Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Worlds

[Steve Roby]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Oh, okay. JJ Abrams isn't George Lucas, and he says he's a fan, so Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a fan film. Just fanfic on screen.

Fan fiction has meant fiction produced, unpaid, not professionally published, by fans, for many decades now. It's not just the pros who get commissioned, get paid, get edited, go through licencing approvals, and get professionally published books that cost money who insist on the distinction. I've seen a lot of fanfic writers argue for the distinction as well, because in their eyes fanfic is purer, free from financial motives and, more importantly, free from the licencing approval process. They can do slash, crossovers, overwrite canon, whatever they want.

There's another part of the issue: some people refer to the pro stuff as fanfic because it means they don't have to bother with it, it's important to them to be current with everything official tied to their fave series but they don't want to have to read books, so they decide it's just fanfic and can be ignored. It's dismissive. Meanwhile, there are other people calling the pro stuff fanfic because their Star Trek/Twilight slash fanfic was read by 30 people who really liked it and therefore it's just as valid as anything by a "pro."

We're talking about two very different activities, with different rules, different participants, different expectations. How is it helpful to start using the same word for both of them?

As for SNW: it's about pro credits, helping fans become pros. Thousands of people tried to get into SNW. It meant more to them than posting a story on a fanfic site. They knew there was a difference.

 

[ElimGarak.93-99]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

On its Star Trek homepage Simon and Schuster offers free eBook copies of The Entropy Effect

Woo-hoo!

for US residents

D'oh!

I know how you feel.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

I do have to say that, thinking on it and all joking aside, this is the only place I've seen "fanfiction" defined as specifically amateur fiction written in the fictional universe of another creator. In all fandoms I've been in that I can think of, "fanfiction" is just defined as any fiction written in the fictional universe of another creator, unpaid and amateur or paid and professional.

I've never come across that definition before. All my life, I've known fanfiction to mean unlicensed amateur fiction.

And it's shown in practice elsewhere too: Kindle Worlds, for example, specifically refers to it as fanfiction despite the fact that it's all official and licensed and for pay as a publication platform. That's an official publishing company calling licensed for-pay work in other universes (if admittedly not professionally edited) "fanfiction".

And that's a rather novel broadening of the definition. Perhaps the lines between fan and pro fiction are blurring under modern conditions where self-publishing is becoming a major industry and old models are giving way, but if so, it's a redefinition of the term. From Wikipedia's definition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction

Fan fiction is rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's creator or publisher, and is rarely professionally published. It may or may not infringe on the original author's copyright, depending on the jurisdiction and on such questions as whether or not it qualifies as "fair use" (see Legal issues with fan fiction). Attitudes of authors and copyright owners of original works to fan fiction have ranged from encouragement to rejection or legal action.

Fan fiction has meant fiction produced, unpaid, not professionally published, by fans, for many decades now. It's not just the pros who get commissioned, get paid, get edited, go through licencing approvals, and get professionally published books that cost money who insist on the distinction. I've seen a lot of fanfic writers argue for the distinction as well, because in their eyes fanfic is purer, free from financial motives and, more importantly, free from the licencing approval process. They can do slash, crossovers, overwrite canon, whatever they want.

Right. It's meaningless to define it just in terms of whether a professional author is a fan or not, because that's a purely personal consideration that has no legal or functional relevance to the work. It's meant to distinguish amateur fiction from professional fiction, because that's a meaningful distinction on multiple levels. Amateur fiction is much freer, often more experimental and deconstructive and transgressive, than pro fiction can ever be. It can certainly influence pro fiction, and fanfic writers can become pro fiction writers, and there are occasional unusual cases where someone's fanfic can be turned into a huge professional success, like that Fifty Shades of Grey thing. But that doesn't mean they're the same thing.

As for SNW: it's about pro credits, helping fans become pros. Thousands of people tried to get into SNW. It meant more to them than posting a story on a fanfic site. They knew there was a difference.

Yes. I daresay all of us who write Trek Lit professionally are fans, and were fans before we were pros. Many of us wrote fanfic. But once Pocket gave us our first contracts, then we were writing Trek fiction professionally, and that's the difference between a hobby and a job, or even a career for the lucky ones. That's what SNW was about. It wasn't just about fans showing off their recreational writing; it was about pursuing a career opportunity, trying to break into a professional industry. Just like any other writing contest, such as L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future. (Indeed, SNW editor Dean Wesley Smith was himself a former WotF winner. It seems to me that SNW must've been his way of giving others the same chance he was given.)

