Fandom and Profit

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Related terms:	Fundraising
See also:	FanLib, Cousinjean and Profit Wank, Gift Economy, Pull to Publish, Fan History Wiki, Timeline of Fandom and Profit Meta and Timeline of Fandom and Profit for examples of well-known fandom discussions
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Profit from fan works is a long-discussed debate, ranging from issues of fair use and copyright to even plagiarism. This article attempts to clarify the issue, however some parts of the subject may be unclear.

The Fannish Social Contract

• some about fandom as a gift economy

"Fair Use" and Infringement

In addition to the cultural prohibitions against profit in fandom activities, there have been (and still are), some practical legal issues that have shaped fannish attitudes about profits.

Most fanworks from before roughly 2010-2015 contained a disclaimer that seeks to shield the fan from legal liability while also signaling that their activities are non-profit. One example: "All rights reserved to the author, artist and this publication. This is solely a not-for-profit fan activity, and in no way intends to infringe on copyrights held by Paramount, Deslilu, Filmation or other professional Star Trek agencies." By 2020 this was growing increasingly rare, particularly on platforms such as Archive of our Own (where the website itself was sometimes considered the disclaimer) and Tumblr.

All fan fiction runs the risk of being considered an infringing act in that is borrows and builds on copyrighted material. It is the fair use defense that can shield fannish activities as an authorized use of copyrighted material. In turn, the fair use defense depends on a number of factors, and profit (or the lack of it) is one of those factors. However, several courts now dismiss the 'profit' factor in order to find a whole host of previously 'fair use' activities to be acts of infringement. The "don't sue me, I make no money!" disclaimer may no longer be worth the paper it is (or is not) printed on.

Some people allege that the "infringing act" problem runs in the other direction too. Marion Zimmer Bradley, who wrote the series Darkover, supposedly did not publish a planned book due to the complications regarding her close involvement with fans and fanworks. See Marion Zimmer Bradley Fanfiction Controversy. This may have caused other writers Bradley knew to became extremely strict about not letting fannish activities take place (ie. McCaffrey's Pern series had many, many restrictions on fanfiction and roleplay for a very long time, not that fans actually obeyed it).

This is also affected by the differences in copyright laws between countries. For example, in Japan there is no such thing as a fair use defense, and yet they have a flourishing doujinshi culture. This is because many high-profile manga artists got their start in and actively protect their fans' ability to make doujinshi, and the companies they work for cannot afford to anger them.

There may also be a difference in fandom culture, often influenced by the companies or creators. For example, in c-media fandoms, particularly danmei, it may be common fan culture to only have P4P fan merch sold; a big example is MXTX fandom. In other fandoms, including the juggernaut fandom of the Chinese mobile game Genshin Impact, fan merch (even for-profit fan merch) is explicitly allowed and encouraged.

Author Permission

Some writers, such as J.K. Rowling and Terry Pratchett, have given their blessing to only noncommercial fanfiction, and/or told fans to specifically not show them any fanfiction.

Kindle Worlds was a program launched in 2013 that allowed the selling of fanfiction for specific writers or franchises that opted into it. The program was roundly hated by fandoms for trying to walled-garden them, saw little uptake and was shut down in 2018.

Making a Profit vs Covering Costs

Defining "profit" can be tricky.

• Was profit making enough money to cover the cost of the next zine one plans to publish? Garnering enough from clickable ads to cover the overhead on one's website?
• Is profit making money when you sell a fanwork for more than you paid for it?
  • A fan in 1999 said: "It was selling a good portion of my collection in 1992 that gave me the down payment for my house (most of those zines were sold for a profit). I lucked out in the timing, because within a couple of years after that, zines quit increasing in value because everyone always kept them in print, since desktop publishing (and high quality xerox machines) had made the overall printing process much cheaper."
• Is covering costs adequate by the simple repayment of the postage when a fan has lent and mailed an item to you?
  • From S and H #16 (December 1980): "To anyone who needs xeroxing done: I would be willing to xerox whatever you need (providing the zine editors permit it) if you pay the postage and the cost of xeroxing. I have become quite adept at handling the machine and it takes very little time to do it. Just let me know what you need. (I hope I don't regret this offer!)"
• And what is "equitable compensation"?
  • One fan tutors others: "There are a number of people... who have been very generous in sharing eps, songvids, blooper reels and other taped bits that feature our boys... The duping of tapes is time-consuming, wearing on the original tape, and considering the cost of tapes, zines, postage, and the wear and tear on VCRs, involves both money *and* effort. While most... are very generous in sharing tapes, it is also considerate of the receivers to offer an equitable compensation."

