owl: Hermione Granger; OotP (hermione)
only a sinner saved by grace ([personal profile] owl) wrote2006-06-22 09:40 pm
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A thought on the state of the fanfic

In the course of ScribeGate, I discovered that Cassandra Claire has sold an original fictional series. My first reaction was , 'Hey, she has a built-in fandom, with built in wank!'. My second reaction was, 'Hey, wait, she has a built-in fandom.'

Not to knock CC in particular, but it started me thinking. CC's said that she's not going to use 'Claire' on the front of her books (probably because http://www.cassandraclaire.com takes you to fandom_wank greatest hits—the Dean plagiarism saga), but she's posted the titles and the publisher on her LJs. Of course many of her fans will buy the books on the strength of her name alone. She will profit, indirectly, from her HP fanfiction. There's a flip side to this; she won't get away from anything she did in the fandom, as you can't cherry-pick the fans and leave the wank.

People have moved from fanfic to published work before, but HP is very high-profile and so is CC. It's almost bound to have an effect either on fanfic in general or on people making the transition. If I had an original coming out, I'd want to tell my friends in fandom too, but being a SNF, it's not such an issue.

[identity profile] ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com 2006-06-22 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe she was hoping that googling the title of said controversial fic will lead people to her book? Any advertising is good advertising...