A thought on the Kindle Worlds thingy

[huinare]

I just woke up so this may be really poorly articulated, but anyway:

1. I understand the concerns that this flies in the face of fandom culture etc.  I do.
2. I don't feel like fandom overall is threatened by this (this is one case where I'd really hate to have to put my foot in my mouth, of course).  To me it sounds like a new way to get people to write things along the line of, say, Babysitters Club books.  (I don't really know the book series in question admittedly, so I apologize in advance if that analogy is not apt.)

Comments

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I'm perfectly content to sit at the sidelines and see what develops with this since I'm not writing in any of these fandoms, nor do I publish within any unis that are not my own. I can see where this might, however, have some consequences that are unintended and that may affect those of us who are merrily writing along in fandoms as silent, happy contributors.

The thing that really bothers me about this particular event is the contract and how really horrid it is towards the authors. I would never sign a contract like this nor recommend such a contract to others.

- Erulisse (one L)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I didn't look at the contract stuff in detail so I couldn't speak to that part. For the rest, I could see it possibly having ramifications we wouldn't like, such as an influx of the entitled "you should write this fic exactly how I would have written it" ff.net-style reviewers, but I don't think it's a given that it'll really affect fandom at all.

[ladybrooke]

Meh, more trashy tv than Babysitters Club (I will admit being biased - I probably own a hundred of those books and still pick them back up once a year or so. Those, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys were my growing up series)....plus, I'm fairly certain the author won't let people write more Babysitters Club books (nor does it really have a huge active fandom that could, there's 700 or so stories on ffn). ...I know far too much about those books and the fandom.

My main worry is the reaction that this will get from outside people - accusations that we only write because we want money and such. (This would only be a huge problem (for me) if Christopher Tolkien decided that was the case...or if Warner Brothers decides to try and license for people to write movie fanfic, and CT gets pissed. Couldn't really blame him, either.)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're TV shows? Me and my cave.

From what I understand, the majority of the Babysitters Club books are ghostwritten. As seems also to be the case with Nancy Drew and other highly prolific series (Sweet Valley High, Bobbsey Twins...) This is per wikipedia anyhow. My point was that these are original creations that have evidently been okayed by their creator to be written by others for a profit venture, which to me seems in a different realm than something like Tolkien or Harry Potter.

(Oh good god, I think that would send CT to an early grave, the poor fellow.)

[ladybrooke]

As far as I know yeah.

It is the case, though I still see a lot of differences - I do know more about Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and The Babysitter's Club writing than I do the others, but in the case of ND and HB, the ghostwriters were (I believe) given a plot outline to stick to before writing, and the original writer of the BC went through and edited the ghost written books for that series, to my understanding. So...I can see some similarities, but I see this new thing as still being different. Mainly because of the actual terms involved...maybe I'm just being too picky, but I wouldn't call this ghostwriting. More, we'll let you play, but if it's a good idea we'll take it and use it and you get screwed. I'm going to cut myself off here, before I keep rambling about the writing of my childhood favorites. The problem for me has never been that Amazon is offering to let people play in existing works. It's that they're taking advantage of people that don't know better.

(Personally, I believe that any work for hire in an existing universe should be vetted by the people who own it before publication (as in the case of ghostwriters). This new thing is some strange half step between official and fanfic, and I'm uneasy with how it's being implemented.)

(Is it a bad sign that my first thought was "The man's 88, would it really be an early grave?" I feel bad, I do have a sort of admiration/adoration for him.)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Ah okay, I wasn't aware of the vetting process, but that stands to reason. Looks like my analogy is imperfect, but I still don't think this will affect most of fandom too much because most authors/filmmakers would not consent to having things like this done with their work.

The problem for me has never been that Amazon is offering to let people play in existing works. It's that they're taking advantage of people that don't know better.

Well yeah, shifty dealings are never good. I didn't look at the contract myself, but Erulisse seems to agree with you here.

(OMG he's 88? Guess he would be getting on now, wouldn't he? I always picture some gent of about 60, which makes no sense now that I think about it..)

[ladybrooke]

Yeah, I'm not too worried about vast effects on fandom (except for that damn "Fanfic authors are greedy and want money" rumor, that's picking up speed...again.)

I looked at it and wrote about it on dA (I trust the people on my friend's list here to not sign up for shifty deals without looking at terms...I do not trust the general dA public.)

(Yep! 88. And he's got a grandson that is a year or two older than me...I feel like a creep for knowing all this. But Tolkien was born a few years before my oldest great-grandparent, so I suppose it all makes sense....)

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

This, yes!

I do worry it'll draw unwanted attention to everyone writing outside of those franchises (the vast majority of fan ficcers), but we've survived drama before. This is just big business trying to cash in on something they don't really understand at all.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a possibility it might result in some kind of flack for us, but I don't really think it's that drastic or dire a possibility.