FanLib Invitation. One of the select few. Like hell.

[icarus]

Drawing on the FanLib discussion, I have to say that I was invited to archive my fanfiction on FanLib back in March.

Hi Icarus,

I saw some of your Stargate fan fiction online and really enjoyed your writing. I work for a brand-new fan fiction website called FanLib.com and my colleagues and I want it to be the ultimate place for talented writers like you. In case you're wondering, FanLib's not new to fan fiction. Since 2001, they've been producing really cool web events with people like CBS, Showtime and HarperCollins to bring fan creativity into the big leagues (see below for some links).

We're impressed by your writing and impact in the fan fiction community and we value your opinion. That's why we're inviting you to be among the first to experience FanLib.com. As a member of our Beta Team (not like "beta reader" but "beta software" that's still in development), you'll get an exclusive peek at what we're doing before we open the site to the general public.

Feel free to take a look around, upload some fics, maybe read and comment on a few. Do as much or as little as you like. On FanLib.com, you'll be able to connect with other first-rate writers like yourself, exchange ideas with the site creators, and get some of the fun stuff we're giving away to celebrate our launch.

Don't worry, you won't get spammed. We're not selling anything. We just want you to try the site and hopefully give us some feedback.

You'll need to use this special individual login to access the protected site:

http://beta.fanlib.com
Username: Icarus
Password: ****

(This is just to access the beta site and is separate from your site registration.)

We look forward to having you as a founding member. Together, we can create the greatest fan fiction site the web's ever seen!

Best,

Naomi
FanLib Beta Launch Coordinator
FanLib.com

Well, ain't that fine and dandy. I was "personally selected" because of my great writing. Why did that sound like a credit card offer? (Bring fanfiction to the big leagues? Really. You're going to what -- publish it? Hmm. Just looks like another archive to me.) I scanned through the possible places they could have gotten my name at random.

Remember. I'm an author who posts everywhere. If anyone's going to turn up on a random search, it'll be me.

Then I remembered the Gen drabble I posted at, aha, Gateworld. Gotcha.

Curious, I checked FanLib out. At the time, they had only four authors on the archive. Three were so-called "Multi-Fandom Authors." There was something strange about these authors. First off, I'd never heard of them. Okay, okay, I don't know every author in fandom, and I'm certainly out of step with the immense Harry Potter fandom. But Stargate Atlantis, while prolific, hasn't been around that long, and they wrote slash. You'd think I'd at least run across a multi-fandom author on sga_flashfic. Huh. Odd. I let that go.

Then each author had exactly two stories in each fandom they wrote for. Now, usually how an author becomes multi-fandom is they are a little obsessive. They'll go through phases where they write massive numbers of stories in a fandom and then flit to another fandom that they'll flirt with for a while. But, hey, maybe they were only uploading their two favorite stories.

Then I read some of the stories. They weren't bad. Whoever wrote them definitely had taken some creative writing classes. But they had that kind of awkwardness and close ties to canon that you see in an author's first story in a fandom. All of them. They started slow and uncomfortably. One had Rodney flipping a coin (and described the coin in vast detail) a reference to "Rising," in a Rodney/Carson story. I dunno. They felt forced.

They didn't reference fanon at all. It was like these authors existed in a vacuum. A multi-fandom author is usually connected to fandom in some way.

I decided that the owners of FanLib had hired some interns (okay, "hired" for an intern implies pay) to write some "fanfiction" stories to seed their archive. It annoyed me.

Then I was annoyed at the "bright colors!" and "bold stars!" layout. What is this, kindergarten? They didn't even know the average age of a fanfiction writer. The site seemed marketed to high school students. I contemplated sending them a scathing (if politely worded) email on how poor their market research has been, but I decided I didn't want to help them.

But here's the weird part: of those four authors, only cpt_ritter is still around, and cpt_ritter wasn't one of the "multi-fandom" authors. Once they got their archive started, they pulled their "seed" authors out.

