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inverarityIt's not the first time I've seen this: a fan fiction author who's achieved BNF status and whose stories have become fairly popular and well known within the small pool of fandom (and even the Harry Potter fandom is a small pool relative to the world at large, sorry to say) thinks maybe all those thousands of hits and flattering reviews saying "You should become a professional author, I would totally buy your books!" might actually translate into a writing career.
To my knowledge, this has never, ever worked for anyone.
There are certainly fan fiction authors who have gone pro. Cassandra Clare and Sarah Reese Brennan are both former Harry Potter BNFs who now write bestselling paranormal urban fantasy something or other, and certainly a lot of their fans from their fan fiction days stayed with them. But: their fan fiction is not what launched their careers.
They had to query, find an agent, and land a publishing contract the old-fashioned way, and you can bet they didn't mention their fan fiction as a selling point when they were trying to go pro. Notice that both of them have done their best to erase their fan fiction from the net. It's not that there is anything wrong or shameful about fan fiction; plenty of other pro authors have admitted they used to (and in some cases, still do) write fan fic. But given its gray legal status and the fact that some authors get touchy and batshit on the topic of fan fic, most publishers don't want themselves or their authors to be associated with it, so my understanding is that the general rule issued to published authors is, "Either don't do it, or at least try to keep it separate from the name you publish under, and definitely don't put it on your official web page."
Once Cassandra Clare and Sarah Brennan got contracts, it wasn't their old LJ fans who made them successful. If every single fan they had back when they were writing Harry/Draco slashfic bought their first published novel, it wouldn't be enough for them to get another book contract. And if you think that word of mouth from their fans is what's responsible for them hitting the bestseller lists, you're wrong. Yes, I know that Cassandra Clare's works basically are her Harry/Draco slashfic with the names changed, but most of her readers are people who know nothing about the Draco Trilogy. For better or for worse, she got popular the way any other YA author did.
Which brings me to G. Norman Lippert. Sigh.
Lippert seems like a pretty decent and down-to-earth guy. I have nothing against him. I read the first book in his James Potter series, James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing, and liked it. I have been meaning to get around to the next two books.
I was aware that he's self-published other books, with about as much success as most self-publishing efforts get. More power to him.
Unfortunately, I think with this post, he's pretty much lost the plot, so to speak.
Here's the thing: those 51 copies he's sold of Ruins of Camelot? That's better than average for a self-published ebook. There are now approximately seventeen zillion aspiring writers self-publishing their fantasy novels on Amazon. Which means for every phenomenal success story like Amanda Hocking, there are approximately seventeen zillion -1 disappointed authors who get a handful of sales, mostly from friends and family.
G. Norman Lippert has an advantage over most of them in that (a) he is actually a decent writer, and (b) he does have a significant fanbase, but that's not enough to launch a career that's going to earn him more than beer money at best. So the fact that he seems surprised and disappointed that a self-published fantasy novel does not appear to be selling in profitable numbers is rather surprising and disappointing to me. He should be smarter than that.
If he really wants to make a go of a writing career, he should hone his craft and query with traditional publishers.
Now, there are a growing number of professional authors saying otherwise. Dean Wesley Smith, J.A. Konrath, Mike Stackpole are a few of the fairly big names who have jumped onto the self-publishing bandwagon and are encouraging other authors to do the same. (Though none of them will turn down a traditional publishing deal if they like the numbers, so go figure.) And G. Norman Lippert is an animator and has the time and talent to do the sort of relentless self-promotion that is necessary if you are really going to try to self-publish and make a living at it, so he'd seem to be their target audience. But I do find that some of Smith and Konrath and Stackpole's arguments range from bitter to risible, so I really think aspiring authors shouldn't be so quick to drink their Koolaid.
Lippert evidently did, and it doesn't taste that good. Sorry man. I really do wish you luck. But if you think trying tobrowbeatgently encourage your James Potter fans to shell out money for an OF novel will boost sales significantly, well, I'd like to see your numbers in a few months. If you write fan fiction, you write it 'cause you like it. Heck, if you write anything, you write it 'cause you like it. Making a living writing fiction has always been about as far from a sure thing as you can get.