Fandom and Censorship

A 2015 comment by Betsy Rosenblatt from the interview Fansplaining: Buncha Lawyers:

When someone is making money from fan labor, there is always an opportunity for censorship. When fans have to depend on someone else, that someone else might take something down that they don’t like, and we don’t have to think too hard about why they might not like it—maybe they won’t like it for copyright reasons, maybe they won’t like it for trademark reasons, maybe they won’t like it for content reasons, maybe they won’t like it for personality reasons. But there’s a sort of personal autonomy element to fandom that I think is a really important thing to preserve. Maybe not the only important thing to preserve, but a thing that matters, and I think that’s part of what mattered to the [ Organization for Transformative Works ].

Profit, Fun, Compromise, and Freedom

In late 1983, a fan commented on the topic money getting in the way of fun and artistic freedom. In her response to another fan's comment that: "We should all look for ways to make money from doing what we love to do (i.e. anything having to do with Star Trek)," she said:

Yeah, but why? As the gay playwright Harvey Fierstein said, "once you start doing something for a living, it kills all the fun of it." That's an exaggeration — and I guess it's always better to make money than not to make money, other things being equal. If it were just a matter of doing the fannish things we love to do anyhow and having somebody hand us a royalty check from time to time, I'd be all for it. How ever, I doubt it can ever be that simple. Gene Roddenberry has written volumes on the compromises he had to make to get STAR TREK on commercial television. Of course, if what you love to do happens also to be tremendously viable commercially, that's terrific. But it doesn't happen every day. Personally, I enjoy the luxury of producing a non-profit zine with a circulation of 500 or 600 and being able to do exactly what I want, without the Marketing Department looking over my shoulder. Of course, we all have to make a living, and I hope that what I do for a salary will always be something I'd enjoy doing for free anyway. But just because I enjoy what I do for money doesn't mean I have to make money from everything I enjoy. Carried to its logical conclusion, that would mean I should try to get paid for playing with my kids, partying with my friends, and making love with my husband. Who'd want to carry the profit motive that far?

Whether or not you feel the urge to benefit financially from STAR TREK fanac may have some thing to do with how active you are in fandom. Fans who are more active and involved and prolific than I am probably have a greater interest in trying to get paid for their activities. Personally, I would not choose to leave my regular job and spend full time on STAR TREK. In fact, the thought of spending so much time on fanac that it would even come close to a full-time job is a little scary. But many fans feel just the opposite. So you can chalk up my reaction to the fact that I function on a very low level of fannish activity.

I also feel there's a difference between work and "play" that can't be reduced to the difference between getting paid and not getting paid. I don't get paid for all the work I do (by any means); and when I was working for a public interest law firm where people kept right on working after the funding ran out, I did just that for three months and loved it. But that doesn't mean I thought of it as "play," the way I look at STAR TREK. I'm defining work and play very subjectively — play is what you do for recreation from your work; so that one person's work can be another person's play, and vice-versa. Incidentally, just to show that I'm not trying to be too simple-minded about this, I belong to a group called Zerowork which is dedicated to the abolition of "work." Nevertheless, I think that even if we weren't forced to work for our living, there would still be a difference between work (our craft or profession) and play (what we do for sheer fun). How did I get off on this tangent, anyway? May be just to say that I understand how aspiring writers, artists, and editors in fandom can look at STAR TREK as their work, for which they deserve to get paid; but there are others of us who are just in it for fun.

Different Fandoms, Different Norms

Showing the differing exceptions of different fandoms, in 1989 a fan comments:

Very little of what you say about fans and what they write is new I found it surprising when I delved in to media fandom, being a long-time fan, that one must pay money for a media fanzine, and it's mostly fiction. In sf fandom, editors mostly trade fanzines for artwork, articles, letters of comment or money (collectively know as 'the usual'). While I can understand that it takes money for a fanzine, since I publish, I was surprised at the attitude that some media fanzine editors had that 'this zine costs money, you know,' as if this would be news. I go the impression that money was very important to media zine editors, while in sf fandom, it's very rarely talked about.