 

[mmtz]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

glose.com is a very nosy/noisy site. I signed up just to see what it's like. You're asked to identify books that interest you, so they can make recommendations. I clicked half a dozen books that I've read and a few minutes later I get one email for each book I clicked, telling me that the book is available for me to buy.

I've tried several publisher ebook apps now. While they're ok for the basic job of reading once you have access to an ebook, nearly everything else about them is inconvenient.

 

[Markonian]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Something I've been pondering - it's great that SNW is revived at least this once because the Star Trek franchise has expanded greatly over the past decade.

New entries can draw inspiration from the liberated TrekLit, Star Trek Online, the alternate reality, and other releases like Star Trek: Trexels.

 

[ATimson]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

New entries can draw inspiration from the liberated TrekLit, Star Trek Online, the alternate reality, and other releases like Star Trek: Trexels.

Historically I believe the rules have required entries to stick to the canon and not reference other tie-ins. The alternate reality is probably similarly off-limits, though I could be mistaken.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Historically I believe the rules have required entries to stick to the canon and not reference other tie-ins.

Perhaps as a general rule, but there were some DS9 stories in later volumes that did reference ideas from the post-finale novels (while not necessarily being entirely consistent with them). And the Flint story "The Immortality Blues" was built around the version of World War III established in The Sundered.

 

[Amaris]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

glose.com is a very nosy/noisy site. I signed up just to see what it's like. You're asked to identify books that interest you, so they can make recommendations. I clicked half a dozen books that I've read and a few minutes later I get one email for each book I clicked, telling me that the book is available for me to buy.

I've tried several publisher ebook apps now. While they're ok for the basic job of reading once you have access to an ebook, nearly everything else about them is inconvenient.

Indeed it is. The last thing we need is DRM on books, too. Having it on music already makes it a PITA, and doesn't solve anything. Having to be tethered to a specific site just so I can read a book? Baloney.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

If I could get Entropy Effect as a free Kindle ebook, I'd be fine with that, since that's how I buy all my books anyway. But of course they won't make it that easy...would they?

 

[ATimson]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

The last thing we need is DRM on books, too. Having it on music already makes it a PITA, and doesn't solve anything. Having to be tethered to a specific site just so I can read a book? Baloney.

Some publishers have seen the light (Baen and Tor). Hopefully more will continue.

 

[Chris McCarver]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Just read Trek Collective's mention of SNW coming back... dang it.

They had to bring this back AFTER I got a bunch of writing credits, which'll probably knock me out of entering... :P

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

A fanzine is an unlicensed amateur publication by and for fans.

The old Bantam Star Trek: The New Voyages anthologies (edited by the ever-popular Marshak & Culbreath) were collections of fan fiction that was originally published in 'zines. So far as I know, the authors were paid for their work, once it was selected for publication in those anthologies.

SNW is a series of anthologies, restricted (by the terms of the contest under which they were submitted) to amateur and semiprofessional writers who have not reached a specified (and very low) quota of fiction sales. Since paying an advance to every one of the thousands of aspiring writers would obviously bankrupt S&S almost instantly, those contest entries had to have been written "on-spec." It seems rather obvious to me that the combination of a mandatory lack of a track record, and the on-spec nature of the entries, puts SNW in the same category as the aforementioned Bantam anthologies, i.e., fanfic that has been bought for licensed professional publication.

That all but the very worst of the SNW stories (and I've seen worse in non-SNW Pocket ST anthologies) are at least as good as the very best in either Bantam anthologies is irrelevant. It's all on-spec submissions by inexperienced authors, mostly if not all fans. Whereas the vast bulk of ST fiction was by authors with track records, mostly as a result of an assignment that may or may not have been the result of a "pitch" by the author.

 

[Relayer1]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Any chance SNW will be open to non USA residents this time ?

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

SNW is a series of anthologies, restricted (by the terms of the contest under which they were submitted) to amateur and semiprofessional writers who have not reached a specified (and very low) quota of fiction sales. Since paying an advance to every one of the thousands of aspiring writers would obviously bankrupt S&S almost instantly, those contest entries had to have been written "on-spec." It seems rather obvious to me that the combination of a mandatory lack of a track record, and the on-spec nature of the entries, puts SNW in the same category as the aforementioned Bantam anthologies, i.e., fanfic that has been bought for licensed professional publication.

