Timeline of Fandom and Profit
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A timeline for all things related to fandom and profit. This can include attempts at commercializing fanworks by fans themselves or by companies, fanwork contests organized by companies, instances of fannish labor being used for commercial purposes, incidents around (perceived) monetization of fandom, important milestones for fan communities or fannish practices that involve monetization of fandom, and so on.
See Fandom and Profit. Also see Timeline of Fandom and Profit Meta.
1950s
1970
- WSA Program
- The Strekzine List, results were used for Star Trek Lives!
1974
- with the sale of Booklet of General Plans at Equicon '74 in April, a fan-created set of blueprints, Paramount began to realize there was money to be made with Star Trek merchandise -- these blueprints became Star Fleet Technical Manual
1975
- Comiket: First edition of the largest Japanese convention for the sale of doujinshi and other fanworks.
- Star Trek Lives!, a pro book published by four fans, material was gathered from fans via questionnaires and such, Jacqueline Lichtenberg wrote in 2003 "When I found myself (already a professional sf author) writing and gleefully letting fanzines publish for free my ST fanfic, I knew I had a news story here." [1]
- Star Fleet Technical Manual was published
1976
- Con Descending, essay by M.J. Fisher (January 1976)
- The Fanzine Conglomerate by Sharon Emily (February 1976)
- Commercialism in Strekdom, essay by M.J. Fisher (July 1976)
- the "Energize!" art controversy (fans complained that original art was not returned to the artist, art that could have been sold for a tidy profit)
- Star Trek: The New Voyages (1976, 1978), a pro book contains fan fiction from zines (unclear if the fans were paid...)
1977
1978
- Guardian (multimedia zine), "The Guardian was a fanzine published by Mazeltough Press, which had the odd distinction of being a fan novel that was paid-for publication (publishers split the profits with us to get the novel)."
1986
- Ancillary Merchandising; The Selling of Other Products to Defray Costs, essay
- Marysue Dixon Predicts, essay by Carolyn Cooper
1987
- Alien Brothers and KSX (cash offered for fiction and art solicited for a zine, via a contest)
- Somehow, somewhere, some way, a hefty contingent of fans became "consumers." by Carolyn Cooper
1989
1999
1992
1993
- The Ring of Darkness: A series of fan-written sequels to Lord of the Rings is commercially published in Russia.[2]
- Several open letters about zine piracy circulate among fans:
- Zine Piracy Letter to Candace Pulleine by Bill Hupe (March 19, 1993)
- Zine Piracy Letter to Candace Pulleine by Leah Rosenthal (March 23, 1993)
- Follow-Up Zine Piracy Letter to Candace Pulleine by Bill Hupe (April 14, 1993)
- Open Letter to Fandom by Alexis Fegan Black Regarding Zine Pirating (1993)
- Candace Pulleine’s Open Letter To All Revelcon Members (May 12, 1993)
- Open Letter to Fanzine Readers, Contributors, and Publishers by Candace Pulleine (June 1993)
1995
- EBay opens its doors allow consumers to sell their second hand items directly to one another. However, it is many years before the first fanzines show up for sale on eBay. The initial response to selling fanzines in what was perceived as a public forum was not positive. (See the EBay page for more).
1997
1998
- First volume of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, an annually published collection of Star Trek stories by fans, selected via a contest in which the winners received cash prizes.[3]
1999
- Tropical Storm: A Xena uber fic is published commercially for the first time; others follow, including Accidental Love, *The Bluest Eyes in Texas, Breaking Away, Gun Shy, Josie and Rebecca: The Western Chronicles, Lucifer Rising, *Redemption, Retribution[4]
2000
- Lucasfilm claims ownership of content of fansites
- Star Wars Print Fandom: An Expose (2000 is an approximate date)
- Fandom, Inc., a company that attempted to trademark the word "fandom" and shut down a fan site
2001
December
2003
- Agent With Style: In 2003, there were many complaints about a number of things including unauthorized publication of fan fiction, bootleg print runs of agented zines, and undue profit made by AWS, also see Dear Disreputable Zine Dealer
2004
December
2005
July
- Another Hope a Star Wars fanfic novel is offered for sale on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble in July 2005 (though it didn't not to come to fandom and Lucas' attention until April 2006), Whatever/WebCite, Wikipedia, *Lev Grossman on NPR
August
- cousinjean asks fans to pay her to write fanfic so she can quit her job. [6], [7] See Cousinjean and Profit Wank.
