writing and publishing and dead trees

[beccaelizabeth]

All that argue as is going on about fanfic and money - I think some people muddle their terms. Possibly me, but possibly not.
Someone was saying how she wanted to see fanfic writers get published.

http://dictionary.reference.com/

publish is to issue (printed or otherwise reproduced textual or graphic material, computer software, etc.) for sale or distribution to the public.

distribution is the delivery or giving out of an item or items to the intended recipients.

Y'all are the public. I am distributing. So, this, right here, that you are reading? Seems to be published. On the web, for no money. But published. So fanfic is, in general, published.

It isn't even a small kind of publishing - there is no reason that any web page could not be seen by every person in the world. Yeah, they'd need a computer, net connection, and knowing where it is, but everyone *can* see it. Unlike books, for instance, where only one person at a time can see any one copy and there's limited copies. A lot more limited than some people think. Books don't tend to get the audience that TV does. Which is one reason I want to write for TV. Because I am a show off.

But web pages theoretically could have that same audience of millions. If they felt like showing up.

The fact that web publishing currently has a lower status than paper publishing probably has something to do with familiarity. I mean many people were raised with the idea that Books Are Important; as yet relatively few were raised with the idea that Computers Are Important, let alone Web Pages are Important. So books have a status because books have had status for a long while.

But this here is still publishing.

If this here type of publishing isn't getting the academic attention, or the large readership, or whatever other part of paper publishing is being complained of, that's a seperate problem fixable in ways that have nothing to do with paper. At least paper as in dead tree; paper as in things academics make is part of the academic attention thing.

Is there somewhere that collects papers written about things published on the net? I mean there's a journal of Buffy studies, there's probably a journal of lots of other stuff too.

And if the problem is that fanfic doesn't have status like -high culture product go here- then the problem is not 'writes fanfic', it's 'status is weird'. I say this as a cultural studies student who has had assignments about the local shopping mall. What people actually care about, find useful, do every day, seems to me to be rather more important than what ye traditional selfchosen few has said was cool. Study the pop culture, study fanfic, and suddenly there's finding things in it worth studying.

If the problem is 'doesn't make money from their work', I can see that. I get that. It's like all the grrr about how women do the cooking cleaning childcare scheduling emotional maintenance etc etc etc and don't get paid for any of that, even though those jobs add up to a whole lot of money. That's a pretty good complain.

But is not, actually, about publishing. Just about money.

And if you get money for work and work for money then surely work for work is also fair?

Because what fanfic writers get back is fanfic to read. And personally I feel like that works out.

Comments

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

Excellent, excellent point. Bravo. :)

[beccaelizabeth]

:)