Pulled-to-Publish Fanfic Books: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

February 17, 2024

Pulled-to-Publish Fanfic Books: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Mini disclaimer: I'm not a legal professional, I have never published a repurposed fanfiction, and I'm not an expert on pulled-to-publish stories. These are just some thoughts and opinions based on my research.

While scouring the internet for my dose of fiction-related news in an attempt to stay updated with current bookish affairs, I came across a term I had never seen before: pulled-to-publish fiction. So, of course, I had to dive in and do some research, and I uncovered an interesting little slice of the publishing industry I was previously unaware of.

The term pulled-to-publish, sometimes abbreviated as PTP, refers to stories that were previously available for free on an online platform, but were pulled from the platform so that the author could publish and sell them.

It has generally been used in the context of fanfiction - more specifically, books that were once fanfiction works, which were then edited so that they could be published as original works. However, a more specific term for the fanfiction-centered experience is "filing off the serial numbers".

To make it easy for ourselves, we'll just refer to these books as repurposed fanfiction.

A famous example of this is The Mortal Instruments book series, which apparently finds its origins as a Harry Potter fanfic.

You might be wondering: Is this even allowed?

Here's the thing: fanfiction itself is technically illegal, because you're making something using someone else's work, which is under a copyright, and odds are, you don't have permission from them to do that! In fact, it's kind of really uncool how many writers go ahead and create fanfiction of works, the authors of which have explicitly requested that people not write fanfiction of their original works. Sure, there are authors out there who love that people write fanfiction of their works, and that's great news for fanfiction writers in those fandoms! But there seems to be a startling lack of respect for authors who explicitly don't want fanfiction of their work written and published.

So, where were we? Right: legality. Fanfiction is technically illegal without permission from the copyright owner (who is the author of the original work), and selling fanfiction or otherwise benefiting financially from fanfiction is, by extension, also illegal.

But from what I can gather, it seems that as long as the fanfiction story is edited past the point of recognition - so that it doesn't utilize characters, settings, or other elements of the original work - it can be presented as an original work in its own right. Which is why we get books like The Mortal Instruments series. I'm sure you can think of a Twilight-fanfic-turned-book-series, too. There are actually a lot of repurposed fanfiction books out there.

This, of course, assumes that you've done your work and you've edited out all of the elements that would link your repurposed fanfiction to its original source inspiration. And that assumes that you can even do that - some fanfics which rely too much on the specifics of source material will be more difficult to change into original-presenting works. And they need to be significant edits, too, so that the final product can't be linked with a "fanfic of X Book" in any way. (And, at this point, why not just write an original fiction instead?!)

The editing or re-writing of the fanfiction is really the crux of the issue here. And even then - technically, I think a repurposed fanfiction is still a derivative of an original work, and therefore should be considered illegal.

Is it, though, in practice? Well, since we have so many repurposed fanfictions which have filed off the serial numbers, I'm guessing that a lot of people tend to overlook these important legal distinctions and hope that the authors whose works led to the fanfictions which were then repurposed don't notice.

To be blunt, that still doesn't make it alright.

Why would authors want to "file off the serial numbers"?

The short and sweet answer is marketability.

Fanfics get popular because there's a built-in audience for them. For example, if you're writing fanfiction about Marvel superheroes, anyone who's a Marvel fan could be interested in your fanfiction. It's an easy way to find readers and popularize your writing. It's an easy way to get engagement. There's no shortage of marketing opportunities when your audience is already tuned in and actively looking for more content related to their particular fandoms.

So, essentially, you are leveraging the success and marketing of another work, and using that platform as a launching pad for your writing. Fanfictions can easily gain hundreds, if not thousands, of actively engaged readers as a result. Once you file off the serial numbers, your repurposed fanfiction can be a big hit simply because it already has a huge readership

This makes it easy for writers to gain a great deal of popularity and success in a short amount of time, with less effort than it would take for a completely original work. Which, of course, translates into dollar dollar bills, y'all.

When it comes down to it, the 'why' of it is really obvious. But that's not all it comes down to.

How do readers react to repurposed fanfiction?

Well, how did readers react to all those popular ones I listed earlier? Pretty well, right? Publishers can also capitalize on the built-in audience for repurposed fanfiction. They know that a successful fanfic author has a huge platform upon which they can launch and market their book, so success is more likely when pulled-to-publish.

Some publishers, however, may have a problem with repurposed fanfiction. They may not be totally stoked to find out that the manuscript you're submitting has been previously published online and, in some cases, very widely circulated and read. Moreover, the fact that it was a fanfiction can create some legal obstacles. There's a risk there for publishers, and unless a significant rewrite has been undertaken, such that the story is vastly different from its fanfiction origins, they might not be interested at all. (But then, it really depends on how popular it is. We've all heard about those Wattpad fictions turned into book deals and movies.)