Not really. The stories in the Bantam anthologies had been previously published on an amateur basis, and were fanfic in their original published forms. Once they were bought and published by a licensed, professional anthology, they became pro fiction by definition. The stories in SNW, by contrast, were mostly written for SNW, which was a professional market. So except for those few stories that were reprinted from fan publications, they were all pro fiction. A story written on spec for a professional market is a very different thing as a story written recreationally for amateur publication -- just as applying for a job in a hospital is a very different thing from volunteering at a hospital.

It isn't the experience of the author or the prior history of the story that defines the difference between amateur and professional fiction; it's whether they get paid a professional rate for it. SNW paid ten cents a word for the stories it acquired, which was very much a professional rate -- a rather high one, in fact. Whatever the stories may have been when they were submitted, they became professional fiction once they were bought and published. Just like any author's first or second story published in any professional market.

The goal of SNW was not to showcase fan fiction. It was to give beginning authors an opportunity to make a professional sale. The fact that it was a professional market was the whole point of the exercise.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Dear Mr. Bennett:

I think I see the focal point of our semantic disagreement: you speak of (and place the primary importance on) the status of any given opus subsequent to its purchase and professional, licensed publication. Everybody else in this discussion is speaking of (and placing primary importance on) the origin of the opus, and of its status at inception.

Which is to say that in situations wherein fanfic gets promoted to pro fiction, the two categories cease to be mutually exclusive, and the opus in question remains -- strictly by origin -- fanfic, even as it becomes -- by virtue of being bought and published on a non-subsidy basis -- pro fiction.

Which is to say that when an inexperienced screenwriter writes and submits a spec script, it is, speaking strictly by origin, fanfic, even in those rare cases when it's actually bought and produced (e.g., David Gerrold writing The Trouble with Tribbles), as opposed to simply getting the author an invitation to pitch.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Any chance SNW will be open to non USA residents this time ?

It was open to (some) non-USA residents last time, as this Canadian can attest.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Dear Mr. Bennett:

I think I see the focal point of our semantic disagreement: you speak of (and place the primary importance on) the status of any given opus subsequent to its purchase and professional, licensed publication. Everybody else in this discussion is speaking of (and placing primary importance on) the origin of the opus, and of its status at inception.

Yes, and that is objectively wrong. It is not a matter of "disagreement" as if it were just opinion. SNW is a professional market, therefore it is not fanfiction, because that's just how it works. This is a matter of fact, of definition, not opinion.

Which is to say that when an inexperienced screenwriter writes and submits a spec script, it is, speaking strictly by origin, fanfic, even in those rare cases when it's actually bought and produced (e.g., David Gerrold writing The Trouble with Tribbles), as opposed to simply getting the author an invitation to pitch.

No, that is absolutely wrong. If you write a work with the hope of submitting and selling it to a professional publication, that is not fanfiction. Fanfiction is recreational. It's something you do for fun. Submitting a story to a pro market, on the other hand, is like applying for a job. It's work, not play. If you apply for a job and you don't get it, that does not mean that you were just pursuing it recreationally or on a volunteer basis. I'm amazed you could confuse the two.

 

[Relayer1]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Any chance SNW will be open to non USA residents this time ?

It was open to (some) non-USA residents last time, as this Canadian can attest.

OK, declaring self interest, open to English people ?

 

[TheAlmanac]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Any chance SNW will be open to non USA residents this time ?

It was open to (some) non-USA residents last time, as this Canadian can attest.

OK, declaring self interest, open to English people ?

I think there are a number of legal and logistical reasons why they can't...

SNW wasn't open to Québec residents, for instance, because they'd have to accept French-language submissions, and I suspect that opening it up to the UK would require them to open it up to the rest of the EU as well.

 

[Relayer1]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

It was open to (some) non-USA residents last time, as this Canadian can attest.

OK, declaring self interest, open to English people ?

I think there are a number of legal and logistical reasons why they can't...

SNW wasn't open to Québec residents, for instance, because they'd have to accept French-language submissions, and I suspect that opening it up to the UK would require them to open it up to the rest of the EU as well.

I'd be happy to submit in, er, English !