The great Beneath the Dragoneye Moons fanfiction project
Added 2024-10-18 21:34:11 +0000 UTCTop line tldr: you’re allowed to monetize fanfiction of BTDEM if you’re not a jerk about it.
Hello all!
I’m pleased to announce a project of mine has quietly been completed! You’re now able to make AND MONETIZE just about any btdem fanfiction!
I like fanfictions decently well. Never written any* (okay sure the annual April fools crossover probably counts), but I’ve enjoyed reading a few here and there. I always felt it was such a shame the authors couldn’t make a bent penny off their work. IP protections are a little strict at times, and I wanted to give people a chance at writing their own btdem fanfictions… and possibly monetizing them if they wanted to!
Personally, I see it as a win-win. People get to write cool stories and possibly make a buck, I get advertising and exposure. At the level I’m working at, strong exposure DOES help pay the bills. Win-win! I know some of my friends have expressed concern that I’d be shooting myself in the foot - rest assured I don’t think I am. there is a requirement to link the “main” btdem story at the start of the book/series - it’s how eyes on your story will help translate to eyes on my story.
The license is attached. There’s a lot of fancy legalese to say “don’t be a jerk” because that’s unfortunately not recognized. Anyone reading through it will notice that it looks pretty lopsided in quite a few ways. For example - I can pull permission from various fanfictions if I want to, I can yank the entire license if I want to, and there’s a “you can’t sue me for using similar ideas” clause - I don’t want this snapping back on me.
In other words - don’t be a jerk! I intended to be extremely hands off. I don’t intend on following things too closely. I know people are going to - okay let’s be real already have - written smut in the btdem setting. They’re going to write all sorts of unusual things, and that’s alright. I don’t intent to police things - but if someone writes a thing that starts to reflect really badly on me that I’m technically allowing it, then I’ll probably need to step in. In other words… don’t be a jerk and start torching my livelihood with your fanfiction.
This is designed to be easy for other authors to use. A little replacement of the fiction and author name at the start, and boom! It’s applicable to you and your work, if you’d like to “unshackle” it. Please note - my lawyers wanted to have a “millionaire” clause included. If a story makes more than a million dollars, the fanfiction writer needs to then cut in the author for a small %. I personally declined to have it in. Mostly because I have faith that some of you WILL make more than a million, and I don’t want to chase down a bunch of you!
I’ve worked with two lawyers on this, so there’s some legal eyes on it.
And now! The first fanfiction that made this possible! I’d like to introduce Blind Chaos by crimcat! I’ve been cheerleadering the writing from the sidelines but I haven’t written it myself. The author is responsible for the license happening though, and had about 400k words done already. Only a small fraction is posted - it launched today and he’s still working on editing/patreon/etc. come check it out! https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/96185/blind-chaos-tales-beneath-the-dragoneye-moons
Comments
I agree that it's generally a win-win. The biggest enemy to artists of all kinds tends to be exposure, not imitation. Someone might buy the original of something they've heard of from a free source...nobody is going to buy (or support via advertising) something they've never heard of. I wish more artists and writers understood this and encouraged derivative works. I suspect the biggest issues people have are a combination of feelings of ownership ("nobody else should do anything with MY characters in MY world!") and insecurity ("what if the fanfiction is better than my own work and sells more!?"). I'm not saying either of these feelings are invalid, either. But from a business standpoint, "exposure is advertising," and most creators would be better off pushing their own ego to the side and encouraging more open community interaction. It's not easy to do, don't take this as being dismissive, but I think this will really benefit you in the long run. You are already one of my favorite authors from RR, it's a nice surprise to see we have a similar perspective on this, as I think it's a less common view on derivative works.
HunterIV4
2024-10-25 15:42:07 +0000 UTCThis is an amazing idea. A Wiki listing all the fanfics, story themes, content ratings, etc.
MadKingMidas
2024-10-20 22:09:09 +0000 UTCIs there gonna be a registry on the wiki to see who’s working on which stories? So there’s limited overlap
Schmidt
2024-10-19 20:02:08 +0000 UTCAwesome. can’t wait to see what kind of fanfics the community produces. o7
Pexezz
2024-10-19 18:50:31 +0000 UTCHmm, I just had a thought. Selkie, it might be a good idea if you reserved a few potential origin stories for your own use. Specifically, Artemis and Flora. Both of those have the potential to become stories rivaling Elaine's story in length. I remember back when you took the KU deal, you expressed doubts about your revenue streams after BTDEM was finished. I know you're already planning another story in the setting, but it's not easy to make people care about completely new characters and settings. But giving already existing characters their own spin-offs and origin stories would be a guaranteed hit. I doubt there's any fan of BTDEM who wouldn't love to read about Artemis's (not so) humble beginnings. Now, I know you have a clause that lets you "borrow" ideas, but here's the thing about fanfiction. Over 95% is complete and utter trash, but here and there you'll find some real gems. So if someone does one of those two exceptionally well, you might have a tough act to follow. I've read some fanfictions that were so good that many other authors wouldn't even consider writing something similar afterwards. I don't think there's a problem with people writing smut about Artemis and Julius, or some stories about the Sentinels, or even Arthur's story of redemption and becoming The Bard. But maybe keep some doors open for yourself. Just an idea.
Cirvante
2024-10-19 16:32:14 +0000 UTCWell, let's hope Selkie doesn't sell his work to Disney in the future. Pretty sure they're the ones responsible for the extended universe being declared non-canon.