Now I'll post my stories anywhere. I've joked that I'll staple them to telephone poles. But even I draw the line here. These guys were dishonest and manipulative. I don't trust them.



ETA: I agree with astolat: It's time for a truly all-inclusive multi-fandom archive. Now there was one called The Archive At The End Of The Universe. Let me see if that's still in business.

Comments

[rike-tikki-tavi.livejournal.com]

I've seen that banging around LJ the last couple of days and somewhere I found a really interesting (read apalling) analysis of their TOS.

Let me see, if I can find it again, but what it came down to was, that they reserved the right to not post, delete or worst of all edit any fanfic on their site. And should they get sued for copyright infringement, they are not protecting the authors. No, the authors will have to protect them.

This whole thing stinks, if you ask me.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, it smells to high heaven. That's just what we need. Fanfiction under the control of publishers.

I just read stewardess's TOS analysis (http://stewardess.livejournal.com/253154.html). Yeah. Not surprised.

Icarus

[slashophile.livejournal.com]

:snorts: I make it a rule that if I feel dirty after reading an e-mail, don't have anything to do with it. They sound like pimps or some such.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Doesn't it just make you squirm?

[blackletter]

The Archive At The End Of The Universe is indeed still in business. That's where I archive my stuff. ('Cause where else could I archive all in one place Historical Person Slash, Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, Discworld, and Outlander fic with ratings ranging from PG to NC-17? And if I ever wanted to write chan (I don't think I will; it's not my thing, but you never know...) I could archive that there too with no fuss.)

It's not a large archive, but it's suited my needs.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Is it still run by painless_j (I think I've got that right). Could it handle the pile-on if fans from outside Harry Potter really started using it?

The other option is Skyehawke, too.

Icarus

[kres.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

Good call.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

My favorite lines from this letter keep changing. Right now it's a toss-up between "exchange ideas with the site creators" and "you'll be able to connect with other first-rate writers like yourself."

This thing's really skeevy.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Oh lordy begordy. Seriously. This whole thing stinks a lot worse than the "sponsored communities" LJ thing. Blech.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I tell you, if they'd really read one of my stories, they would've mentioned a name. I'm still picking out favorite lines. There's this prize:

"We're impressed by your writing and impact in the fan fiction community"

How would they know?

Icarus

[cofax7]

Huh. Now, I got one of those letters, I believe, but I've never posted at Gateworld. I think they went to a bunch of different places.

Still, skeevy in the extreme, and clearly unfamiliar with this end of fandom.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Where do you think they checked? Wraithbait? Oh. I post at ff.net -- okay, I post everywhere else, too. I'm curious (since I'm wrong) about triangulating this.

Not one sincere word in the entire thing. It really annoyed me that they implied some sort of legitimacy. They're not doing anything different from any other archive (except making money).

Icarus

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Wandered over after you linked in a comment. [wave] It's interesting to see a detailed response from someone who was actually headhunted. And ROFL! on their "seed" authors. [eyeroll] Good grief.

Regarding the hideous site desigh, my theory is that the place looks like it was designed for teenyboppers because it was. We -- active fanfic fans, the people who are already reading and writing fanfic -- are not their primary market. We're not the ones who are going to make them back the "millions" of dollars they've invested in the site, plus a significant profit. The bottom line is that there aren't enough of us. Fanfic fandom is a very small slice of general fandom (defining "fandom" here as the set of all active fans -- people who go to conventions or write fic or join clubs or do art or vids or make costumes or publish/read non-fic fanzines, etc.), which itself is a very small slice of the much larger number of people who watch the movies and TV shows and read the books and comics. There's no way in hell that fanfic fandom, that small slice of a small slice, will be enough of a market for them, even if they do institute the fees I suspect they'll charge once their site really opens. (Note that there are two mentions in their TOS of their "fees," and also that the site is still in beta.)

