72
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
quite different from Leonard’s in her transition by actively sustaining her
relationship to her fans, for example by giving them the chance to download
her fanfiction before she deleted it. Sustaining her relationship to the readers
of her fanfiction is probably one of the pillars of her success.
Sophie Einwächter argues in her doctoral thesis, which investigates fans
as entrepreneurs, that the fan who has fans is a specific digital phenomenon because only in the digital sphere is the work of fans visible to a mass
audience. Einwächter convincingly argues that fans are not necessarily in
opposition to the media texts they transform, and that the social media and
fan sites they employ for the distribution of their work already comply to
the rules of markets. Additionally, the dynamics of these sites and the skills
fans learn through their productions are helping those fans that transition
to the commercial market. Einwächter argues that, as in the case of Rumelt
and Leonard, fans can develop their own style and transcend derivative
writing and emancipate themselves from the pre-texts as I have described
above and therefore escape the claims of copyright holders. Einwächter
further notices the importance of the established network and community,
which helps authors who started out as fanfiction authors to distribute their
works. 41 In the magazine Vanity Fair, representatives of the publishing
industry are quite candid about the process of author transition and the
possible profit for both authors and publishers. Journalist Shana Ting Lipton
has approached the phenomenon of fanfiction authors’ “filing off the serial
numbers” as an opportunity for those that already work in the publishing
industry and are interested in finding and marketing new authors. Literary
agent Lorella Belli explains in Ting Lipton’s article that one of the advantages
of supporting talents out of this context is that fan authors, like Claire
and Snowqueens Icedragon, already have a huge following without any
extra kind of promotion. “We’re seeing lots of agents, lots of publishers join
Wattpad,” another growing site that is used by fanfiction authors to publish
their texts online, explains head of content Ashley Gardner. Authors are
also using the statistics they generate through their fanfiction writing on
online sites when they meet with agents. With the traffic they produce,
argues Gardner, “this kind of data, along with geographical breakdowns
of readership, makes fanfic appealing to both publishers and studios as it
comes complete with a built-in audience.” 42 Belli also indicates that these
texts work on the market because they are adaptations of fanfiction, and
41 Einwächter, 107.
42 Shana Ting Lipton, “How Fifty Shades Is Dominating the Literary Scene,” Vanity Fair, Feb.
13, 2015.
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
quite different from Leonard’s in her transition by actively sustaining her
relationship to her fans, for example by giving them the chance to download
her fanfiction before she deleted it. Sustaining her relationship to the readers
of her fanfiction is probably one of the pillars of her success.
Sophie Einwächter argues in her doctoral thesis, which investigates fans
as entrepreneurs, that the fan who has fans is a specific digital phenomenon because only in the digital sphere is the work of fans visible to a mass
audience. Einwächter convincingly argues that fans are not necessarily in
opposition to the media texts they transform, and that the social media and
fan sites they employ for the distribution of their work already comply to
the rules of markets. Additionally, the dynamics of these sites and the skills
fans learn through their productions are helping those fans that transition
to the commercial market. Einwächter argues that, as in the case of Rumelt
and Leonard, fans can develop their own style and transcend derivative
writing and emancipate themselves from the pre-texts as I have described
above and therefore escape the claims of copyright holders. Einwächter
further notices the importance of the established network and community,
which helps authors who started out as fanfiction authors to distribute their
works. 41 In the magazine Vanity Fair, representatives of the publishing
industry are quite candid about the process of author transition and the
possible profit for both authors and publishers. Journalist Shana Ting Lipton
has approached the phenomenon of fanfiction authors’ “filing off the serial
numbers” as an opportunity for those that already work in the publishing
industry and are interested in finding and marketing new authors. Literary
agent Lorella Belli explains in Ting Lipton’s article that one of the advantages
of supporting talents out of this context is that fan authors, like Claire
and Snowqueens Icedragon, already have a huge following without any
extra kind of promotion. “We’re seeing lots of agents, lots of publishers join
Wattpad,” another growing site that is used by fanfiction authors to publish
their texts online, explains head of content Ashley Gardner. Authors are
also using the statistics they generate through their fanfiction writing on
online sites when they meet with agents. With the traffic they produce,
argues Gardner, “this kind of data, along with geographical breakdowns
of readership, makes fanfic appealing to both publishers and studios as it
comes complete with a built-in audience.” 42 Belli also indicates that these
texts work on the market because they are adaptations of fanfiction, and
41 Einwächter, 107.
42 Shana Ting Lipton, “How Fifty Shades Is Dominating the Literary Scene,” Vanity Fair, Feb.
13, 2015.