A fan in 2011 comments:

A lot of newer fandoms and fandoms with younger fans (like Harry Potter or any show aimed at teenagers in the last 10 years) tend to have a lot of people who are coming out of anime fandom, where doujinshi (Japanese zines) are completely normal. The idea that one should never sell fanworks is *laughable* in those circles. (As is the term "net-fans", for that matter. A lot of anime fandom happens at the vast network of anime conventions.) English-language fic doujinshi aren't common, but fans do still make print things they call doujinshi, and selling original m/m novels through fan channels has been normal for at least the last decade. In Japan, comics doujinshi are more common, but there are plenty of doujinshi novels too. (Actually, I was just talking to someone who wrote a Pros novel in Japanese.) In lots of fandoms like Twilight, selling fic raises eyebrows, but filing off the serial numbers and marketing the same fics to the same fandom is so common there are whole vanity presses devoted to it. (Which, of course, creates its whole own set of hostilities to selling fic that have nothing to do with legality or The Man finding out.) And then you have Jane Austen fandom or parts of Sherlock Holmes fandom where plenty of fans hope to take their fic pro some day.

This has led to an especially odd collision of norms in the Homestuck fandom. The fandom has a very large proportion of anime fans, and the anime fans brought their "we can sell our fannish output" attitude with them... right up until the company that manages the Homestuck IP told them that they were absolutely not allowed to sell, or exchange money for, anything related to Homestuck except for onetime two-dimensional art commissions. This included charging for material costs only. The people who were still selling Homestuck merchandise after this announcement anyway then received strongly worded letters (as well as getting their stuff DMCA'd off sites like Cafepress, Zazzle, or Etsy).

Early Zine Publishing and Profit

Some 1975 Rumbles at Paramount

In 1975, fans became concerned about some of Paramount's sabre-rattling regarding their Star Trek: TOS fanworks.

From a June 1975 editorial in 2-5YM:

Paramount is getting touchy about Star Trek. Gone are the days when (as we did in late 1973) a letter to their legal department asking permission to do a zine is ignored. Today, Star Trek is “beginning to look profitable — and Paramount wants to see to it that all profits go to them.

To do this, Paramount is not only giving legitimate companies like Dage Co. trouble - they are also looking at zines with an eye to making a buck. Our request to run fiction, made a few months ago, was denied. And then, a few weeks ago, Dan Cheney, Ti-Ho designer and head of a Texas ST group, wrote about the zine his group was about to distribute.

Paramount's reply: They were given permission to do a zine only if a) they sold only a cons, and b) they paid royalties — $25 plus a percentage. I know of very few zines that could afford to operate on that basis. Dan, of course, felt intimidated. He wrote to us. And we called S.T.A.R.

We were told not to panic — that Paramount was not going to bother any local or by-mail operations, but was only going to worry about zines at conventions. Furthermore, we were advised to go ahead on ST fiction; they all do it with impunity. So now we feel somewhat more secure. Could Paramount close us down? Legally, they probably could — Star Trek is a copyrighted concept, and any extrapolations are technically violations of that copyright unless licensed by Paramount. So, if they wanted to spend the time and money — they could do it. But it would be a mistake to do so. ST zines make very little money for themselves. But they do constitute free advertising —- a fact they should recognize.

Paramount apparently followed through on their plans to extract licensing fees and commissions from zines sold at conventions. In February 1976, Sharon Emily wrote an essay addressing these fees and proposed some ways to alleviate the cost of selling zines at cons. From The Fanzine Conglomerate:

One of the biggest problems of selling fanzines at a large convention such as The International Star Trek Convention is the price the dealer has to pay just to be able to sell. ISTC's tables are priced well out of the reach of most fan dealers; not to mention that having one third of a table which is stuck in an anteroom can lose a lot of potential sales - yet, that is all many of us can afford. On top of that is the basic license from Paramount costing 25.00, plus 10% of sales to Paramount, plus 8% sales tax to New York, which takes a big slice out of sales, and makes fan dealing almost prohibitive.

[...]

As to licenses from Paramount; we propose to try to buy just two or three licenses and list several zines on each license with each editor involved chipping in to pay the cost of the license and then adding their 10% of their sales to send to Paramount.