FanLib has stated straight out in their recent FAQ that they've invested "millions" on their business. That's a lot of ad clicks. In order to come even close to making their money back, much less making the sort of profits that would interest the kinds of people they have on their board (venture capitalists, for example, don't show interest until you start talking serious profits) they have to be going after that largest group -- the people who currently watch the shows and movies, and read the books and comics, but are not currently active in fandom. These are people who've never read fanfic, probably never even heard of it (which is why their press release puts "fandom" in quotes, as though it were some new word they'd never heard before) and more importantly, these are the people who don't know that there's more fanfic than any one person could read in their lifetime available online for free.

Remember their babble about "bringing fanfic to the masses?" They need the masses -- preferably the ignorant ones -- to make their investment back.

They're going after the MySpace generation and they probably have marketing weasels who told them that Generation Y is into crowded, busy web pages with lots of bright colors, contrast, blinking and animation.

We all (well, most of us -- I remember seeing a comment from one person saying she likes it) think it's ugly because it wasn't designed for us. And they didn't bother to find out what fanfic fans want, what our concerns are, what issues we think are important, what are values and sensibilities are, because we're not their target market. All they need us for is to prime the pump with enough fic to make it look full and busy when they open the doors for the real audience. If they can get some of us to stick around and keep posting then that's great but if they do manage to bring in the thundering hordes, I imagine they'll find enough people in that crowd who think it'd be cool to try their hand at writing fanfic that they should be able to keep the flow going at a reasonable rate, and the quality really doesn't matter.

Think of a used bookstore -- most of what's there is crap and they don't really expect to sell it. But when you're starting a new used bookstore, you go to garage sales and flea markets and library sales and anyplace else that sells books cheap, preferably by the carton, because if your shelves aren't full then no one will come in. It takes only the occasional gem in the trashpile to keep customers coming back.

[Continued on Next Rock...]

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

[...Continued from Previous Rock]

And the fact that they're going after people who've never read fanfic before is also to their advantage -- most people who have no experience of fanfic (or of anything else, really) are incredibly undiscriminating. The newbies are the ones who think Mary Sues are cool and have no clue about decent characterization and couldn't tell you what a plot is if you whacked them over the head with one, and the vast majority of their target audience is going to be newbies.

They talk about having the "best stories" but that's just marketing hype. I went through all the LOTR members and didn't recognize any of them either.

And none of this would have me doing anything more than rolling my eyes if it weren't for the fact that they're going to be shining a very bright splotlight on fanfic fandom, before the masses and to the media, which is quite likely to force that test case we've all been chatting about on and off. If they end up crashing and burning in a courtroom they're likely to take all the rest of us with them. That pisses me off. [sigh]

Angie

[astolat]

Wow, unbelievable. And I bet you're right about them "seeding" the archive.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I wasn't entirely sure, but when all three of the fishy ones disappeared, leaving the first poster (obviously a real fan)? Uh-huh. No one wants to be the first author to post.

I'm glad you stopped by.

I know of a multi-fandom archive that's already in operation: The Archive At The End Of The Universe (http://www.the-archive.net/). It's by invitation (though it's easy to get an invite) and run by fluffyllama, maeglinyedi, and nimori (sane, long-term fandom people; I know nimori, so I can vouch for her, and I've seen fluffyllama around in the Stargate fandom). I don't know about their bandwidth, but it's worth a look. I can drop nimori a note if it's what you're looking for.

Icarus

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

thanks for the info.... the one question i'm waiting for their faq to answer, or anyone to answer (and i am in no way up on all the discussion about this; i learned everything i know about FabLib from reading the LJs of cathexys and cofax7 until yours) is this:

How the hell are they dealing with the copyright issues if they have mainstream publishers signed on? Has HarperCollins and the other big publishers they namedrop decided fanfic is not, after all, copyright violation and most definitively falls under the "fine art" exception? come on! until someone figures this out, archives like this could suffer napster's fate, and take the authors down with them. has anyone said anything about this? how can a big publishing house like Harper Collins sign up?

