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Karen MacLeod

Writing for the Non-Commercial (FAN FICTION) Market

For those of you who are not yet brave (or skilled) enough to have a publishing house take a look at your novel, you might want to consider going the fan fiction route, to get experience before marketing your first novel to a publisher. Individual professional published authors who got their start this way include Jean Lorrah, Cheryl Wolverton, M. Jean Airey, and Andrea I. Alton.

I was a featured guest the other day in another chatroom, where the following was discussed:

Q: Publishing today is very difficult; any advice for new novelists on getting published? The largest problem is getting an agent to read the manuscript. Even with a good story, clean manuscript, rejections are the rule.

A: In addition to stating how to improve your manuscript, how to follow publishers guidelines, as I have stated in my previous WVU columns, I continued that the agent is not necessarily the publisher...the acquisitions editor usually finds things a house wants to publish. What reason do you get for your rejection?

Q: My group receives anything from form rejections, no reasons, or encouragement but with rejection. Without previous experience (clips) these new novelists are having a hard time. I get "not taking on new projects at this time." Sort of nebulous things like that.

A: With my amateur authors' fan work, I always wrote personalized responses, suggestions, and DID read the submission. Then perhaps your "group" should start in "fan" writing, which is a valid credential. My fan editing experience got me noticed by NovelBooks and other places. It takes time to build a portfolio. A critique group is helpful. You have to start small to later become Stephen King.

Q: Yes, it does, but try to explain that to an on-fire new novelist.

A: Well, you have to start somewhere. If not going all out to get your manuscript printed by a publishing house, and you want those "first credentials for your portfolio," start at the amateur/fan level. Submit to quality places looking for the type of material you deliver.

Such places include:

(One of my favorite Historicals) Bygone Days:
http://www.simegen.com/writers/bygonedays/

The dmoz open directory project:
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Online_Writing/E-zines/Fiction/

Google has a whole list of possibilities:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Online_Writing/E-zines/Fiction/

Whistling Shade:
http://www.sff.net/estand/ezine/whistlingshade.htm

My own, A COMPANION IN ZEOR (based only on the work of Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah)
http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/

Google itself has a long list of possibilities if you enter "ezine" into their search engine. Just asking for a specific reference of an e-zine, brought up more than ten pages of possibilities.

The U.S. copyright law for fan fiction (a/k/a/ fanfic) is a whole different set of rules than if you write for a novel. This is a legal argument that (by U.S. law) fan fiction is fair use, provided it is noncommercial and properly attributes the borrowed characters and situations.

Note that this is one lawyer's opinion, not a court judgment, not "The Law."

If the copyright law interests you, start your investigations with an article by Rebecca Tushnet, a lawyer and an expert in intellectual property, particularly copyright law: http://www.tushnet.com/law/fanficarticle.html Ms. Tushnet is an Assistant Professor of Law, New York University School of Law.

Of course, this doesn't apply to the "Great American Novel." If you wish to use someone else's characters for your work, then permissions must be obtained.

Good luck.