I saw what Lippert wrote about his plans for his own seven-book fan fiction series, with side projects in between, and boy did it sound familiar.
I've alluded in the past to the fact that I do dream of publishing a novel. Maybe even more than one. And that I am in fact working on that.
I have an advantage many aspiring writers don't: I'm already a grown-up and I have a job. So I have the luxury of viewing my writing as a hobby whether or not I ever make a penny off of it. (I have made money off of my writing in the past, but my real job pays better.) If I do get published, I can view it as a hobby that earns me some extra spending money. If I become a best-seller, well, maybe then I'll think about quitting my day job. But frankly, I view that in the same way that I view "If I win the lottery..."
(One might argue this is actually a disadvantage, since I am not, metaphorically speaking, "hungry" enough to really be pursuing my writing dreams, but that's okay.)
So anyway, yes, sometimes the thought occurs to me that I spend an awful lot of time writing fan fiction that I could be spending on something that might actually be publishable (and earn money). But I view all my writing, from my fan fiction to my original fiction, as a hobby that I do for pleasure more than anything else. I really do want to finish Alexandra Quick, and I do plan to write a sequel to Hogwarts Houses Divided someday. But yeah, I want to be published too. I'm not old enough yet that I can't still plan to do both. :)
Should I become aReal Boypublished author, I don't plan to stop writing fan fiction, but I will have to continue to maintain some distance between my "professional" identity and Inverarity the fan fiction author.
And if I finish my novels and query them and no publisher is interested, maybe I will just self-publish and throw them up on Amazon too. But I promise I will never tell you, "I won't write the rest of the Alexandra Quick series unless you buy my shit, yo!"
As for Mr. Lippert, he is discovering what I figured out waaaay back (wow, almost four years ago?) when I first started getting those adulatory reviews. "I think you are good enough to be published and I would buy your books" is very nice to hear. But you need to know that every fan fiction author who is an even halfway decent writer will be told that. Most of the time it's not true. I don't know if it's true for me; I can only hope so. But even if every person telling you that does, in fact, buy your books, that's an insignificant number by publishing standards, so forget about it. You have to be able to sell to people who don't know from fan fiction and don't care.
To my knowledge, this has never, ever worked for anyone.
I don't care how popular your slashfic is, and neither does the publishing industry
There are certainly fan fiction authors who have gone pro. Cassandra Clare and Sarah Reese Brennan are both former Harry Potter BNFs who now write bestselling paranormal urban fantasy something or other, and certainly a lot of their fans from their fan fiction days stayed with them. But: their fan fiction is not what launched their careers.
They had to query, find an agent, and land a publishing contract the old-fashioned way, and you can bet they didn't mention their fan fiction as a selling point when they were trying to go pro. Notice that both of them have done their best to erase their fan fiction from the net. It's not that there is anything wrong or shameful about fan fiction; plenty of other pro authors have admitted they used to (and in some cases, still do) write fan fic. But given its gray legal status and the fact that some authors get touchy and batshit on the topic of fan fic, most publishers don't want themselves or their authors to be associated with it, so my understanding is that the general rule issued to published authors is, "Either don't do it, or at least try to keep it separate from the name you publish under, and definitely don't put it on your official web page."
Once Cassandra Clare and Sarah Brennan got contracts, it wasn't their old LJ fans who made them successful. If every single fan they had back when they were writing Harry/Draco slashfic bought their first published novel, it wouldn't be enough for them to get another book contract. And if you think that word of mouth from their fans is what's responsible for them hitting the bestseller lists, you're wrong. Yes, I know that Cassandra Clare's works basically are her Harry/Draco slashfic with the names changed, but most of her readers are people who know nothing about the Draco Trilogy. For better or for worse, she got popular the way any other YA author did.
Dude, no, really, this is like one level above holding chapters hostage for reviews
Which brings me to G. Norman Lippert. Sigh.
Lippert seems like a pretty decent and down-to-earth guy. I have nothing against him. I read the first book in his James Potter series, James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing, and liked it. I have been meaning to get around to the next two books.