Cirvante
2024-10-19 15:28:48 +0000 UTCThis is awesome, Selkie. I love the litrpg genre and have wanted to write a story for a while now, but coming up with a good system has always been a stumbling block. I love your setting, especially the ancient Remus one, and I think there's a ton of potential for good stories. Do you want to be contacted before someone posts a BTDEM fanfic on RR, or do you just want a link once it's posted?
Cirvante
2024-10-19 15:22:59 +0000 UTCThis has potential if done well. Artemis ran away from home and somehow became strong enough to join Ranger Academy and be mentored by Night. She wasn't able to join the army and based on Elaine inheriting some of her disdain of adventurers from her, I doubt she joined the guild.
Cirvante
2024-10-19 15:16:44 +0000 UTCThat's awesome, thanks.
Nait02
2024-10-19 12:17:28 +0000 UTCI plan to
Selkie
2024-10-19 10:40:49 +0000 UTCThis is really cool. Thank you for the opportunity to countless people. Down in the comments you mentioned resources you use for writing like docs and I remember you posted an Excel sheet for class generation here a while back. If you or someone else gathers that stuff and you make a channel for it to be found easily in one place on discord that would probably be a big help.
Nait02
2024-10-19 06:32:53 +0000 UTCYes! There is a small company only clause
Selkie
2024-10-19 01:36:39 +0000 UTCMy god this is amazing, i had recently started on writing a story as it’s always been something I’ve wanted to do but trying to flush out the details of the system have become a nightmare, I would love to be able to adopt your system and just have my story take place in a remote country somewhere with the sheer timeframe BTDEM crosses you can really take it in any direction
Callum Davis
2024-10-19 00:12:30 +0000 UTCEh, some of us got burned back in the day with the Star Wars universe. Lots of great books, Timothy Zahn's stuff and then they were all declared non-canon, and that was stuff from the publisher! lol I guess only difference would be for readers who wanted to know the stories were "author approved" or whatever, you know? I'm not super concerned about it, but I do think of "official" shared universe collabs differently from fanfic. That's 100% IMO though, very personal preference sort of thing and I acknowledge that. I should underscore that I think it's terrific and amazing you are doing this for the fans, your setting, and folks who want to contribute. Very. Cool. Oh and I had to dig around, but I found what I was thinking of when I asked. Amazon used to have a program to support projects like this - "Kindle Worlds". I remember a few authors opening up their setting using it. I think it made it easier to do the collaboration and royalty sharing aspects, but looks like they shut it down in 2018. Here's an article from when it was launched. https://www.pcmag.com/news/amazon-launches-kindle-worlds-publishing-platform-for-fan-fiction
A B
2024-10-18 23:17:15 +0000 UTCThis is supper cool! Does this also cover something like a rougelike video game in the setting?
Daniel B
2024-10-18 22:59:02 +0000 UTCAnswering myself, because I remembered that incognito windows are a thing: yes, this post is public.
Mike G.
2024-10-18 22:18:43 +0000 UTCVery cool, thanks for doing this! Is this post public?
Mike G.
2024-10-18 22:07:21 +0000 UTCLet’s be honest - what’s the difference?
Selkie
2024-10-18 22:04:14 +0000 UTCFanfiction is the way I know a storie community has gone to a point where you are beginning to be part of a culture ❤️ Thanks for that information and being open about that
Milenarie
2024-10-18 21:51:22 +0000 UTCAmazing Selkie, thanks for doing this, putting a little bit of trust and positivity into the world, and hopefully setting an example for other authors. I've seen some authors cheekily look the other way while silently cheering on their fans. I've also seen authors actively discourage fanfiction, being jerks, for fear of jerks. I don't think I've ever seen someone actively go out of their way to support their fans like this before though. Bravo. I'm confident you'll see far more good than harm from this decision. As a quick little anecdote, I originally found Royal Road while searching for "Legendary Moonlight Sculpter" fanfiction forever ago, and Royal Road is where I eventually found your story! And thank you for the recomendation! More Dragoneye content to devour!
Fulgurata
2024-10-18 21:48:55 +0000 UTCOh, good! Okay, I'll make my way in there then
Lucy Severine
2024-10-18 21:46:43 +0000 UTCOnly fanfiction, or does a story have the potential to become canon if you like it a lot? Also: cool! Great idea either way!
A B
2024-10-18 21:46:32 +0000 UTCI have a lot of scattered notes in discord
Selkie
2024-10-18 21:46:09 +0000 UTCThe reverse Anne Rice
Glitter Rabbit (C)
2024-10-18 21:38:21 +0000 UTCAlways love fan fiction, will have to check it out.
Typhado
2024-10-18 21:37:40 +0000 UTCOh gosh! Wow, I've been thinking about writing a fanfic based on Remus post-Elaine for a while, so this is very exciting! Question: would you happen to have any public docs that make Fanfictions easier, such as collating all the information on the magic system in one place or spreadsheets on the stats system?
Lucy Severine
2024-10-18 21:37:14 +0000 UTCNow that is an approach to fanfiction I have not often seen.
joss sim
2024-10-18 21:37:04 +0000 UTCQuick, somebody write fanfic about Artemis’s time as a ranger before Elaine joined up!
Roombot
2024-10-18 21:36:44 +0000 UTCOk, this is awesome.
Ford-Thomas Frank Loveland
2024-10-18 21:36:06 +0000 UTC