Sincerely,

Confused Princess

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ooo! I have to check what cathexys has to say. She's always interesting.

angiepen combed through the TOS (http://angiepen.livejournal.com/38593.html?format=light) and it looks like what they've done is a nifty game of "blame the fanfic author." Those who post at FanLib are not only obligated to take the heat, they also are obligated to defend FanLib. I thought that was a nice twist.

What bugged me when I first saw it was FanLib's claiming all rights to fanfic posted there. Yeesh. So if I sawed off the serial numbers on my fanfic and got it published in a little magazine (which I just did this month) I'd be violating their rights to my story? Uh. No thank you.

Icarus

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Heh. I got one of those letters back in March, too. With the EXACT same wording as yours, I notice. The bullshit-o-meter went off instantly; it *totally* had the feel of the form-generated spam with [insert username here] that I get all the time as the adminstrator of my own domain name. (e.g. "[Your name here], this is a fantastic opportunity to to join our link exchange with your website [site name here]!") No indication that they had the slightest clue who I was, how they'd found me, just the sort of pseudo-personal flourishes and gushing hype that make my scam detection sense start to ping.

Like you, I poked around the site a little bit and found very little except for hype and some kinda amateurish fic. I mentally wrote it off, and kinda forgot about it until it suddenly flared up on metafandom just now.

My first reaction is that it's just a tempest in a teapot, because they're not gonna last very long. Fanlib.com has every indication of being run by corporate executives who are guessing (badly) at "what the fans want". In all likelihood, they'll just peter out quietly like hundreds of other poorly-conceived startup businesses.

But I hate the way that, both implicitly (by their very existence) and explicitly (in forums) they're disregarding the very legitimate privacy concerns that fanficcers have. As a writer of both "pro" and fan fiction, I *like* the informal "don't ask, don't tell" policy that we have now vis-a-vis TPTB of our shows. The status quo seems to work just fine in most fandoms. And it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth that the Fanlib people aren't even *acknowledging* anyone's concerns about the possible negative consquences of "bringing fanfic to the mainstream".

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

cofax7 got one, too, so it makes me think some SG-1 writers were scoped out. But she doesn't post on Gateworld, so, I was wrong about where they got the names.

EXACT same wording? Gotta love that, not that I'm a bit surprised. I almost wish we had posted them at the same time, just so we could have had a laugh back on March 22nd. And a little early warning for the fandom. But I felt the same way. I didn't think it was going anywhere.

Worst case scenarios aside, I think you're absolutely right. FanLib is ill-conceived and headed for the toilet.

I think FanLib doesn't understand that not every fan of a show wants to read fanfiction. Their audience is far smaller than they realize. They can bring in some new folks, yes, but not in the droves that they're expecting. Certainly they've made mistakes in dealing with the existing fanfiction audience (so stupid, from a marketing point of view, your "existing likely customers"). I've talked to fans on David Hewlett's forum, for example, and I would say 75% maybe 80% of Rodney fans really don't give a flip about fanfiction.

Icarus

[skuf.livejournal.com]

Dude, wtf are you doing on LJ, when you could be at FanLib connecting with other first-rate writers like yourself, instead of hanging out with us lot - WE'RE HOLDING YOU BACK!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOL! But the best of the best were those three multi-fandom authors -- and they're gone now. I had to come back, tail between my legs.

You'll all take me back, won't cha? You can pat me down for wires.

[fourth_rose]

I got the same letter, only it was "Harry Potter" instead of "Stargate". They found me via FictionAlley, and I know at least one other HP writer who got that letter via her FA address.

I hadn't heard about them then, but I took one look at their site, went "Argh, my eyes!" and hit the back button.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The colors alone are scary.

They must have harvested the Stargate emails from Area 52. Who else in the HP world got this letter?

And, hey, how much you wanna bet they picked authors with over "X" number of stories?

Icarus

[an-kayoh.livejournal.com]

They didn't reference fanon at all. It was like these authors existed in a vacuum.

