Fanfic is a wonderful tool to learn something about writing - I call it “training wheels”. If you don’t ever take the training wheels off you won’t get anywhere.
I have no intention of dredging up any of my old fanfics to try to cash in as original pieces. My original stories are so much better. But apparently this book is filling some sort of niche, appealing to some sort of appetites. Not the sort of appetite I want to appeal to so I really don’t care.
my book club read this book last month due to its “popularity”, i knew nothing of the book prior to purchasing it...some of our group refused to read past the first few chapters not so much because of the content, rather the writing was so POOR...the conclusion we all came to when considering the book was that it is a classic example of a successful “marketing” campaign by a publisher, nothing more. I agreed with the general consensus of our book “review”...it IS one of the most poorly written books I have read in a very long time. The sentence structure and flow was tough to slog through...on the positive side...I highly suggest “In the Garden Of Beasts” if you appreciate historical fiction.
As you say, the appetites that both fanfic and fan art generally accomodate aren't particularly highbrow. I did fanfic for my consumption, but a sample art order went something like "Sailor Jupiter in her Sailor costume flashing pink panties and give her like a DDD-sized chest...er, make that EEE...actually, how big can you make her?" (At this point I thumb through my portfolio for the image that my wife used to call "beach balls girl.") "Awesome!! Just like her, only bigger!"