Fanfic writer publishes work on Amazon

[AngeloMichael]

Link

Someone wrote a Star Wars fanfic and put it up for sale on Amazon.

No, because I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book. Yes, it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it's there.

Say it with me now...L A W S U I T

This person is either lightyears beyond stupid or a certified genius. Stupid because she is flirting with legal action that could ruin her, genius because of all the hype this will cause will make her more famous than she could ever hope to be by just writing crappy stories. My opinion, I think her common sense has been lost in space...

Sample
To top it off, this story is incredibly bad.

 

[Guest]

Link

Someone wrote a Star Wars fanfic and put it up for sale on Amazon.



Say it with me now...L A W S U I T

This person is either lightyears beyond stupid or a certified genius. Stupid because she is flirting with legal action that could ruin her, genius because of all the hype this will cause will make her more famous than she could ever hope to be by just writing crappy stories. My opinion, I think her common sense has been lost in space...

Sample
To top it off, this story is incredibly bad.

I was thinking about the whole fanfic thing, and the problem is, if you try to sell your work, you need to get a release and pay a fee to the originator -- the same as a musician does to use a sample in a song. And I'm fine with that. If I could market fan fiction, I'd be happy to assign a percentage of my earnings to the originator if that meant they could be happy with my writing and leave me to it. Of course, some writers/originators could price right out of the market to protect themselves, but for others it might turn into a nice revenue stream with no work on their part.

Yeah, I'm thinking Amazon may quietly yank this.

 

[TheEarl]

Oh dear god. Read a page and nearly fell asleep. If you can't write to the standard of the original, then you have no business writing fanfiction and certainly none publishing it.

The Earl

 

[Stella_Omega]

And yet another one- this young lady wrote a book that was grabbed up and published.
Thing is, she unwittingly copied dialogue and some prose from another author, that she had read and loved some years previous; NYtime article

I blame the publishers, who seem to be more and more ignorant of their own fields these days. I mean, if you are going to publish a ninteen-year-old's book, you should expect some immaturities, and be prepared to guide your young writer past them .

 

[Guest]

And yet another one- this young lady wrote a book that was grabbed up and published.
Thing is, she unwittingly copied dialogue and some prose from another author, that she had read and loved some years previous; NYtime article

I blame the publishers, who seem to be more and more ignorant of their own fields these days. I mean, if you are going to publish a ninteen-year-old's book, you should expect some immaturities, and be prepared to guide your young writer past them .

Ya know, with some of the books I've seen and read in recent years, I begin to wonder if there ARE editors who actually read and EDIT anymore. Maybe they aren't cost effective...

 

[Stella_Omega]

Ya know, with some of the books I've seen and read in recent years, I begin to wonder if there ARE editors who actually read and EDIT anymore. Maybe they aren't cost effective...

oh, tell me about it!
Back in th enineties, I actually phoned a publisher to complain about a book that showed so much promise, but needed tightening up so badly.
The (male, gay) editor I spoke to, told me he hadn't wanted to "stifle the(female, lesbian) native voice"

which I felt to be a wee bit patronising, and lazy.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Ya know, with some of the books I've seen and read in recent years, I begin to wonder if there ARE editors who actually read and EDIT anymore. Maybe they aren't cost effective...

I'm guessing, but I'm thinking that the main problem is how popular popular fiction is really becoming, and moreover, how marketable. More writers seem to be popping up everywhere, and more and more of them seem to be able to publish because they write what's popular. More writers; more editors. Long story short; we're not dealing with simply the best of the best in either case. The good thing about this? We can clearly see, in most cases, which writers truly have talent and which don't. Secondly, with bad writers being published everyday, it ups my own chances of publication, and that I can live with.

Back to the topic at hand. Yes, this seems to be a simple beg and plead for a lawsuit. There's no such thing as using someone else's characters and plotlines for your own purposes, without permission, and not being liable for it.

And yes, she's bad. She breaks pretty much every rule of fluency in the first two paragraphs, but in her defense, it might get better later on. i wouldn't know. I didn't get past the first two paragraphs save for skipping ahead to see how she handles dialogue, and... well, I ... just... couldn't ... do it. *sigh*

I'll defend her again, however. I read the book for Revenge of the Sith, by Mathew Stover (I believe it was Matthew Stover...?). The writing wasn't exactly good there either. Maybe instead of suing, Lucas should hire her on and let her be a drone sort of writer, since she'll probably have no luck publishing anything else.

In yet another direction: I'm actually working on some Star Wars fan-fics for this site, and I hope they hold the reader's attention better than this held mine. I don't plan on using Vader, or the other characters I'm sure she couldn't help but incorporate, but it's still in Lucas' Star Wars Galaxy. ANd to combat TheEarl's point, having read a few of the books not representing the movies, as well as Revenge, I don't feel, in terms of actual prose, much of a standard has been created to live up to. And of course, since they're just for fun, like my other postings here, who cares if I don't live up to it at that.

