The Gang of Five
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Get a load of this.

WeirdRaptor

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Amazon's new program
Amazon's new program, Kindle Worlds.

Amazon is set to publish and sell fanfiction (legally) of a select few properties (with more to come). So far, they only have the rights to Gossip Girls, Pretty Little Liars, and the Vampire Diaries. So we're going to be getting a lot of teen "writers" submitting crap to this. The program opens next month. Oh, Amazon, you haven't met the internet, have you? There is a storm coming. Say goodbye to your sanity and welcome the wails of madness on the night wind.

Now, there are certain guidelines they've wisely laid down. They are "no porn, no offensive content, no illegal and infringing content (they obviously aren't very familiar with the term "fanfiction"), no works that lead to poor customer experience (?), no excessive use of brands, and no crossovers". Well, since all those things are out, there goes about 98% of all possible entries right there. That's fine with me, because I'd rather not live in a world where The Lemon Master can get paid for "Chocobo Nights". No matter what, though, this is not going to end well.

I have to say... I pity whatever poor, poor souls they wrangle in to review and proofread all the entries.

Oh, and how I look forward to watching this trainwreck. It is going to be BEAUTIFUL. It is going to be gloriously hilarious to watch how many fanfic writers get a MAJOR wake up when NO ONE is willing to pay money for their "brilliant" "idea" in which the crew of Firefly are replaced by the Twilight "characters".

Also, even with the guidelines in place, I give this new program five minutes, tops, before something so bile, so unholy, so profane, so utterly offensive, putrid, disgusting, sick, and wretched gets submitted that the editors seal off the building, gouge their own eyes out, and slay their coworkers to spare them even the merest of chances they should gaze upon the work by accident. The elder gods are pleased by this news and welcome this sacrifice of blood.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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Oh dear, so it is true? I heard the headline in a news website, but didn't read it. I thought to myself 'there is no way they'd be able to pull this off. NO ONE is going to pay money to read fanfiction.'

Oi. I imagine they'll be smart and pick maybe the top .00001% of fanfiction to make publish able, but seriously, if that's the case, people will just pirate. This is destined to fail.


WeirdRaptor

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Exactly. Why pay money when you can get that money's worth for free as Fanfiction.net?
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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Do you know what the internet reaction's been so far? The BTRF-- the blog, twitter, reddit, and facebook?


WeirdRaptor

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So far it's mostly been healthy skepticism, snark, and weary glances.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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Huh, that's about what I expected, but still, why not just go the Youtube route and have adds? That's a far less controversial way to make money. Is it just Fanfiction.net that's doing this, or are other sites getting in on this?


WeirdRaptor

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Fanfiction.net is not in on this. What I meant is that you can just go to FF.net and read any fanfics you want and it will not cost you a dime.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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Ah, okay, I see. Then, what, is this supposed to be 'professional fanfiction' then?


WeirdRaptor

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In theory. Like I said, I pity whoever they con into reviewing and proofreading the entries.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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I'm concerned they'll get hacked for this. Anonymous often get's its cyber panties in a bunch about this kind of thing, and they're certainly not afraid of showing it.


WeirdRaptor

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Honestly, I don't think Anonymous will have to lift a finger to make this have a crippling meltdown. The entries will come in and after about the 100,000th one that's so riddled with bad grammar, plot holes, and an inexplicable premise, they'll probably throw their hands up in surrender.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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True. I'm totally going to have to check out Amazon to see what these fabulous 'professional fanfictions' are titled as. The reviews alone should be worth a laugh.


WeirdRaptor

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Oh, the amount of snark material that will be born from this will a sight to behold, indeed!
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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My thoughts exactly  :lol . So, did they say what their intitial launch titles are? Or are they still all in the works?

Edit: I'm a Spike now!  :lol:


WeirdRaptor

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I have no idea. All I can say for certain is that my money will not be going towards buying any of these books unless one of them is genuinely good.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


LoyfeCycleProtector

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Oh, I imagine the ones they'll sell will be good in the technical sense. I might, might be naive in saying this, but I'm fairly sure Amazon isn't run by a bunch of monkey's who can't string two beans together. There is no way they could even be aware of fanfiction's existance without also knowing that the vast majority of it is crap. So, I imagine they're gonna heavily screen for the very best of the stories that come in and-- wait a minute. I just thought of something... How on earth are they gonna get the rights to these stories? If someone writes up a Harry Potter fanfiction on the internet and makes it free, it's fine, because they're not profiting. But if they're actually going to be selling these things now, aren't they going to have to run through the who copyright gauntlet?


WeirdRaptor

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They've come to an agreement with the rights holders of the properties that are optioned in the program. At the moment, they do not have the rights to Harry Potter, but they do have the rights to the three properties I list in the original post.  I would imagine that the entire thing will be based around the "email your fanfic and possibly get it published" line of thinking.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf


DarkHououmon

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Selling fanfiction? I never thought I'd see the day. I'm not really interested in selling any of my fanfiction, personally. I've always viewed fanfiction as something to be read for free, not to be profited on.

I mean, not all fanfiction is terrible. There's some that are really well written. But just because a fanfiction has a ton of positive reviews and has an outstanding story doesn't mean it needs to be sold.

Can you imagine if they tried to sell this legendarily awful fanfic?

http://ohinternet.com/My_Immortal


LoyfeCycleProtector

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To be fair, My Immortal is absolutely hillarious in how bad it is. But no ones gonna want to pay to read it.


DarkHououmon

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