I was aware that he's self-published other books, with about as much success as most self-publishing efforts get. More power to him.
Unfortunately, I think with this post, he's pretty much lost the plot, so to speak.
Here's the thing: those 51 copies he's sold of Ruins of Camelot? That's better than average for a self-published ebook. There are now approximately seventeen zillion aspiring writers self-publishing their fantasy novels on Amazon. Which means for every phenomenal success story like Amanda Hocking, there are approximately seventeen zillion -1 disappointed authors who get a handful of sales, mostly from friends and family.
G. Norman Lippert has an advantage over most of them in that (a) he is actually a decent writer, and (b) he does have a significant fanbase, but that's not enough to launch a career that's going to earn him more than beer money at best. So the fact that he seems surprised and disappointed that a self-published fantasy novel does not appear to be selling in profitable numbers is rather surprising and disappointing to me. He should be smarter than that.
If he really wants to make a go of a writing career, he should hone his craft and query with traditional publishers.
Now, there are a growing number of professional authors saying otherwise. Dean Wesley Smith, J.A. Konrath, Mike Stackpole are a few of the fairly big names who have jumped onto the self-publishing bandwagon and are encouraging other authors to do the same. (Though none of them will turn down a traditional publishing deal if they like the numbers, so go figure.) And G. Norman Lippert is an animator and has the time and talent to do the sort of relentless self-promotion that is necessary if you are really going to try to self-publish and make a living at it, so he'd seem to be their target audience. But I do find that some of Smith and Konrath and Stackpole's arguments range from bitter to risible, so I really think aspiring authors shouldn't be so quick to drink their Koolaid.
Lippert evidently did, and it doesn't taste that good. Sorry man. I really do wish you luck. But if you think trying to
When I become rich and famous
I saw what Lippert wrote about his plans for his own seven-book fan fiction series, with side projects in between, and boy did it sound familiar.
I've alluded in the past to the fact that I do dream of publishing a novel. Maybe even more than one. And that I am in fact working on that.
I have an advantage many aspiring writers don't: I'm already a grown-up and I have a job. So I have the luxury of viewing my writing as a hobby whether or not I ever make a penny off of it. (I have made money off of my writing in the past, but my real job pays better.) If I do get published, I can view it as a hobby that earns me some extra spending money. If I become a best-seller, well, maybe then I'll think about quitting my day job. But frankly, I view that in the same way that I view "If I win the lottery..."
(One might argue this is actually a disadvantage, since I am not, metaphorically speaking, "hungry" enough to really be pursuing my writing dreams, but that's okay.)
So anyway, yes, sometimes the thought occurs to me that I spend an awful lot of time writing fan fiction that I could be spending on something that might actually be publishable (and earn money). But I view all my writing, from my fan fiction to my original fiction, as a hobby that I do for pleasure more than anything else. I really do want to finish Alexandra Quick, and I do plan to write a sequel to Hogwarts Houses Divided someday. But yeah, I want to be published too. I'm not old enough yet that I can't still plan to do both. :)
Should I become a
And if I finish my novels and query them and no publisher is interested, maybe I will just self-publish and throw them up on Amazon too. But I promise I will never tell you, "I won't write the rest of the Alexandra Quick series unless you buy my shit, yo!"
As for Mr. Lippert, he is discovering what I figured out waaaay back (wow, almost four years ago?) when I first started getting those adulatory reviews. "I think you are good enough to be published and I would buy your books" is very nice to hear. But you need to know that every fan fiction author who is an even halfway decent writer will be told that. Most of the time it's not true. I don't know if it's true for me; I can only hope so. But even if every person telling you that does, in fact, buy your books, that's an insignificant number by publishing standards, so forget about it. You have to be able to sell to people who don't know from fan fiction and don't care.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 05:18 am (UTC)But yeah, BNFs cannot get published through their fan fiction readers alone. You write your fan fiction, enjoy the compliments, then move on to your original work and working the publishing system, like you said. But if you can write good stuff based on other people's characters, there's probably some chance you can do that with your own.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 05:23 am (UTC)There are a lot of authors who got their start as fanfiction writers. When one is new at writing, one must experiment and write a LOT, and why not write where a lot of people will see? But there does come a point where one has to step outside the comfortable, insular fan fiction community and risk failure. One must risk rejection. One must risk a bad review. And, unlike in the fan fiction community, when you get a bad review, you can't go off and have all your friends bad-mouth the reviewer. You have to take it like an adult and accept that different people have different opinions.
