have weird thoughts that rather than writing Harry/Snape fanfic, they can publish (and profit) from Harry/Snape novels.  Commercial companies probably shouldn't encourage such people by calling published books 'fanfiction.'

Fanfiction is for fun not profit.

Comments

[magista.livejournal.com]

I think you can get away with it because Jane Austen is well out of copyright. After all, it's not like she's going to complain about it. But yeah, for those who don't think... well...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured that the reason they can get away with it is that Austen is out of copyright. But usually those sorts of novels aren't referred to as "fanfiction" (even if that is more or less what they are). Having a commercial outlet for it calling them fanfiction as they sell them... It blurs and confuses the issue in a way that makes me worry about what trouble actual fanficcers could get themselves into. 'Selling', 'profit' and 'fanfiction' are words that need to be kept far away from one another.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

I just had to Google "Care Bears fanfiction" and, yep indeedy, it does exist. The mind boggles.

I agree that it's kind of disturbing for Audible to be calling this "fan-fiction." "Inspired by" works just as well.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh. I knew from Fandom_Wank that there Care Bear fanfic exists. What totally wigs me out is that Care Bear pron exists! Yikes! Why? I...wuh... WHY?!

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

The interwebs get wierder and wierder.

[thedabara-cds.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I have read "Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula" type paperbacks by at least three different authors over the years. And none of them were written by Stoker or Canon Doyle. But actually calling it fanfiction is weird - most people tend to think "why pay for fanfiction when so much if it is out there for free?" Ergo, why on earth would you publicize something as fanfiction when you're trying to sell it? Not a well-thought-out marketing strategy at all!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it wasn't the existence of the fanfic that disturbed me, it was a commercial site marketing stuff as fanfic.

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

I know there is Jan Austen fanfiction as a former buffy-fic writer I like writes it these day, and I once stumbled onto Bible fic on FF.net-- very disturbing. But a commercial site? Yikes!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hee! My scarring discovery of Bible fanfic was one day at work for some reason that I cannot remember I discussed the existence of slash with a co-worker. It seems strange in fandom to hear it, but a lot of people have never heard of slash and upon hearing of its existence just to see whether or not I was bull-shitting her, my co-worker googled 'slash' and 'fanfiction', and I swear to god the first half-dozen hits or so were Bible slash. At that point, both of us were slack jawed. I thought there was nothing fanfic-wise that could shock me simply by virtue of its existence... but I had honestly never thought about the possibility of Bible slash... until I had Google laying it out in front of me. :)

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Bible Slash?? ??

Gah, where's the brain bleach when you need it!

::Not going to google, not going to google...::

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

You mean you don't want to know the rest of the story about David and Goliath?

>:)

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Oh dear God (and I mean that sincerly, BTW!) No!

::shudders::

:D

[malabud.livejournal.com]

Late comment, but I just saw this entry.

Pamela Aidan actually wrote a three-book series based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. You can find her books in regular bookstores. Since all of Austen's work is out of copyright, her characters are fair game for novelists. There are actually quite a number of novels based on Austen's works.

Anyway, Aidan's books were published by Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. While her story may have started out as fanfic on the web and then progressed to a self-published (i.e. vanity) series, a real publisher did eventually pick it up. Thus, it's a bit different for it to have an audiobook than your average web- or 'zine-published fanfic. You won't find Snape/Harry in your local bookstore, after all.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, I figured that they must have been professionally published.


But that still doesn't explain why a commercial site like audible.com was advertising them as fanfic.