An open letter to professionally-published authors who despise fanfic of their own works

Open Letter
Title:	An open letter to professionally-published authors who despise fanfic of their own works
From:	kate nepveu
Addressed To:
Date(s):	May 4, 2010
Medium:	online
Fandom:	all
Topic:
External Links:	here/archive link
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

kate_nepveu posted "An open letter to professionally-published authors who despise fanfic of their own works" to her Live Journal as a response to Diana Gabaldon's anti-fanfic blog post: Fan-Fiction and Moral Conundrums.

Excerpt

Dear professionally-published authors who despise fanfic of their own works,

So you despise fanfic of your own works. It revolts you on a visceral level. Okay. It would be rude and pointless of me to suggest that you shouldn't have a gut-level emotional reaction, because, after all, it's gut-level. And I may even sympathize or agree with you.

But because you are a thinking being, you get to choose what you do, as opposed to how you feel. And in that respect, I suggest you should do the following:

Say, "I do not want fanfic of my own works to be written. In any event, it would be unwise of me to read such fanfic, so if any exists, please do not tell me about it.";

Don't read any fanfic; and

Sic your publishers on any fanfic of your works that is being published for the fanfic author's own profit (an extremely rare occurence).

Nothing else.

Because here's the thing about non-commercial fanfic: you can't stop it.

Links

See Diana Gabaldon & fanfic followup, ^{Archived version}, posted May 5, 2010, accessed January 22, 2012

Reactions and Reviews

• comments regarding this open letter are here, ^{Archived version} and here, ^{Archived version}