Agents and publishing houses are not wandering the internet to find their next best-seller. They're looking at original works that are already written. The writers who get to play in other writer's worlds? They're already established as decent writers before they're hired to tack onto another series.
If they want to be really successful, fanfic writers have to step out of their comfortable little box, and write something that they can call their own.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 06:07 am (UTC)[SPOILER!]
who happened to be full-blooded SIBLINGS. I pretty much gave up when it seemed like the story was tilting in favor of their incestuous relationship.
[/Spoiler]
Still, I agree with your main premise. The truth is, no matter how good your writing is, unless you're an executive of a marketing company, you're never going to have serious access to a fanbase, no matter how good your writing is. You really need to get picked up by a publisher, and have your books sold in stores--no matter how easy it is to buy on Amazon, there's just something about a book being available in a store that gives you that little boost.
~DarkSov
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 06:55 am (UTC)I was immediately reminded of the people who say "I won't write the next chapter until I get X reviews." Lippert's thing is both better (at least you can buy things with money, so I understand the motivation better) and worse (reviews cost nothing; money costs...well, itself).
Becoming a published writer is one of the three career options I'm thinking of. It is also the least likely. So we'll see.
Oh, incidentally, Cassandra Clare wrote Draco/Hermione fics, not Draco/Harry. That was Sarah Rees Brennan. Not that, um, I've read them or anything *shifty eyes*. (Seriously I haven't, I just have an odd memory for fandom things apparently.)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 02:14 pm (UTC)Actually, Sarah did. For months before her first book was published, she wrote a series of LJ entries about her adventures writing query letters, finding an editor, &c. Her editor even published Sarah's query letter in her blog, and Sarah did make a point about already having a succesful blog. It doesn't mean her editor took that into account, or that her fanfic rep in any way helped getting her a book deal, but her fans certainly helped make a bit of a buzz at the first signings and events, pushing the book into casual buyers (and of course it doesn't mean she owes her success to her fans, either).
And outside of fandom, I've seen many bloggers get published, even some being approached by the publishing industry. The internet does help when one's good enough- but it's one in a zillion chance.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 04:22 pm (UTC)Although the Internet buzz from her fans might seem to be significant for those already in fandom, I doubt it really had a major impact on sales.
Bloggers usually get published as a result of their blog being popular, and they end up writing a book that is basically similar in content to what they blog about.
I don't think anyone has ever been approached by an agent or publisher who said "Hey, your fan fiction is really good, what would you think of writing an original novel?" though.
Note to any agents and publishers who may be reading this: Feel free to approach me if you want to set a precedent! :D
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 03:50 pm (UTC)There are plenty of other success stories moving from non-commercial fiction to commercial writing. A number of authors got their starts on AmberMUSH and a couple of the old Pern MUSHes. Jim Butcher, C E Murphy, Cam Banks, Angela Beegle, Rob Donoghue, Fred Hicks among others (note that some of those are RPG authors not novel authors at this point) but again they didn't capitalize on their fans from there. They used it as writing practice then went through the normal publishing process.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 04:39 pm (UTC)Worth a shot!
~DarkSov
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 04:44 pm (UTC)But I am working on a novel for consideration by a publisher. I just keep interrupting it to write fan fiction. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 05:13 pm (UTC)Good luck with your writing (both original and fanfic), and again, thanks for posting this.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 06:19 pm (UTC)And, I think that one reason why former fan fic writers take their fan fiction off the internet when/before they get published is so that no one can officially, legally point a finger at them and say that their published book uses characters that were created by someone else (i.e. that they have just taken one of their fan fictions and changed the names).