Q_C

 

[Quiet_Cool]

oh, tell me about it!
Back in th enineties, I actually phoned a publisher to complain about a book that showed so much promise, but needed tightening up so badly.
The (male, gay) editor I spoke to, told me he hadn't wanted to "stifle the(female, lesbian) native voice"

which I felt to be a wee bit patronising, and lazy.

Executive decisions, eh? If he felt that way, why would he be the editor?

Some people are dumb.

Q_C

 

[AngeloMichael]

And yet another one- this young lady wrote a book that was grabbed up and published.
Thing is, she unwittingly copied dialogue and some prose from another author, that she had read and loved some years previous; NYtime article

I blame the publishers, who seem to be more and more ignorant of their own fields these days. I mean, if you are going to publish a ninteen-year-old's book, you should expect some immaturities, and be prepared to guide your young writer past them .

Greed has a lot to do with it, I think many publishers are looking for the next Christopher Paolini and Eragon. Everyone was like "OMZG!!! A seventeen-year-old wrote this? That's incredible! I have to read it!!!" and this craptacular book became a bestseller and they are making a movie out of it.

The thing is, Paolini is even quoted somewhere saying something like "I take the things I like and put 'em in, and leave out the things I don't like." regarding other works and the book is clearly a nauseatingly bad ripoff of Star Wars, LOTR, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, etc.

 

[Guest]

oh, tell me about it!
Back in th enineties, I actually phoned a publisher to complain about a book that showed so much promise, but needed tightening up so badly.
The (male, gay) editor I spoke to, told me he hadn't wanted to "stifle the(female, lesbian) native voice"

which I felt to be a wee bit patronising, and lazy.

I'll go for a translation of that to say "I have 30 manuscripts from the readers just in this week, and the first three paragraphs I read were ok, and it might make some money, so to hell with it."

I've got friends in the book editing biz and I hear a few stories.

Then again, like Q_C says, maybe it increases my chances of publishing something -- only I'll have someone copyedit the damn thing, then someone else edit for continuity and sense, and THEN have someone actually EDIT it.

Because otherwise I'll be embarrassed.

 

[FallingToFly]

Can someone give me a list of these clueless publishers and/or agents? Because honestly, my mother, bless her sweet, edgy Christian romance-writing soul, has nearly a baker's dozen finished novels (two trilogies, and another seven or eight stand alone stories) and if they'll publish some of the crap I've been getting lately from the book exchange, they'll publish her in a hot minute.

Hell, they'd probably publish me. >.< But I'm not that worried about my crap...

Hrmmm... schlepping on over to EF to find a couple people to read Buy A Cowboy. Anyone here interested, let me know.

 

[AngeloMichael]

Can someone give me a list of these clueless publishers and/or agents? Because honestly, my mother, bless her sweet, edgy Christian romance-writing soul, has nearly a baker's dozen finished novels (two trilogies, and another seven or eight stand alone stories) and if they'll publish some of the crap I've been getting lately from the book exchange, they'll publish her in a hot minute.

Hell, they'd probably publish me. >.< But I'm not that worried about my crap...

Hrmmm... schlepping on over to EF to find a couple people to read Buy A Cowboy. Anyone here interested, let me know.

Another Hope and Eragon were published by vanity presses, which I believe is how a lot of this crap is getting put there.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'll go for a translation of that to say "I have 30 manuscripts from the readers just in this week, and the first three paragraphs I read were ok, and it might make some money, so to hell with it."

I've got friends in the book editing biz and I hear a few stories.

Then again, like Q_C says, maybe it increases my chances of publishing something -- only I'll have someone copyedit the damn thing, then someone else edit for continuity and sense, and THEN have someone actually EDIT it.

Because otherwise I'll be embarrassed.

Yes, but they gave this girl a half-million dollars- you'd think SOMEONE would know the field....

 

[TheEarl]

In yet another direction: I'm actually working on some Star Wars fan-fics for this site, and I hope they hold the reader's attention better than this held mine. I don't plan on using Vader, or the other characters I'm sure she couldn't help but incorporate, but it's still in Lucas' Star Wars Galaxy. ANd to combat TheEarl's point, having read a few of the books not representing the movies, as well as Revenge, I don't feel, in terms of actual prose, much of a standard has been created to live up to. And of course, since they're just for fun, like my other postings here, who cares if I don't live up to it at that.

Q_C

Q-C: The thing is that you are a very capable writer who can create a well-written story and (hopefully) stick to the canon. Plus, you're not using any characters, so you get more leeway there as well.

It's the people who try and do what's already been done and do it badly that bug me and cause a lot of people to reject fan fiction as fanboy crap.

The Earl

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Not to muddy the waters, but if Lucas sues, he'll name Amazon in the suit. And obviously, he's going to win that particular fight, the violations are egrigious. I wonder if it will lead Amazon to cease listing self published works, rather than hiring people to actually read them and make sure they are compliant? If so, her shutzpah may well close a door to legitimate authors who had found a way to get their works seen, even if on a small scale?