But from a reader's perspective, unless you really enjoyed a story, you might not want to re-read it, even if character names, story settings, and other elements were changed. If it's just the same story but with different names - well, is it worth buying if you read the whole thing for free already?

For some readers, the answer is a resounding Yes! Many readers want to support authors whose work they have enjoyed, and are happy to purchase a copy in order to do so. For other readers, however, this seems like a waste of their money, and unless the author has changed significant portions of the story, such that re-reading it would amount to a significantly different experience, they're not going to be interested.

Moreover, there will always be a portion of readers who were only ever reading the fanfiction because of their fandom interests, and are not interested in reading the repurposed fanfiction without the characters, settings, and other story elements they have come to love. So, changing the story completely risks the writer losing the interest of their readers. And, finally, there are readers who would not take the repurposing of fanfiction well, and may feel that the author is being unethical.

Which brings us to the next question:

Is it ethical? Is it right?

The ethics of filing off the serial numbers are questionable. Different authors feel differently about this particular method of publishing and selling books, despite the fact that it's been happening for decades.

Some authors believe that this is an illegitimate form of authorship, and that these writers are in some ways cheating by using the platforms of other authors' original works as a way to market their own derivatives. Moreover, they argue that authors of repurposed fanfiction are taking away opportunities for other authors whose original works deserve to be seen and experienced, but who are passed over by publishers because repurposed fanfiction is an easier sell. Finally, there have been many who have called into question the quality of these kinds of books.

From a technical perspective, there are writers out there who believe that fanfiction can be a helpful exercise for writers looking to develop their writing skills, but that it shouldn't be taken as a final project to be pulled-to-publish. The argument here is that one cannot reach their true potential as a fiction author if they are using someone else's work - their characters, their settings, their plot elements, and so on - and passing them off as their own with some editing. Moreover, this doesn't help writers improve their writing skills and techniques, leaving them in a state of underdevelopment.

But there are other authors that don't mind repurposed fanfiction. They argue that fanfiction is writing, and that even though it uses another author's world and characters, it is still work that should be recognized, that takes a lot of time to make, and that many find enjoyable. If filing off the serial numbers allows fanfiction writers to make money off of this effort, then these authors believe that that's alright. Others claim that it's alright to publish repurposed fanfiction only if the author has made the effort to create an original plot, and if their characters aren't copied and pasted directly from the source material. (In which case, again, why not write an original fiction?!)

My Thoughts on Repurposed Fanfiction

In my humble opinion as an author of original fiction, I find that this practice is not only very possibly illegal, it is also rather unethical. I understand, of course, that I am biased as a writer who does not write or read fanfiction, but I feel that there are some facts that cannot be overlooked. The goal, put plainly, is to make money off of someone else's work. Perhaps the edits mask what seems to some to be a shrewd marketing tactic, but it remains an unethical practice nevertheless.

Not only does it make money off of someone else's hard work - because I can assure you that the work of the original author will far exceed the work of the fanfiction writer in any case - it also harms the fiction publishing industry, taking space from emerging fiction authors with original ideas and works of their own, and floods the market with a range of derivatives of the same kinds of stories. In fact, we're already seeing a range of low-quality pulled-to-publish books that have gained inexplicable popularity on social media, pulling attention away from authors of original fiction who could contribute more diverse and unique stories to readers around the world.

This also hurts the writers themselves, and the quality of writing available in the fiction publishing industry overall. Using someone else's world and characters and settings and stories is a crutch. Sometimes, we can use this kind of crutch to help us improve our own writing skills. It can be a great writing exercise - to put someone else's characters in a set of situations, or to use a previously-existing fantasy world as the backdrop for a study in character dynamics, and so on. Sometimes, we can use it to combat writer's block, or to get some inspiration for our own stories. But it remains a crutch - like writing with training wheels. Moreover, the vast majority of repurposed fanfiction is romance of the more explicit nature - which, as a Muslim writer, I have very deep qualms about, though that's a topic better left to its own post.

Personally, I would feel rather sad to learn that a fan of my works had written a fanfiction based on the world and characters and story which I agonized over for years, only to then change names, tweak the plot here and there, and make money off of it. It wouldn't feel fair.

And I think that's where most of the unethical part of this lies - not with the final product, or with the idea that a fanfiction writer who pours hours and hours of passion and love into a story should be able to get something in return for that, but rather with the idea that in order to get there, in order to publish that repurposed fanfiction, they used my work, painted over it, and reaped the benefits.

All in all, I don't think much of this trend, and I don't think it's a particularly clean way to make money.

That being said, the more original a fanfiction work is made, the more likely I am to grudgingly accept that it is its own thing. But once you reach that stage, my question, again, for the nth time, is: Why not write a fully original fiction instead?!

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