I'm Jill Bearup this is history of fanfiction part seven and today we are both
going to cross over with Stuff You Like and, you know, spread the love. That sounds
kind of dodgy. Mostly though we're going to attempt to answer the question: how
does promotion of your fic even work in a gift economy? So in part two we
discussed the history of copyright and how it relates to fanfiction. And
honestly legal concerns are really important to the way that fanfic culture
has shaped itself over the last hundred years or so. Younger fans may laugh at
the disclaimers that one can still see up on fanfiction.net but they have been
talismans warding off the wrath of the lawyers for longer than you've been
alive kid so show some respect. And as we discussed in part 5 you really don't
want to get the lawyers involved because fanfic authors generally don't have
loads of money to throw around. but past the point where you have internet access
and some degree of free time how much money you have doesn't actually matter
in fanfiction because fanfic is a gift economy. A gift economy or gift culture
is where valuables are not traded or sold but rather given without explicit
agreement for reward. In contrast to a barter economy or a market economy where
goods and services are primarily exchanged for value received. thanks
Wikipedia! given that you can't sell anyone your fanfiction for money a
market economy is right out. I mean there's a name for people who end up selling their
fanfiction (Kevin J Anderson!) There is such a thing as barter in the fanfiction
economy as it were with stuff like the Yule fic exchange where you write a fic for
someone and someone writes a fic for you but things like fic exchanges are much
much less common than just writing something that you fancy writing and
hoping that other people will like it. In the fanfiction gift economy you give
your gift of fic to the world and you are repaid with likes, favorites,
kudos, nice comments, shares on social media, maybe someone will make some art
related to your fanfic for you, or someone might write fanfic based on your
fanfic and this is how fanon grows. That is to say the commonly shared set of
assumptions on how things work in canon which doesn't actually have any textual
evidence. For example in Avengers fanon Thor loves pop-tarts. but the idea behind a
gift economy is freely ye have received now freely give. the main thing we're
talking about today though is not AO3 kudos or those really long
comments that people sometimes leave where they quote their favorite bits
(though authors love those so I very much encourage you to do that) but reccing or
recs which is to say recommendations.
so you've written a fanfic, congratulations! There is a group of
people in the world who would really love your fanfic how big that group is
depends on the size of your fandom the potential pool for Sherlock fic is much
higher than say thunderbirds are go topic the characters see kylo Ren versus
Jocasta Nu and the quality of your writing among other things. like have you
included any of those tropes which everyone says are so cliche but then if
you include their favorite ship they're like "sign me up for that cliche!" Like
fake marriage or coffee shop alternate universe or whatever regardless there is
this group of people and they would love your fake but how do they find it? well
there's always a search function on fanfiction sites but the savvy searcher
will tend to rate those by comments or likes or favorites or kudos or whatever
there's tag searching and character searching and just plain old searching
but if your fic isn't on one of the big sites then you might just be out of luck
thankfully there is also reccing because it is a truth universally
acknowledged that people who like writing fanfiction tend to love reading
fanfiction and they want to share all of their favorite things with you so that
you can read them and love them and gush about them together so you will quite
often find blog posts where people recommend their favorite fics in various
genres leading to one hopes the fic getting more likes or kudos or comments
or whatever which moves it higher in search rankings which means it gets more
views and likes and kudos and whatever and so it's a virtuous circle. so in that
vein we are going to go back to the very essence of stuff you like even if this
is technically a history of fanfiction episode and I'm going to give you a
short list of fic that I really really love so
Avatar The Last Airbender Eight Principles of Yong in which right after
the Agni Kai Zuko saves the world with fancy firebending calligraphy it's so
optimistic it makes my heart hurt and it's funny
"Zuko has no illusions that he's cutting an inspiring figure of leadership right
now. But he's lucid and upright, which is more than can be said of the competition."
Chronicles of Narnia get yourself over to AO3 and RthStewart and just wallow
in the amazingness of the Pevensies doing their thing in World War two
England( and France. spoilers.) it's not finished but it is quite a long series
so you can just like stop at the end of the last completed book if that sort of
thing bothers you. start with the stone Gryphon. NCIS: I love basically
everything by Sequitur on fanfiction.net (I guess not the Victoriana
stuff so much) but still but my rec for today definitely goes to Sheherazade's
Day Job. it's set during the period where Gibbs has naffed off to Mexico and Tony's
in charge of the team and there's a hostage situation and it's just amazing
"What I'm saying is any plan that turns on the fulcrum of Tony not annoying someone is
a pretty flawed plan." it's perfect and beautiful you guys. Beautiful and perfect.
Portal 2 I'm going to be entirely predictable because the quintessential
portal 2 fanfic is Blue Sky by waffles in which Wheatley becomes a real boy
sort of and I spent the entire time wondering if Unicron was an intentional
misspelling of unicorn or if it was just like autocorrect darn you autocorrect. I
think it was intentional. I think Wheatley is just a bit dim. also it's
Chell/Wheatley and no I was not on board either when I was told that but trust me
and give it a go. Thunderbirds Are Go my personal favorite is the entirety of the
Heavenward series by PreludeinZ (Zed? Zee? Prelude in last letter of the
alphabet). it's not a fanfic it's a freakin eight book series that tops three
hundred thousand words. but the first story is only like twenty one thousand
words so you can ease in gently if you like. If you like Thunderbirds especially
the new one especially EOS then you should try it because it's heartbreaking
and beautiful and I hate talented people Hate em.
Star Wars because of course I am a big fan of limelight and the not quite love
letters on fanfiction.net but sadly it was never finished which I know some
people don't like so. Limelight however is the
reason that I am a Wes Johnson/Mon Mothma shipper yeah there's a rare pair
for you but it's like crack to me and I make no apologies. so my actual rec if
you like completed stuff is simple rebellion physics (an interactive guidebook)
by philthestone on AO3 where we learn how Princess Leia's hair is vital
to rebellion morale. Vital, ma'am. Side note I've been reading some of the novels
formerly known as the expanded universe and now known as Legends and oh man I
forgot how amazing some of them are. in both the this is really good sense and the
this is so bad it's just awesome sense. that courtship of Princess Leia you guys.
Last but not least zombies run and the somewhat lengthily titled new inheritors
of Earth (you overestimate your worth) which is I have to admit an absolutely
beautiful title but bears no resemblance to the content of the fic at all which
is basically D&D romance related shenanigans. and now it's your turn but
you need to listen very carefully to my instructions or your comment may get
spammed. like it's okay if you want to just put a link in your comment but bear
in mind it will go straight to the spam section and I'm moving house right now
(I know you're SO surprised) so my internet access is a touch spotty right
now and it may take me a couple of days to fish it out. if not you can give us
the fandom the title the author where we can find it and maybe your favorite
quote or a bit about what in there. so for example my recommendation is simple
rebellion physics an interactive guidebook by Phil the stone on AO3 in which
Wes Johnson narrowly avoids getting court-martialed and Mon Mothma has
explained to her why Princess Leia's updos are vital to the future of the
rebellion. thank you for watching thank you as always to my patrons who are
wonderful, rec your favorite fanfic in the comments and I'll see you next time!