whenever a writer of fanfic, or an artist of fan drawings, gets told “you should be making original stuff professionally! you could make money!”
i have an assortment of irritated responses
but usually the strongest is:
“we ARE making that. Lots of us are. but we are not making money. because you are not buying it. you are not even LOOKING at it. When was the last time you even tried to find and enjoy an original work that wasn’t already at least a million-dollar property? And the few people who are trying are only finding the ones at the top of the algorithm, wherever they’re looking. Vast majority of artists and authors have long ago given up on getting money or even getting human recognition from making original works. fanworks are the only place where we even feel like people see that we exist. so don’t you fucking tell us that it’s less worthwhile than original works just because it’s fanworks.”
(…and also, of course, we do love the blorbo. just like the rest of you)
<3
To make my position on this a bit more clear…
It’s totally fine if you don’t like fanfiction! And it’s totally fine if you like only fanfiction! Or whatever kind of fiction you like or don’t like! Trying to shame people into liking things is basically always gonna be futile.
And, as much as I wish some things (including my own original work) were more popular, that’s gonna depend on people liking them, honestly and genuinely, and then telling others.
You can’t make people like something. You can’t make yourself like something, even if you believe you should. You can make yourself try something, and hope a genuine liking takes root, and sometimes it will, but there’s no guarantee.
So I’m certainly not ranting against people who don’t like fanfiction, or the people who only like fanfiction.
The specific hypocrisy I’m expressing some annoyance about, here, is the one where…. people love your fanfic, but then express it by saying, “OMG why are you wasting your time on this? you could be a bestselling author!” except you know you couldn’t, because you’ve posted links to your original work in the same places you’ve posted links to your fanfic, and none of these people have so much as interacted with those posts, let alone bought anything.
Basically: if you like someone’s fanfic, say you like the fanfic, in whatever way makes sense. And, if you genuinely want to see original work they’ve done, ask for a link.
Which you might not get, and you gotta accept that. Because original work might be under their legal name, and they might not feel safe sharing that where they share their fanfic. Also, do not use AO3 to talk about buying or selling anything, because AO3 is very serious about not being a commercial marketplace, not even for original work.
Yeah I know. Not making it easy. The world is pretty much stacked against anyone trying to make a living with creative work, and anyone trying to find and support the lesser-known artists.
And that’s my point. No matter how good you are, you can’t sell until you connect with people who’d actually buy. Connections and marketing make most of the difference, and there’s limited platform space for those things, and they’re always bought up first by the people who already have money and connections.
Even if you’ve got a contract with a professional publisher, that publisher is just gonna take 90% of your proceeds from any sale, and put it where they put virtually all their income: more marketing for the few books and authors on their list who are already rich and famous. Which, statistically speaking, has about a 99.9% chance of being Not You.
Ask me how I know. No, actually, don’t. Also don’t ask me why they do this shit, because I don’t want to think about it.
Yes, I know I’m good. Yes, I also know I’m not gonna make a living off it, unless a LOT of things change in the world that I have no control over.
So. When you act like “you could make millions at this!” means the same as “you are good at this!” ….you’re just reminding people, depressingly, of how untrue that is.