I've been doing some research and the short of it is that if I change all of the canon names, a number of locations, and several other important details and descriptions I could publish this story on Amazon without (or at least with very limited) fear of a lawsuit, provided I do a good job turning this story from a fanfiction into an original piece. What I'm wondering though is if anyone would be interested in buying it as an ebook (for only a couple dollars--under ten) once the Tolkien element is removed. It would be a lot of work, only some of which would genuinely be fun, and I'm not sure anyone would be interested because to be honest I wrote this for the Tolkien element, so removing it does change the flavor of the story a bit, though the canon characters' personalities will essentialy remain the same and Mabyn's involvement will of course change very little.
I'm not asking that you boost my numbers by commenting if you have thoughts to share--you are more than welcome to send me a message or even a pigeon, if you can find any.
With greatest love for all of you,
Ivy
>Some people (family members) want me to try to sell this traditionally if I'm going to try to sell/publish this at all, but I don't have the numbers for that and am not sure a traditional publishing house would be interested. But those are all my thoughts, consider them at will.
>>As I continue thinking about this I realize that entire swaths of the plot will have to be changed--a story of a bunch of dwarves being imprisoned by an elf king then taking back a home that was previously overtaken by a dragon is easily recognizable. Hopefully no scenes will have to be entirely removed but the plot will have to make major changes in some areas.
>>It will also be a bit (though not significantly) shorter because to be honest there are some things that simply cannot be changed enough to pass for original fiction. I can't find a way around the dwarves' long introduction to Beorn, or a few other things. Hopefully there will not be so many changes that you all wouldn't still enjoy it, but I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. It will be significantly changed, in several ways.
>> (27 January 2015) I have finished the re-write, and the story thankfully only lost four pages in length, though I did have to take out at least a dozen pages that simply couldn't be rewritten. As it stands now I am having an abominably difficult time getting a hold of the rights to use all the songs Mabyn sang, so it'll be a while until I've got the legal right to publish the book. Worse comes to worse I will simply rewrite the songs so they have similar meanings but so I no longer have to wait for copyright permissions. I'd rather not have to rewrite them however, since I think the taste of modern and familiar which Mabyn brings to a very unfamiliar world is important and beneficial to the story, so I'll keep trying.
>> (24 March 2015) I've been looking up how to get the rights to use song lyrics in this story. It would be obnoxious quantities of work to do this, but that was slightly less important once I looked up a few average prices to use only a couple LINES of songs from this century or even just the last few decades. The lowest price I saw listed was two hundred dollars.
Now this is something I just cannot afford to do, I'm afraid. Mabyn, as you know, sings a lot and I usually included an entire verse as opposed to just a line or two. Therefore, for the published version I'm going to rewrite the lyrics so they hopefully still suit the mood and intent I first needed them for. This way I won't have to empty my bank account for the sake of the story. Wish me luck!
> (16 September 2015) Well things are going swimmingly! A friend of mine made the cover for me, which I'll post a snippet of soon since I don't know how to make the whole thing visible unless I upload it AS the new cover. The songs are finished, and while I loved the other artists' songs, mine I believe will also fit well. And instead of being shorter, despite having to remove about twenty of the ~430 pages of original text, the book is now nearly five hundred. There's more room to expand on the story and characterization without being limited by another author's world, which has been exhilarating. Hopefully it will be up in the next several weeks! Editing is nearly done, the last milestone is just creating a hyperlinked table of contents, which for some bizarre reason does not work on my computer. I'll keep trying.
YOU ARE READING
A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction
FanfictionMabyn was born with dwarfism into an already-harsh life. When she is hospitalized and drops into a coma, her mind imagines a better life for her, which to her is simply a life where she is respected, the dangers presented can be fought, and evil is...
