About My Writing

[la_samtyr]

As you should know by now. I write. Not a lot, not very fast and maybe not really great writing but decent enough. (Or I should say, I hope it doesn't stink too bad.)

*ANYHOO*, some of my more current works are at the lotrff archive. It was an established archive who was owned by a fan, well thought of, tolerant, and some of my favorite authors posted a lot of their work and spent a lot of time designing their layouts there. I felt safe posting there.

Then yesterday, the site disappeared. An announcement was then made that the site had been sold to a new owner entirely, and one who is in it for the money. (More details will be under the cut.)

To make a long story very short, I am going to be taking my work off lotrff. I hate to do it, but I no longer feel safe and I don't trust what may or may not happen to the site. Since we are almost into a major holiday/three-day weekend, I have decided to remove the stories on 6 July. I know how much it troubles me when people delete things with little warning, which is why I'm trying to allow anyone who wishes a chance to grab my stories if they want. (They're all fairly short, btw -- nothing very long or multi-chaptered.) They'll still be archived, just not there.

And now for more gory details, if you choose to read them... Actually, maybe you should. It might prove important to someone as the new site owner is eager to acquire more fic archives for monetary gain. Just so you can give others a heads up. [Comments are disabled since this is a public post and this is a ultra-sensitive subject.]


The New owner is Keith Mander. You might want to take note of that name right now because what I have found out is not very reassuring.

This link is from an interview he gave:
http://midascode.co.uk/blog/website-purchase-review-of-just-poohcom-with-keith-mander/
and this is a very telling quote (imho):

"I tend to avoid marketplaces such as SitePoint and eBay. Sellers using one of these platforms tend to have a better understanding of their site’s value, and therefore have higher expectations. My approach would be to directly contact site owners who are unaware of their site’s value and who’ve never experimented with online advertising. They’re usually surprised when you contact them with an offer and this eases the negotiation process. The potential with this approach is far greater."

and

"I think it’s wise to concentrate on topics that are not immediately commercial in nature as you’re more likely to discover a site created out of passion, rather than for profit."

Yeah, this is all about money people and don't forget it. No fan site/archive is safe. Just sayin', y'know.

This link is for his personal blog:
http://www.keithmander.com/

Another quote:

"Déjà vu? LOTRFanFiction dot com is a fan fiction archive, just like TwilightArchives dot com (another site I snapped up a couple of months ago).

The thinking is that I can leverage the technology behind the Twilight site’s redesign to quickly rejuvenate the LOTR site. Plus, plenty of opportunities for cross promotion and integration (SSO, for example). The longer term thought is that with the combined user base, I’ll be able to quickly enter and dominate new fandoms, hopefully creating some returns."

{Anyone remember fanlib? http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanlib}

So yeah -- all you people who write and are in *any* fandom. Especially SPN people, please be on the lookout. Because I have a lot of SPN sibs here and right now I've got a weird feeling about this guy, ok?

I don't know how or why he targeted this particular site owner (lotrff) but there must have been *something* he picked up on. Because according to their close friends, nothing but *nothing* was said about a buy-out -- not even the slightest indication that they were even considering such a move. No, everything seemed all nice and quiet and normal.

Then all at once -- Voila! Fait accompli! It's a done deal, folks and aren't you all surprised at how clever I am?

Sorry, but I've dealt with this same kind of shit way too often irl (and I fucking hate it, as in hate with a *passion*) to put up with it in fandom.

I'm the first to admit I know nothing at all about how to run, design or admin a site. But it makes me mad at how *sneakily* this was done, and w/o any sort of warning.

Ok, that's all for now.