I can’t remember the thread, but, at one point, we were talking about how nice it would be if fanfiction writers could also get their due. And on the heels of Nintendo announcing that they will prevent monetization of anything containing footage of their video games, it was starting to seem kinda grim.
But, lo and behold, Amazon has entered into an agreement with some publishers that will allow it to publish some types of fanfics as real books! This is extremely exciting to me. It seems that those in charge are actually starting to listen to what people actually want.
I sincerely hope this goes well. Sure, like anything else, 90% (some claim 99%)of fan fiction is dreck, but some of it is really good, and these authors need exposure. Right now, it’s only fan fiction about three works, but I hope it grows and companies stop fearing the very people who love their work more than anything.
It did, and I remember hearing around the time 50 Shades came out that there had been a number of romance and/or erotica novels that had started out as fanfic, but that this was the first one to achieve mainstream success.
One way to create publishable fanfiction without having to change the character names, etc., is to focus on works in the public domain. While there’s probably not much demand for fanfiction of most pre-1923 works, there have been a number of fairly successful novels in recently years that are basically just Jane Austen fanfiction. I feel like there have also been recent-ish novels that used characters from Dickens and the Bronte sisters, although the only thing springing to mind is the Tuesday Next series. Count Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, and Sherlock Holmes have also been used by authors other than their creators.
I know everyone likes to say that people write fanfic only be explicit erotica, but it has not been my experience at all. I don’t see any other restrictions other than the limit of where you can get the original material.
And the amount you get seems pretty good to me, especially compared to nothing. Fan fic deserves some compensation, but not as much as for original ideas. You are in fact partly using someone else’s work, and they deserve to be compensated, too.
And, as for Amazon having publishing rights forever, that’s pretty close to any other publisher.