Ebooks

[rhaegal]

Hey, fandom, you have a lot of opinions, right? I find myself in need of some...

So, last week I diligently went through my entire recs list and saved all ~500 fics as ebooks. For my own personal use, I mean; it didn't even occur to me to make them publicly available as that seemed like it would generally not be a good/right thing to do

Comments

[kuhekabir]

For me it is quite simple. Either I offer an ebook version for people to use or not. For personal use of course anyone can change the format. I do the same thing and turn stories into pdfs because it is easier for me to read them that way.

However just as I do not authorize any of my stories being shared somewhere other than my journal, I also would never give my permission for someone to take my story and make it available in any kind of format. If you purchase an ebook you are told to not share your file because it would be akin to taking a book out of a store and then running off with it. This is called stealing.

Same thing applies here in my opinion. :)

[rhaegal]

Personally I don't see the stealing analogy with fanfiction - after all, it's freely offered and has no monetary value. I guess I see it as partly a privacy issue, that authors have the right to remove their fic from the public domain if they so choose (insofar as that's possible), and partly simply etiquette (same reason I wouldn't take a fic I'd seen on LJ and post it to the KS Archive, for instance, even with the proper attribution).

[kuhekabir]

Difference of options, I guess. I disagree there too. The stories might be for free but they still belong to the author. I would never want anyone to take what I've written and without asking for permission offer it up somewhere else.

They can link and keep copies for themselves but that is about it. No re-posting or changing formats of any kind and offering those up. :)

[jaylee_g]

Bit late to this topic *sheepish grin* but I agree with you, I would find it flattering if anyone wanted to make an ebook out of my fic. As others have pointed out, once a story is posted on the internet it's 'out there' anyway, free to be bookmarked or saved on to readers' harddrives. Its impossible to contain the actual distribution of a fic (the stuff that goes on behind the scenes without the authors knowledge) and personally I wouldn't want to - it being saved and emailed as an attachment with an enthusiastic endorsement to cousin Billy-Bob, twice removed, means its being read and appreciated by two sets of eyes instead of one. Maybe cousin Billy-Bob, remembering that first emailed story fondly, would then go directly to the author's livejournal/ks archive account/ AO3 account for any future works

[seshat1]

♥! :D