Oh gawd. I hate when I read these. Sometimes they're interesting, but mostly they just throw me out of the story.

[montisello.livejournal.com]

So what about us poor put-upon newbies who are navigating fanon for the first time? It's not like there's a central web page to visit before you write your first story. You pick it up in bits and pieces, here and there, and are still continually surprised when you find something new.

I'm curious -- exactly how can you tell that an author doesn't know the fanon?

[erinya.livejournal.com]

I got one of these letters too (think it was in March), signed in, poked around, thought "this site is hellishly ugly, too many ads," and never went there again. I don't post my work very widely, either--some of my stuff is on ff.net, and the rest is on LJ and in maybe one pairing-specific archive.

It was a bizarre email to receive, I must admit. I was initially a bit flattered, then immediately suspicious.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yep, March 22nd is what my invite reads.

You know, it would be interesting to get a (more or less) complete list of those invited and see if there's any pattern to who they chose. Because it's not just a particular site or especially public archives. At least one person who was invited only posts to LJ.

It was a bizarre email to receive, I must admit. I was initially a bit flattered, then immediately suspicious.

Yeah, exactly. At first I had that happy feeling I get when someone says "you won a prize!" But I immediately tripped over "I saw some of your Stargate fan fiction online and--" because she didn't say whether it was Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis and I write both. Huh? After that I grew increasingly suspicious.

Icarus

Here Via Metafandom

[dknightshade.livejournal.com]

Yep. I got one of these in March too. I was intrigued at first and went looking. When I saw the 'quality' of the fics already posted by 'founding members' I decided to give it a pass. Bascially they trolled fanfiction.net for random author names in some of the fandoms they wanted.

Re: Here Via Metafandom

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I was thinking it was something like that, but apparently it was more complicated and a more targeted search. One person who was sent a letter, green_girl, only posts to LJ, and they were contacting people from very obscure fandoms who'd only posted to mailings lists.

Icarus

[msilverstar]

Your analysis of the first four authors is fascinating and telling. Thanks for doing it!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're welcome. This was just what went through my mind as I was checking out the site, looking for bullshit, trying to figure out what they were getting out of this. After the cheesy tone of that invitation letter, I was prepped to find something wrong. Boy, did I ever.

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I got that invitation too, and so did everyone I've talked to on my FL :) I thought 'look, I'm already posting everywhere I want to, thanks,' and binned it, and thought no more of it. Now I'm realizing that was a lucky escape!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Where do you think they got your name? Because I'm hearing about people who only post to LJ getting invitations, and one person in a very obscure fandom got an invitation when she's only posted to Yahoo Groups....

These guys just don't seem to get that they don't have anything to offer fanfiction writers. They just want us to hand over the product so they can make money off of it.

Icarus

[ansku]

All those descriptions about the site makes me wonder if they have browsed through all those archives and LJs and thought "Oh, poor fanficcers can't even make their sites all sparkly like all the other teenagers, they'll love us if we do it for them and won't bother reading the terms..."

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It's clear to me from the tone of the letter and their attitudes in interacting with us that they've no clue what the average age of a fanfiction writer is. They've just assumed it's a high school past time. I hope they're having a rude awakening.

Icarus

[eyra.livejournal.com]

(not like "beta reader" but "beta software" that's still in development)

I'm generally leery of anything that expects me to be excited! about something. But (and I know I'm silly here) this little bit was actually what threw me into giggles. Yes. You have a strong and pervasive impact on an underground movement, deeply entrenched in some areas of the internet - and not just any movement, but fandom, for crying out loud - but they need to hold your hand through various interpretations of "beta." Right.

[eyra.livejournal.com]

Oh damn, I should have checked the time stamp. Sorry for the late comment; I've come quite late to the party. I found out about FanLib this morning, as I went through posts about the deletion of various fandom communities. It scared the crap out of me actually, more than the deletions. I've been following links about all day.