Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP
(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)
An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:
(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)
I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:
IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.
You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:
HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:
First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.
Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.
Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.
In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.
In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:
I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.
In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.
Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.
Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!
NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!
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Author of Saints of Swallow Hill, Donna Everhart
Donna Everhart is a USA Today bestselling author known for vividly evoking the complexities of the heart and a gritty fascination of the American South in her acclaimed novels. She received the prestigious SELA Outstanding Southeastern Author Award from the Southeastern Library Association, among many others. Born and raised in Raleigh, she has stayed close to her hometown for much of her life…
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hi guys im not dead, its just taking me forever. im not even going to make a deadline bc i prolly won't reach it anyways but trust im working 😭 might not do this again, or at the very least start way earlier bc wtf. why is it so intimidating to write this quality now. i can write 1-3k words in one day but im writing like 500 words per day because im being nitpicky with the words???? why do i have to describe things 🥹 why is my writing style like this.... anyways not giving up on this because I'm too far deep but know im very sorry for taking so long 😭i swear the smut will be hot af and if not, sue me.
me wanting to show everyone this banger scene that i wrote vs not doing that bc spoilers are lame vs craving validation because it's been 2 weeks since i've posted
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Thanks for your answer about Remus & Tonks!
I read both posts attentively, and yeah, I agree with pretty much everything. That plot point always baffled me, I always wondered why JKR went there.
Was it a way to thwart the fandom, which was already start to annoy her at the time? IDK.
I'm not judging the relationship (in Canon), I'm neither pro nor con, it's just that it always mystified me.
But I like your take about Tonks being a v. realistic 23 y-o, a lot!
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to answer. Have a lovely day! :3
Of course! You have a lovely one, too.
If we're talking about Doylist interpretations of the story — i.e. why the Author as a person whose to do something, as opposed to what's going on purely inside the text — I don't have the history to remember if Wolfstar was big enough at the time for JKR to notice or want to respond to it. Sirius dies in Book 5, which seems like enough to sink the ship in any case. My theory is that she decided during the outlining process of Book 5 that she wanted the series to end with Harry being the guardian of a child whose situation paralleled his — a war orphan whose parents were killed fighting Voldemort — to demonstrate that the story had come full-circle.
At that point, I think she looked at the characters she'd sketched out for Book 5 and decided Lupin would be the best candidate, since he would be the only person likely to name a seventeen-year-old Harry as godfather (my read of that scene is Lupin's deep in the textbook Marauder project-my-relationship-with-James-onto-Harry coping mechanism, which is why he's so shocked when the Literal Neglected Child rips him a new one for attempting to neglect his newborn child). At that point, Rowling needs to find Lupin a wife, and Tonks is one of the few female characters who's (a) unattached and (b) potentially of the age to be considering marriage and children. So she spends the next two books setting up the marriage, childbirth, and eventual martyrdom at the Battle of Hogwarts.
Like you, I don't take this as a point in favor or against their relationship; I think that most dynamics can be interesting if done well, and there was a lot to explore in Tonks and Remus. But the later books got really fucking crowded, and you see the toll in plot lines like this, where the scenes they have together just aren't enough to establish two people who are falling in love.
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Book Review * Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
5 out of 5 stars ~~ Book Review
Donna Everhart knows how to capture the heart and mind of her reader from (practically) the first page. Del and Rae Lynn couldn’t be two more different personalities, but the reader quickly empathizes or feels some affection (in the case of Dell) early on. While Donna has her own unique voice she did remind me, at times, of a blended flavor reminiscent of…
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