I'm not a victim and I am a feminist. I am a woman writing erotica for other women and selling it through a female-run publishing house.
But instead of crying about how fanfiction is keeping you poor, write stuff you can actually sell.
Fanfiction wasn't keeping me poor. Working an underpaid pink collar job was doing that. But, someone I met through fanfiction got me into writing stuff I can sell.
As for most fanfic being crap, I invoke Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.
There are people on my f'list who are better writers than anything commercial I've read recently. I'm a better writer than most of what I've read recently.
What's keeping us poor is that we don't believe this. We don't think we can make the grade as professionals. We aren't going to be Stephen King or J.K. Rowing, so why bother? We don't think we have that kind of talent. And we DO. We may have to pay our dues in e-books first, but we do have talent.
One thing I saw over and over in the comment thread was "No place wants short stories." Patently false. Phaze, Torquere and Ellora are all wanting short stories, 10,000-15,000 words.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-04-28 08:54 pm (UTC)But instead of crying about how fanfiction is keeping you poor, write stuff you can actually sell.
Fanfiction wasn't keeping me poor. Working an underpaid pink collar job was doing that. But, someone I met through fanfiction got me into writing stuff I can sell.
As for most fanfic being crap, I invoke Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.
There are people on my f'list who are better writers than anything commercial I've read recently. I'm a better writer than most of what I've read recently.
What's keeping us poor is that we don't believe this. We don't think we can make the grade as professionals. We aren't going to be Stephen King or J.K. Rowing, so why bother? We don't think we have that kind of talent. And we DO. We may have to pay our dues in e-books first, but we do have talent.
One thing I saw over and over in the comment thread was "No place wants short stories." Patently false. Phaze, Torquere and Ellora are all wanting short stories, 10,000-15,000 words.