2006
May
- Fan History Wiki launched. The wiki attracts criticism for a perceived profiting from free fannish labor/hidden commercial motives of its founder.
June
- "Filing Off the Serial Numbers - Is It That Simple? Fanfiction Writers Going Pro" panel takes place at Con.txt[8]
October
2007
- Syfy launches the Battlestar Galactica Video Maker Toolkit, which provides footage from the series for fans to create and submit videos with. Syfy claims all rights to the fan videos created.[9]
February
- Doujinshi tax evasion incident: doujinshi creator Kaoruko Shinagawa is indicted with violation of the Japanese Income Tax Law for failing to report much of her considerable income from doujinshi sales (which must be declared as income from "self-publishing").[10]
- In 2007, storm grant held a panel at Escapade about "Origifying FanFiction" and then later posted Going Pro 101: The Slasher’s Guide To Converting Fanfic To Original Fiction or Origifying FanFiction (OFF).[11]
April
- Cupidsbow publishes How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor, a piece of meta on fandom and profit that generates much discussion among fans on LiveJournal.
May
- FanLib - a commercially-owned, for-profit multifandom fanfiction archive funded with venture capital, somewhat furtively. It used much of the traditional rhetoric of fandom and provoked a great deal of fan hostility. The site never became very large, was bought by Disney and closed in 2008. FanLib helped to inspire Astolat's "We Need an Archive of Our Own" post[12], which helped lead to the fandom-supported Archive Of Our Own.
June
- FanFiction.net and profit. See: A look at some fandom based money numbers, Archived version, post at Fanthropology, June 27, 2007
October
November
- Harry Potter Lexicon Trial: Steve Vander Ark, creator of the Harry Potter Lexicon website, is forbidden from publishing a print version of the site.
- The Edge: A novel by J.J. Massa is published and later withdrawn by its publisher after Massa gets accused of plagiarizing a Star Trek Voyager fic.
2008
- "Filing Off the Serial Numbers: Going Pro with your Fan Fic" proposed for MediaWest*Con[15] [16]
- The New Lori Jareo, post discusses "Star Trek: The Death Wave" by Austin P. Torney, a "self-published" fanfiction, ("the publisher? It's CreateSpace. Yep, Amazon's own self-publishing arm.")
2009
February
March
July
- The eBay fanzine selling controversy: In July 2009, a copy of a custom zine found its way for sale on eBay which then led to some fans to argue that all fanzines were a violation of copyright law and were 'putting fandom in peril' by introducing profit to fan fiction. [17] Some fans began a LJ viral campaign aimed at putting fanzine publisher and sellers out of business. This campaign led several fanzine fans to begin volunteering on Fanlore and other OTW projects with a goal of helping document and preserve fanzine history.[18]
September
2010
December
2011
May
June
September
2012
- Fandom teas: Adagio Teas, an online store that lets people create and sell their own tea blends, adds a "fandom teas" section.[20]
January
- Fifty Shades of Grey: A Twilight fic by E.L. James is published |with the serial numbers filed off, becomes a massive commercial success, and sets off many discussions about monetization of fanworks inside and outside of fandom. Numerous other Twilight fics[21] have been self-published in this manner.[22]
July
- Amazon Doujinshi Incident: An unidentified person is discovered to be offering translated Japanese doujinshi for sale on various non-Japanese Amazon Kindle stores without the permission of the doujinshi creators.
July
- Random House Audio Fan Fiction Contest: Publisher Random House offers fic authors the opportunity to record a podfic version of their work and is criticized[23] for the content of the terms of submission.[24]
August
- Teen Wolf fanfic contest: MTV organizes a contest for Teen Wolf fic that is noted for not disallowing slash or sexual content.[25]
November
- Beautiful Bastard: Simon & Schuster announces the upcoming publication of a novel based on the Twilight fic The Office.[26]
2013
February
- The Submissive: It's announced that another Twilight fic will be published with the serial numbers filed off.[27]
March
- Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign: Fans fund a Veronica Mars movie via a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign[28], leading to discussions about crowdfunding by fans as a business model.
April
- Fox forbids sale of fan-made Jayne hats: Fans of Firefly who have been selling self-made versions of an iconic hat worn in the series begin receiving cease and desist letters.
May
- Kindle Worlds: Amazon announces the launch of a publishing platform for licensed fic.
