New owner of LOTRFanFiction.com is "super excited."

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

esteliel sent me a message about LOTRFanFiction.com being sold. Read about it at her journal:

http://esteliel.livejournal.com/428988.html?format=light

Also well worth reading: a comment by Adora, who sold the web site.

http://esteliel.livejournal.com/428988.html?thread=3322556&format=light#t3322556

The new owner, Keith Mander, has purchased other fan sites, such as TwilightArchives.com. He writes in his blog:

Deja vu? LOTRFanFiction.com is a fan fiction archive, just like TwilightArchives.com (another site I snapped up a couple of months ago).

The thinking is that I can leverage the technology behind the Twilight site's redesign to quickly rejuvenate the LOTR site. Plus, plenty of opportunities for cross promotion and integration (SSO, for example). The longer term thought is that with the combined user base, I'll be able to quickly enter and dominate new fandoms, hopefully creating some returns.

Yep, it's deja vu all over again.

Comments

[randy-o.livejournal.com]

In her defense, she's been carrying the cost of the website for years and donations weren't enough to help. But to counter that, she never did make an announcement that she would need X-amount of dollars or face a shutdown. Other sites like HASA let members know exactly where the finances stand, and we can see where our money goes.

Who knows what he paid? But he brags in an interview elsewhere about seeking out small sites created out of passion rather than profit motive, whose owners have no idea of their value. He doesn't seem to understand how fandom works as a cooperative, non-profit endeavor. He 'bought' a community, and as of this morning, he has lost over forty of his contributors -- most of them BNFs.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

It's like this guy never heard of FanLib. *boggles*

[randy-o.livejournal.com]

I doubt he has. He has spoken of the entire 'fandom community' as if he can invade and dominate us. He'd have more luck teaching cats to do close-order drill.

His biggest problem is not understanding the old-time fanwriter's chariness about earning money from our hobby. A fanfiction archive is not just another business that can be mined for profit without legal ramifications. When he was evasive about whether he planned to generate income from the site over and above the costs of maintaining it (and why would he have bought it, otherwise?) I deleted my submissions and got out of there.