Since Paramount gets nervous if they don't get their 10% within a week after the last day of a con, we'll have to insist that no one take their items from the table the last day and pick up their cash until they have turned over Paramount’s 10% and New York’s 8% sales tax to the license holders.

[...]

Of course, we don’t know if the Conglomerate would be allowed, however, would we have to tell Paramount and the ISTC Committee what we are? We would list only the individuals buying the licenses and tables, and the others could be classified as assistants, or special gofers.

A Very Thin Bottom Line

Doing the math shows how close these editors came to financial disaster, and in other (much rarer) cases, made a tidy profit. Below are some examples.

In 1980, a Starsky and Hutch letterzine had roughly 120 subscribers. Each issue was $1.25. When the editors explained they were going to have to cut the art or limit the letters, due to expenses, one writer said she'd prefer to have them raise the price, or "charge enough to at least make a little profit for yourselves, and may give the front cover artists a free issue... " The editors' reply: "We appreciate and understand this reasoning, however, our budget simply doesn't allow contributor's copies." (from the June 1980 issue of S and H)

what was left unspoken in the fan-made button from the 1990s is that as long as there was a market for zines, there would be buyers who were addicted to the product and who would pay

From The Halkan Council #20/21:

As far as I know, no fans overcharge substantially for a zine. I myself 'round out' [to the nearest 25 cents] the charges because making change at cons (I don't sell at a table, I sell 'out of arm') drives me up a wall. Now, I don't think it's unethical for a zine to make a SMALL profit -- for instance, to pay for a huskster table at cons, to cover the costs of free contributor's copies, and the dozens of miscellaneous items that go into producing a zine, but aren't part of the actual printing cost. Such things might include presstype-lettering, typewriter rental, typing and layout supplies, long-distance last-minute phone calls to distributors, etc...postage is a tricky thing, too. A lot of times, the editor hasn't finished doing the layout yet and isn't quite sure how much the zine and the envelope together will weigh, yet you folks want to know what the issue will cost. The editor must try to estimate... and it's safer to overestimate by an ounce or two. That may mean that the editor could end up making a slight 'profit' ... I suppose, in strict honestly, that the editor should return postage to the consumers. I think if if exceeded 15 cents or so, I myself would do that.

A zined responds to fans complain about the high price of zines:

Finances are a problem for a zine publisher, but socking all the extra costs onto them is one way to guarantee that fanzines go rapidly extinct. I produced the first issue of Kraith Collected for just over $350 in 1972. That figure included everything, cost of paper, typewriter, layout, non-photo-blue pencils, EVERYTHING. The cost of producing volume five of Kraith Collected is running over $800, including everything. If I had never done anything but pay myself back for the producing of one issue, where, of where, pray tell me, [name omitted], do you expect the extra $450 to come from? Trees? Surely not my pockets. I haven't even paid myself back fro the original $350 yet! Kraith can't afford it. Why shouldn't 450 readers each contribute a dollar to the continued running of a fanzine? (Actually, the figures are closer to 1500 readers each contributing about 30 cents, since I didn't' leap directly from volume one to volume five.) And I'm expected to keep all the back issues in print, too. The fact that Kraith still only costs $3.25 I consider a triumph of economy, since my costs have more than doubled in the past four years.

Not all editors cut it so close. Universal Translator was one zine in which a number of fans debated copyright, profit, and the rights of editors and fans. A fan steps into the debate of whether or not fans had the moral right to copy out-of-print fanzines for their own use. She points out that an editor's copyright extends only to her or his material in zine, not the whole zine itself and brings up the snarl that is profit and supply and demand:

I doubt very much that a xerox copy of an out-of-print zine for one's own personal use is infringement. And... there is infringement ONLY if the editor's copyright is valid in the first place. I mention this because of the increasingly common practice of publishing zine as profit-making ventures, a practice that... takes fanzines out of the protection of fair use...In recent years, demand for Trekzines has created such a thriving auction market for out-of-print zines that some editors now anticipate and plan for sales at auction from the beginning. The editor of a popular zine may elect to charge much more for the than the zine's actual cost of production, knowing that readers will gladly pay the inflated price because they know they can double or triple their initial investment at auction later on. Then, the editor may announce that the zine is sold out, while holding back a number of copies for auction when the price goes up. She may even auction them off herself under a different name... I write this not from concern for Paramount's rights, but because of the effect of these practices on fans. Like the AMA, some editors have learned that limiting supply drives the price through the roof. But what about the authors and artists who produce the creative guts of a zine? They don't share the editor's profits from sale or auction. In many cases, they probably would prefer a wider distribution of the zine at an affordable price so their work would reach more readers. The plight of the the reader who cannot afford to pay $50 for a zine is obvious, especially for an 'out-of-print' zine that really isn't. In this situation, resourceful readers have turned to long-distance borrowing and xeroxing as the only practice ways to have access to the work of their fellow fans... Of course, I assume that the editors who have said they will enforce their copyrights against unauthorized xeroxers do not engage in any of the practices I've mentioned., and that they have valid and enforceable copyrights. But as for the editor who's elected to turn her fanzine into a lucrative commercial venture, well, she can't have it both ways. By choosing to publish in violation of the copyright, she has made her work fair game.

Another zine ed asks:

My first zine had a pretty steep price, and I've heard a bit of grumbling (mostly by people un-involved with zines,) although one correspondent gave me a three-page essay on how fanzines were "supposed" to be funded...); I personally wonder how some of the less expensive zines in fandom afford to stay in print! I don't work (I go to school) and don't have an income to fall back on, so the principle of PTOA governed my price structure on Twin Suns #l. As it turned out, I had a small profit which immediately was channeled into *2, turning its price down by about $1.00 a copy under what I would have had to charge otherwise. I'm hoping that the small "cushion" I've included in the price for #2 will give me enough of a nest egg to print a third issue, but it makes me personally nervous to have promised to print stories and artwork and have the prospect of going broke hanging over my head. Maybe I need to send the zine out of town to be printed—I hear of absolutely unbelievable price guidelines elsewhere—but I just plain don't trust a printer I can't stand over and check the work with. And local printers don't carry accounts, so the $1000-$1200 printing cost for each issue must be paid on delivery. Is is unethical for me to "cushion" the price of each zine to fund the interim expenses for the next one? (I'm talking about a 12-15% per issue margin.) As it stands now, as I have to wait longer and longer to print my second issue, prices are climbing even as I write and I may take a trouncing on the already-set price of #2.

A fan discusses profit and fair use:

What about fanzines that do make money for their editors? Well, Syn is certainly right that fanzines are a tradition of ancient vintage, but it's worth remembering that fanzines were once a "gentleman's hobby" for those who could afford the financial loss they inevitably entailed. Mass media science fiction and offset printing have changed all that. The relation of demand to costs now means that the editor of a popular media zine can make a profit from it, if she wants to. I know personally of a zine editor who boasts that she took in, from her zine, twice what it cost her to produce it. I know another who prices her zine by doubling the printing cost and then adding on the non-printing costs to that. By her own calculations, her own "take" is about 40% of the cover price of the zine. Fortunately, neither of these editors is a STAR TREK fan. But if the copyright owner is adding it up, the message surely must be clear. And from the copyright owner's point of view, if there's money to be made in zines, why shouldn't he demand a cut? Wouldn't you, if someone were marketing a product based on your copyrighted material for money?

Fanfiction and Profit

Generally, money has played little role in the desire to create and exchange of fan fiction. In fact, the buying and selling of fan fiction has been almost universally condemned across Western media fandom. The sole exception would be the contributor's copies that fan writers received of the fanzines in which they were published. On occasion, during the early years of print fanzines zine publishers would offer cash prizes to fan writers; however, many fans expressed worry that the practice might cause TPTB to come down hard on fan fiction. To most fans, the lack of profit - or in this case the exchange of funds for fan fiction - was seen as their fig leaf of protection against potential copyright claims.

Fanfiction and Cash Prizes

When the zined of the Star Trek fanzine Alien Brothers offered a cash prize for fanfic, other fanzine publishers took issue:

In order for fandom to remain "amateur publishing", and therefore to remain acceptable in the eyes of Paramount... monetary payment can not be paid for works of STAR TREK fiction. This creates an immediate infringement upon the copyrights... So long as we remain "amateurs", Paramount tends to look the other way. But if we set this dangerous precedent and open ourselves up as "professionals", sooner of later the consequences will be grave... Additionally, writers can become alienated if they aren't paid for a story, and later find out that their b e s t friend was paid. All in all, I don't think fandom needs that type of attitude. If writers want to write for "cash awards" on a steady basis... then perhaps they should seek more traditionally professional realms for their work. Let's keep fandom as fandom.

