So, I'm a big fan of AngstGoddess, author of Wide Awake. I was an even bigger fan after she exposed the views of a certain BNA *cough* EL James aka Icy *cough* and her true feelings about the fandom. Despite writing one of the most popular fanfics in the Twi-fandom, she has refused to capitalise on it, and continues to be a vehement critic of P2P.
I was reading a blog that I follow, and was pleased to come across this recent entry by AngstGoddess herself (dated september 2):
http://www.angellawson.com/ragey-rant-and-for-once-its-not-me/
On January 1st, 2010, Omnific (a vanity publisher who also operates the fanfiction archive and discussion board, Twilighted.net) officially launched their publishing business with this announcement:
“Omnific Publishing is a publishing company specializing in the publication of authors with a proven track record of online success in transformative works.”
(Translation: Omnific is a publishing company who files the serial numbers off of popular fanfiction and then publishes it as “original”.)
I had met the founder at ComicCon the summer prior, and she seemed nice, so I wanted to at least congratulate her. At the time, the concept of publishing fanfic was still relatively new to the fandom at large. The stigma attached to pulling one’s fanfic to publish wasn’t really widely known (at least not to me).
Obviously, my feelings on that matter have shifted over the last three years into what’s a fairly public and wide-known opposition to all things pull-to-publish and, actually, just about everything Omnific stands for.
But back to the beginning, I congratulated them on what I thought at the time to be a creative publishing endeavor. In this email, I said that I’d thought of rewriting my own fanfic, Wide Awake, into something different after I finished the epilogue, and hoped to publish it someday.
The reply I got was… amusing. I was told that I’d have to query and, if they liked it after all was said and done, then we could talk.
Which was really confusing, because 1) I wasn’t asking to be published in the first place. I was being nice. Kind of like when someone reviews your fanfic and says, “OMG YOU SHOULD TOTES PUBLISH DIS!” and 2) Wide Awake was among the most popular fics in the fandom. You’re going to, what? Play hard to get?
Laughter.
I rolled my eyes and went on with my business. A lot of fandom drama arose from Omnific and their shady practices, and after some time and a lot of research and discussion, the community eventually shaped my feelings about the practice. There was literally no way I could have been more vocal about NOT EVER EXPLOITING SOMEONE ELSE’S FANS.
So imagine my surprise when I go to check my old email and find this, sent 7 days ago:
Hi Sam,
I know it’s been a long time since we last spoke, but I hope you are doing well.
I just wanted to extend the olive branch and tell you that if you are still interested in publishing Wide Awake, as you indicated below back in 2010, our door is open, and we can help you. I know a lot has happened since you sent me that email, but if you were ever going to do it, the time is right. The industry is primed for this right now and I have no doubt that the story would be as well received in the romance world as it was in the fandom.
Feel free to call me if you’d like to chat about this–my number is xxxxxxxxxxxx.
All my Best,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Harper, PhD
This is baffling for a whole number reasons, half of which I’ve highlighted above. I never wanted to publish Wide Awake, and certainly never through Omnific.
But also, setting that aside a moment… I OFFER SELF-PUBLISHING SERVICES. There is literally nothing Omnific could offer me that I can’t do better, prettier, for cheaper, more successfully, with higher profit margins, and without the headache of Twilight fandom (rightfully) up my ass for basically being the biggest hypocrite ever. That’s just bad business, man. Piggly-Wiggly doesn’t go to Wal-Mart and offer to sell their Great Value brand products in their store. That makes no sense.
But it does make one wonder…
I didn’t even query it.
So why are they willing to take it now without a query, and not even that, but coming to me directly and without any solicitation whatsoever? The answer to this is obvious, I just wanted to illustrate how obnoxiously opportunistic these people are.
They approach popular authors with established reader-bases (someone else’s reader-base tbh), give their popular stories a light editing/name-change, copy/paste it into a desktop publisher, turn around and advertise it on the same fanfic archive from whence it came, and then take a chunk of the profits.
It’s the easiest job in history.
Fanfic authors exploiting their fannish popularity for money is bad enough to begin with, but now you’ve got this middle guy who barely even does anything just chopping at the bit to take advantage of that and get a piece of the fan pie?
It’s no secret that another fanfic-cum-novel (pun intended) made another small fanfiction-archive-cum-vanity-publisher heaps upon heaps upon heaps of money. It’s also no secret that recently, another serial-numbers-filed-off fanfic has just been sold by Omnific for what’s also probably a ridiculous sum of money.
On one hand, I almost have to applaud their absolutely enormous amount of nerve, considering they’d still contact me after all of the above points, but moreso it just sickens me because I know why they’re suddenly doing it . I’m sure that check for Gabriel’s Inferno made them all kinds of aflutter.
And they’re going to keep doing this. They operate a Twilight fanfic archive. They know what’s popular among fans and they know how to exploit it and who to approach. They will ask more authors—some of them won’t even understand why it’s wrong, and how they’re getting shafted—and they’ll make more money hand over fist for doing nothing but watching and waiting for the right time to take some dewy-eyed author under their wing and ‘help’ them.
You’re scumbags, Omnific. Everyone wonders why I left the fandom? Because it’s not a fandom anymore, it’s one huge pulsating business opportunity, and it all started with you.
In case it’s not abundantly clear, this is a ‘no’.
----------------------------
Did I mention I really love her?
It seems like Omnific has stepped up its efforts to get BNA to publish their fics. They do own the Twilighted forum, and hence can tell which fics have the biggest followings. But I've noticed something: since the whole MOTU and UoEM bruhaha, there just isn't the rabid interest in current fics that these earlier fics generated. You have an absolutely beautifully written story like High Fidelity, which is 100 times better written and researched than the aforementioned fics, and it only has something like 5 pages of reviews.
So, it leads me to this: people say that P2P would lead to the fandom's demise. I think it has already happened. People just aren't as eager to get invested into a story and write reviews, and speculate about the plot. They aren't rushing to start threads and form a fan group. And I think that Twilighted is on it's last legs. People feel used, and don't participate in a community that has hidden agendas.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
My recommendation:
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Author: Edward's Eternal
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8289446/1/
Dr. Edward Cullen loves his job, but lives for his daughter. When her little world explodes he will do anything to piece it back together. But could the solution also bring him the happiness he didn't realize he was missing?
(A really sweet Daddyward)
Sorry rangers, can't find the appropriate tag :(