this. thank you! i needed the reminder.
to be perfectly honest, i am guilty of growing really complacent when it comes to reading purely fanfiction. i’m also very bad at finding new books. these two things are not unrelated. because i’ve grown comfortable with fanfiction, i’m not even actively looking for books, which in turn does not serve to help me find them.
we have to remember that when it comes to fanfiction, years in fandom have given us three things:
1) a very high level of accessibility. yes, there are books that are free, but virtually all fanfiction is. you can pick up a story and put it down far beyond what you would get out of a sample of a book. there is no risk of money wasted. and the incentive to pick up fic in the first place is already high, due to…
2) a great deal of recommendations in fandom. in many cases, when you began reading your favorite works, you’d already heard great things about them. fans create rec lists for the express purpose of getting other people to read fic. it’s the coolest example of free advertising i’ve ever seen, honestly—and it works because fic is free.
you’ll bump into rec lists just browsing tumblr. how many recommendations for books are you exposed to in comparison? that’s without considering the fact that if you do see a mention of a novel, it might not even be in a genre you enjoy reading. which brings me to item #3; consuming a large amount of fanfiction gives us…
3) the opportunity to refine our tastes. fanfiction hasn’t reinvented the wheel, you’ve just gotten better at spotting the trends that turn you away faster. you might even have a system for finding what you’re likely to enjoy: you’ve found the rec lists, your favorite authors, your favorite author’s bookmarks, etc. the stories you do get through are archived in your mind as masterpieces, while the ones you hit the back button on are quickly forgotten.
additionally, books are long. it’s easy to pick up a one-shot on ao3 you end up loving midway through, develop trust with an author, and begin picking your way through the rest of their works. many of us buy books from authors we don’t know and don’t open them, simply because they scream of Commitment sitting on a shelf (or in your e-reader).
let’s not forget that fanfiction plays with a cast of characters you already know, so you’re invested going in. a published book that is not part of a series has to introduce you to brand new OCs—and convince you to care about them.
most important of all: in a lot of cases, our favorite fic writers are aspiring (or actual!) published authors themselves. some start with fanfiction to get their feet wet; some do it purely for pleasure. it’s not good form to praise authors’ fandom-related works while putting down the ones an actual living is made off of—and that in some cases, much more work goes into.