Fanfiction and Changing Norms Regarding Platforms

The taboo against profit only strengthened when fan fiction shifted away from print fanzines as the main distribution method to online distribution. To fans who first encountered fan fiction being offered freely on the Internet, the idea of asking for money in the context of a gift economy was socially transgressive.

One example of fans' outrage regarding charging other fans for their online fiction occurred in 2000 in the Starsky & Hutch fandom. A longtime fan, TLR, whose stories had been posted to Starsky & Hutch's main archive asked to have them removed, citing her newly-acted upon religious convictions regarding profanity. Fans were angry when they learned that the removal from the internet was to instead have sequels to these previously free stories sold on a computer disk for a large amount of money.

Fanfiction and Charity

The use of fan fiction, however, to raise funds for charity, chipped away at these social norms. Numerous examples of charity drives exist in the mid 2000s where fans would offer fan fic, fan art or fan vids to help raise money for victims of natural disasters (ex: Help Haiti) or other need based groups (ex: Sweet Charity). Not all fans felt comfortable with the practice. As Morgan Dawn explains:

"In 2007, I worked with a relatively new Supernatural fan writer to offer on demand hard copies of her fan fiction at cost plus $1 to go to RAINN, a charity for victims of sexual abuse. Within 3 hours of the zine being announced, the writer was reported to the on demand printer for copyright infringement by two fans who felt that asking for any money -even to pay for the cost of the printing and mailing and even with only a nominal amount going to charity - was heresy. Their actions killed the desire of some fan writers to participate in fan fiction charity drives. Luckily, media fandom is so huge and so transient, that fundraisers like Sweet Charity still thrived."

After charity fanfiction fundraising drives took hold, other fannish events began using fanworks to help raise funds. Starting 200x, Vividcon auctioned off custom made to order" fanvids to pay for the extra equipment needed to run the convention. In 2013, DashCon "fandom committees" (groups of tumblr fans arranged along fandom lines) auctioned off fanfiction and fanart to raise funds for the convention as well as to help fund their convention attendance.

banner created by one fan offering fanfic commissions

this banner was used to help raise funds for health care treatment for a family member

Fanfiction and Commissions

In more recent years, writing commission offers have emerged. Some are by fans who are struggling with financial issues, others by fans who simply want to be paid for their work.

My money situation is not so great at the moment and I miss writing things quite a lot, so I thought I would open up fanfic commissions! Some expenses I need to take care of (if you guys are curious) are: wisdom teeth removal that has to be done by an oral surgeon because they’re growing in all sorts of wrong (cost about $2000), two dog crates so I can begin crate training my dogs before I move next year (cost about $150), dog training classes (cost about $200), carpet cleaner rental (cost $45), work pants (cost about $30 for a couple pairs), gas money (cost $40 every 3 weeks), etc. This would just be something extra to contribute to that along with my minimum wage paychecks each week!

PRICING:

Paypal only!

• $3 - 100 to 500 words
• $5 - 500 to 999 words
• $10 - 1000 to 1500 words

I’ve limited myself to 1500 words as of right now just so I don’t get overwhelmed.

this banner was used to raise rent money

This has led some fans to ask:

When did fandom go from the fine art of the disclaimer to ‘pay me and I’ll write that prompt for you’? Because ten years ago every heading had a standard line of about no profit being made, so please don’t sue and now people out and out advertise they are writing a fic on commission (and not for charity). waves cane and grumbles about kids on her lawn

And:

Honestly, I think the practice of writing fic for charity is what changed attitudes toward commissioning fic, which is kinda disturbing if you think about it. I mean, charity fic is explicitly in line with the non-profit, gift economy fandom has operated on since the dawn of time (and is the fig leaf keeping the lawsuits at bay). The jump to “aha! people will pay for writing” is logical, but not in keeping with fandom’s traditional ethos (or its fear of lawsuits).

The general approbation against offering fanfic for money still does not stop some fans for asking:

Still trying to commission a fanfic writer to write me some private fanfiction? Is no one interested because I’m asking for private fanfiction? Doesn’t anyone want my money???

See much more at Writing Commissions.

Fan Art and Profit

See Selling Fanart.