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 07:19 pm (UTC)There's a saying in writing circles that you have to write a million words or so before you stop writing crap. With AQATSA, I'll have topped a million words, so maybe I'm getting close. :D
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 06:34 pm (UTC)I'm a popular fanfic writer in my fandom, and I also work in publishing (which means I make very little money in a part of the U.S. with a very high cost of living). There's nothing more frustrating than well-meaning friends essentially telling me I'm choosing to stay low-income because I haven't tried to publish an original novel—because of course anyone who writes a sufficiently good story is going to become rich and famous overnight. They even assure me that I can get a grant to take a year off and write said novel!
Publishing is much more finite and much less meritocratic than most people think. Selling a novel is like embarking on any other job hunt in this economy. You will be competing against hundreds if not thousands of other people every bit as talented as you are for one of a set number of slots based on what a publisher can afford to print and advertise each year. Amateur writing may make you a stronger writer, but it no more makes you a stronger candidate than ten years of babysitting experience and a brand new teaching degree makes you a stronger candidate for a teaching position than someone with the same degree and one year of experience in a school.
That's not even touching the subject of marketability and the author as a product, because while the publishing industry is holding onto a lot of prescriptivist ideas of what will sell, the portion of the population who would pay good money to see more fannish-type writing in print is, as you say, very small.
And that's okay with me, personally. My writing may have a small audience, but I make that audience happy, and I make myself happy by writing what I want to write. That's why I'm content to keep my writing a hobby until the day I'm driven to write something that I think is made for a big audience and worth the massive work of getting it out there.
Review
Date: 2011-12-04 11:23 pm (UTC)Re: Review
Date: 2011-12-05 02:00 am (UTC)I might get around to reading his book at some point, but I have to be honest: the premise does not interest me much. The blurb sounds very generic medieval fantasy to me. ("Princess Gabriella of the kingdom of Camelot"? "Merodach"?) I'm afraid my review would probably be pretty harsh.
I think his expectations that he'd sell 3000 copies of a self-published ebook were ridiculously optimistic. But I do wish him luck.
re: previous comment
Date: 2011-12-05 10:24 pm (UTC)It was a genuine compliment. Your fan fic is some of the best I have read, up there with Cassandra Claire, and I prefer yours to hers because you don't feel bound to expound on romantic relationships. I also love your character development and the unexpected plot turns.
However, would I pay for a book? Not sure about that. I enjoy reading fan fic because it brings me back into the same fictional world, which is more relaxing than having a new world every time I read a book. But it's not something I'm proud of reading. And J. Norman Lippert should realize that not finishing his series makes people less likely to read his other works.
Re: previous comment
Date: 2011-12-05 11:14 pm (UTC)Um.... thanks?
I won't ever ask for anyone to pay, donate, or buy other stuff to keep AQ going.
Why should you be ashamed of reading fan fiction, though?
Re: previous comment
Date: 2011-12-08 07:57 pm (UTC)Maybe it's just me, but yes, I am embarrassed of it. It's not like I'm writing anything. It wastes time and I end up reading junk. I try to read quality writers, but it is a rare occasion to find them!
I have little spare time and people are shocked to discover that this is my escape. Go convince someone that only 99.99% of fanfiction is written by tween girls, and the rest can be worth reading. So it's somewhat embarrassing.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 05:01 am (UTC)IMHO this is because such a large portion of it is rather bad. And yet, at the same time, such a great, guilty pleasure. I can think of many HP fanfics I read that put a smile on my face that I would probably not want to own up to (this includes all draco/hermione fics). But sometimes you need mind candy. And sometimes its as interesting as watching an amateur theater production, you don't expect much, and so the gems delight you by being unexpected.
And then of course there is the good stuff. The stuff you read and then tell the author "Inverarity, you should write original ficiton, you are good enough to be published."
Same Anonymous as before-
Date: 2011-12-08 08:12 pm (UTC)Even when you sort by reviews, comments, etc, 1/10 abide by the rules of English grammar. 5/10 of those are way too explicit for my poor eyes. 9/10 of the rest have no plot/character development and/or violate their own fantasy's rules.
Invaririty is more rare than s/he realizes. :)
Re: Same Anonymous as before-
Date: 2011-12-09 04:44 am (UTC)