Star Trek and FanLib: Not exactly groundbreaking

[melyanna.livejournal.com]

In a long-winded response to the question of what FanLib offers fic writers that they can't get for less hassle elsewhere, Chris Williams said this:

We have many more special fan events coming. You'll see us shortly announce and launch: a fan event with a major media company around one of the most popular fandoms, a collaborative feature film screenplay and movie, a partnership with a major talent management company to identify star writers from the FanLib.com community and create opportunities for them.

Emphasis mine.

My guess is that this is startrek.fanlib.com, some kind of fic "event" as FanLib keeps telling us they've done previously. However, this seems to be just more proof that they're completely out of step with fandom.

This is not new ground for Star Trek. It's the only show I know of that actually welcomed fan-written scripts at any time. (Admittedly, Ron Moore described the bulk of these submissions in rather poor terms, but he was probably right in doing so. We all know that most of the fic in the world is not of stellar quality, so it would stand to reason that a good chunk of these submissions would be less-than-professional.) At any rate, Star Trek and fan involvement is not a new thing. There are some who say that at one time, Paramount actively courted the editors of the big 'zines because those fans were such a huge influence on the community, and it was a way to take the temperature of the fandom, and sometimes direct it. (While I trust my source on this one, you may certainly feel free not to; at this point it's third- or fourth-hand information.)

Speaking as someone who's not into Star Trek in any of its incarnations, it's my understanding that Star Trek is not exactly a seriously active fandom in terms of fic anymore. I have one friend who was in the fandom during the Voyager era in the mid-nineties, when she says it was slowly dying. Another friend has participated in Enterprise fic collaborations, and by the time she stopped, she said it was incredibly frustrating that she and others had put a lot this work into stories that very few people were reading.

So: yes, Star Trek is a Big Deal in fandom – for its history if nothing more – but is it really that big when it comes to fic? Or is this another example of FanLib's preconceived notions about fandom not lining up with reality?

(Please correct me if I'm wrong about the state of Star Trek fandom today; I freely admit that this is not based on extensive research. But the fic I see coming across my own friends list rarely has anything to do with Star Trek, when I do have Star Trek fans on my friends list.)

Comments

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

from the S&S website:

Ten years ago Pocket Books offered Star Trek fans a unique opportunity. Long before the Internet, Star Trek fans had written their own stories, which they then shared among friends and family. Now, the fans were offered a chance to become a part of the Star Trek mythos. A contest sponsored by Pocket Books would publish and pay for the best stories submitted by non-professional writers. And over the course of a decade, hundreds of pounds of submissions poured in. Many of the writers who submitted to Strange New Worlds went on to become professional writers.

As of 2007, we will be discontinuing the publication of Strange New Worlds.

so maybe that's why?

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't heard about that! Makes the timing even more suspicious. It also makes me wonder what sort of contest they're going to pitch. There isn't a new series on the horizon yet so no spec scripts for that. I can't really see TPTB letting fans write large chunks of the movie, though I could see a contest for writing a a single scene. Fanfic, certainly, is most likely, but I can't see a "win a t-shirt!" or even a "you'll get your work published" contest going down too well after what SNW has done to legitimise TrekFic and TPTB's history of buying unsolicited scripts.

It also must be said that former Pocket Books editor John Ordover understood fandom and fic writers. He participated in fandom as much as his position would allow, visiting message boards and answering questions and made no bones about it when his staff writers did the same. If they don't have someone like him at the helm of this one, it might also fall through.

Finally, Trek fen, on average, tend to be older fen. Even someone like me, who came in with DS9 and Voyager, can have been active in fandom for a decade or more. Certainly, the ones who're still active in fandom are, at a cautious estimate, at least in their mid 20's to early 30's. And yet, FanLib strikes me as something aimed at the younger set and the newer fandoms whose participants don't have the sense of history Trek fans do, nor the sense of caution from years of watching people being C&D'd or being dicked around with by various sets of TPTB.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't heard about that! Makes the timing even more suspicious. It also makes me wonder what sort of contest they're going to pitch. There isn't a new series on the horizon yet so no spec scripts for that.

i don't know that i'd use "suspicious", in that it implies a nefariousness that i don't really think is there. i doubt there was anything spontaneous about the ST collaboration. Fanlib didn't launch, i believe, until they *knew* they had creative partners on board to some degree or another.

and please don't get me wrong. i'm not a fan [heh] of Fanlib, but not because i think they're teh ev0l, but rather that i think they're being intentionally obtuse to serve their purposes, and they just did this all very, very badly. that plus teh arrogance equals Bad Business People, No Dunut.

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

A poor choice of words on my part, perhaps. I agree.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

:::leaves you cookies:::

Simon & Schuster - Author Rights Grab

[taverymate.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd be more inclined to believe that it has to do with Simon & Schuster's net attempts at an authors' rights grab - and the fact that the Strange New Worlds contracts include a minimum sales requirements for a work to be considered in print.

kirby_crow mentioned Simon & Schuster's new policy in regards to FanLib's possible corporate partnerships in a post here:
http://telesilla.livejournal.com/555817.html?replyto=4441641&style=mine

The Author's Guild warning excerpt:
Simon & Schuster has changed its standard contract language in an attempt to retain exclusive control of books even after they have gone out of print. Until now, Simon & Schuster, like all other major trade publishers, has followed the traditional practice in which rights to a work revert to the author if the book falls out of print or if its sales are low.

The publisher is signaling that it will no longer include minimum sales requirements for a work to be considered in print. Simon & Schuster is apparently seeking nothing less than an exclusive grant of rights in perpetuity. Effectively, the publisher would co-own your copyright.

The new contract would allow Simon & Schuster to consider a book in print, and under its exclusive control, so long as it’s available in any form, including through its own in-house database -- even if no copies are available to be ordered by traditional bookstores.

Complete warning is here: http://www.edrants.com/?p=6127

Re: Simon & Schuster - Author Rights Grab

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

niiiiiice.

to be fair, though, it's not just S&S doing that, although i agree with your point re the contest. publishers in general are trying to fight the 'revert back to the author' part of the contract when sales no longer warrant a printing; the publishers want to keep the rights by shifting the books to print on demand status.