Fan Companies

While the vast majority of fanworks were/are given away or traded, some fans set up organized systems to sell fannish goods. This ranged from very small-time, under-the-radar affairs, to formal, bigger outfits.

a huckster at work, from Enterprise Incidents (US) #6 (1979)

Items sold included: t-shirts, fanart, buttons, stationery, fan films, doujinshi, zines, clips, calendars, keychains, jewelry, scripts, and other merchandise.

Some pre-internet examples: List of Fan Run Star Trek Merchandising Companies.

Several of these people and companies have taken their expertise in fan-produced goods and branched out into reselling copies of the works themselves, acquiring official licensing for their merch, selling unbranded generic objects intended for use alongside the merch (such as card sleeves or display stands), or even producing fully original non-fannish content. If they remain fan-run, keep their markups small, and maintain relationships with the fandom, this is generally well-received, under the theory that people need to pay their bills somehow. However, companies that "sell out" to an outside interest and/or shun their fandom origins are thought of as betraying their "roots" and met with active hostility.

Fangames and Mods

The attitude of videogame companies to fangames - as well as the attitude of fans to other fans about whether something is "acceptable" - often uses the breakpoint of whether the fangame is being used to produce profit. However, this varies by company and by franchise.

At one extreme, Valve is exceptionally tolerant (due to the company being founded by game modders); some fangames, in fact, are even sold for profit! Similarly, some game developers actively encourage modding under the theory that it increases the game's lifespan; Stardew Valley's 1.6 update was originally intended to be almost entirely internal changes to increase modding compatibility, with the only outward-facing updates being bugfixes.

At the other extreme, Nintendo is notoriously strict, cracking down even on fangames and mods. Game mods such as Pokemon Brown and Breath of the Wild Multiplayer, and even fangames that have no shared code at all such as Pokemon Uranium, are routinely taken down by copyright notices.

Yet despite this attitude, Mother 3 has a comprehensive fan translation to English, and reproduction carts are available for sale, and none of this has been touched. This is presumably because the Mother/Earthbound series is a very small IP, and Mother 3 is likely too fatally entangled in music licensing issues to ever rerelease (it has an optional rhythm game as part of its battle system).

Reproduction cartridges (for use on original hardware) of some out-of-print games, and of popular game mods and translations, are sometimes found for sale on a gray-market basis. While these do usually work, they may be based on old versions of the mods, are impossible to update, and practically never give any money to the original authors. Since there are universal/reprogrammable cartridges that can be used to load any game from ROM, they are really only for people who enjoy displaying their video game collections.

The WSA Program

The WSA Program was a fannish organization created to protecting fans from fraud.

From Warped Space #18:

A recent Halkan Council issue contains a mention about fanzine editors making money; overpricing their zines by enough per copy to ensure having enough money to print the next issue. Frankly, I don't know of any zine editors who employ this practice. Mandi Schultz has been publicizing the National Central Bureau WSA Program. which is a non-profit coordinating agency dedicated to combatting fraudulent activities in fandom. Fan publishers, dealers, and any other fen are free to apply for membership to the WSA. Anyone interested in finding out more about the WSA should write to Ron J. Frantz... [address redacted] enclose a SASE and be specific about what aspect(s) of the WSA you are interested in.

• other similar fan organizations/guilds?

Meta/Further Reading

See Timeline of Fandom and Profit Meta.

• Fanfic and Monetization by rosethornewrites

Academic and Extra-fandom Commentary

• Karen Hellekson. "A Fannish Field of Value: Online Fan Gift Culture." Cinema Journal 48.4 (2009): 113-118.
• Abigail De Kosnik. "Should Fan Fiction Be Free?" Cinema Journal 48.4 (2009): 118-124.
• Noppe, Nele. 2011. "Why We Should Talk about Commodifying Fan Work." In "Textual Echoes," edited by Cyber Echoes, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 8. doi:10.3983/twc.2011.0369.
• Scott, Suzanne. 2009. Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary content models. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0150.
• effect of commercialisation and direct intervention by the owners of intellectual copyright : a case study : the Australian Star Trek fan community, ^{Archived version}, by Susan P. Batho (2009) (an academic paper which studies the effect of the Viacom Crackdown and Australian fan clubs)
• What is fanfiction, anyway? by Elizabeth Minkel (2015)