- Nintendo fanvids claim: Nintendo claims it has the right to monetize YouTube videos that feature content from its games.[29]
November
- Big Bang Press Kickstarter campaign
2014
- After (One Direction story) by Anna Todd acquired by Simon & Schusters’s Gallery Books to be adapted into original novels.[30], later it was announced the rights had been acquired by Paramount for a movie [31]
2015
April
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
- Ali Hazelwood is contacted by an agent who saw her Reylo fanfic on AO3 and she goes onto adapted various Reylo fanfics into original works.[32]
2021
2022
2023
2024
- SenLinYu announces that Manacled will be adapted into an original work title Alchemised[33]
- Theft and Plagiarism for Profit in the Harry Potter fandom - Dramione authors begin to delete their works from the internet due to thefts.[34]
References
- ^ see Star Trek Lives! for the rest of the interview
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Perumov
- ^ http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Strange_New_Worlds
- ^ Uber#Bards_In_Print
- ^ Selling Fanart
- ^ Fandom Wank
- ^ a message from cousinjean
- ^ Uniquely Pleasurable, Original slash panel at D.C. con. Posted June 13, 2006. Last accessed November 16, 2008; WebCite.
- ^ ftp://asavage.dyndns.org/Literature/scifi.com/www.scifi.com/battlestar/videomaker/terms/index.html. Video Maker Toolkit is analysed further in Russo, J. L. 2009. “User-Penetrated Content: Fan Video in the Age of Convergence.” Cinema Journal 48 (4): 125–130. http://www.cmstudies.org/?InFocus_48_4
- ^ http://blog.livedoor.jp/shinakensyou/archives/50879801.html
- ^ Filing_Off_The_Serial_Numbers
- ^ http://astolat.livejournal.com/150556.html
- ^ http://comipress.com/news/2007/07/29/2393
- ^ http://letsmanga.be/node/708
- ^ Filing_Off_The_Serial_Numbers
- ^ Dusk Peterson, The Slash Skinny. Posted April 2007. Last accessed November 16, 2008; WebCite.
- ^ Excerpts from the July 2009 "PSA to Fanfic Writers"
- "If you are a Fanfic writer or Artist please go to this ebay site doctor_beth2000 and check to see if YOUR fanworks or someones you know and like are being sold as Fanzines for profit in what appears to be a very lucrative and active operation." petzipellepingo, dated July 29, 2009 and
- "I've never charged anyone for my fan works and actually turned down an invitation to a fanzine because I disliked the idea that anyone would have to pay for my creations, even if it was purportedly just for production costs. Seeing the 'real' fanzines listed for sale in that Ebay store just adds to my personal reasons not to participate in such projects." cited in 'Interesting copyright infringement issue', Fandom Lawyers, dated July 29, 2009).
- ^ Morgan Dawn's personal notes, accessed May 23, 2013.
- ^ http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/45433-dmp-launches-the-digital-manga-guild.html
- ^ http://www.themarysue.com/the-fandom-tea-party-the-day-the-long-arm-of-pop-culture-touched-the-west%E2%80%99s-classiest-beverage/
- ^ http://twifanfictionrecs.com/published-fics/
- ^ Filing_off_the_serial_numbers#Het_Examples
- ^ http://transformativeworks.org/alert-podfic-makers-and-fanfic-writers
- ^ http://www.randomhouse.com/audio/features/REVISED%2006-08-12%20Random%20House%20Audio%20Fan%20Fiction%20Contest.pdf
- ^ http://www.dailydot.com/culture/mtv-teen-wolf-fanfic-contest-slash-sterek/
- ^ http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/simon-schuster-to-publish-more-reworked-twilight-fanfic/
- ^ http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/article/55956-nal-buys-hit-aussie-erotica-fan-fic.html, http://www.rtbookreviews.com/rt-daily-blog/tara-sue-me-how-submissive-went-twilight-fanfiction-published-novel
- ^ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project
- ^ http://boingboing.net/2013/05/18/nintendo-claims-ownership-over.html
- ^ S&S Acquires Anna Todd’s 'After' Series from Wattpad, Archived version
- ^ ‘After’ Movie: Paramount Acquires Rights To Wattpad Book By Anna Todd, Archived version
- ^ From Friends to Lovers: The Fanfic-to-Romance Pipeline Goes Mainstream, Archived version
- ^ Announcing Alchemised, Archived version
- ^ Talk page for Theft and Plagiarism for Profit in the Harry Potter fandom