THE Group for Authors! discussion

I noticed a few listings on Goodreads for works that are "published" on a fan fiction web site. That is, they have been posted and reviewed as serial stories there, but they are not traditionally published, can't be purchased, etc. But they can be read, for free, and they are full novels.

In the case of the genre I write in (Jane Austen fan fiction) some unpublished works are superior to published works. The writers in the genre tend to be very serious about their Austen. A great deal of research goes into the writing, and many writers are sticklers for historical accuracy. I think some of the readers have decided that if their favourite writers have chosen not to traditionally publish, they will just add them to Goodreads so they can be rated alongside other similar works.

The trouble is, there are literally thousands of genres in fan fiction, and there is probably more twenty times more garbage than there is traditionally publishable material in many of those genres. But when I read the librarian rules, fan fiction published online is accepted as e-books on Goodreads.

Is this fair to those traditionally published authors who have gone through hoops to please a publisher and get a quality work on the market? Or to the self-published authors who spend a great deal of time and sometimes money to make their works publishable? Granted, the authors who publish serial stories on fan fiction web sites offer their works for free. But is it really a book?

Hi Suzan,

That's a good question. For my part, I know that more than a few successful authors got their start writing Fan Fiction, and the following these authors were able to find on fanfic sites created a snowball effect that ultimately fueled their later success.

Interestingly, but maybe not surprisingly, our most read ebook (of those available to read on Goodreads) is a piece of fanfic.

If nothing else, we think Goodreads can be a great place for readers to discover these works and their authors--far be it from us to judge a book based on its means of publication/distribution.

It's definitely an interesting topic though, does anyone else have any thoughts?

Alex

I started out this way on another writer's site. They offered contests all of the time for stories and poetry that garnered the most votes. This was a paying site - modest amount monthly or cheeper by the dozen for the year (All 12 Months of it). I was able to CATALOGUE my works there as poems, short stories, or books. I still go back there to pull up my stories and poetry in the creation of my books today. They have a sister art site that works the same way.

We find out on these other sites whether our work passes the test or not, and who better to run our work by than other writers. We are able to repair our pieces there as well, and to finally move our works to magazine sales and/or create our own book from that site also.

I can complete a book that I had already set up there, and get it published in a reasonable time period. Little or no editing is required, since many on the other site had already pointed up what was obviously a mistake to them. We fix the nits, and we are on our way.

My newest "Star at Christmas" book was created from a Christmas poem, and for a limited time I will make it available free for anyone here as a PDF copy.

Just email me, and I'll see that you get it in time for Christmas.

Happy Holidays everyone at Goodreads!!! Don

Where eagles fly,
Don Greywolf Ford
Native American Storyteller

Suzan, as a self-published author, I don't have a problem with fan fiction being listed as long as the complete "book" is available to readers. I personally don't care to read fan fiction, but that's another story :)