Deadman

@Deadman Unless you’re wanting to make court proceedings your pasttime, it’s way easier to avoid the legal hassles than it is to try to make a buck with fanfiction.
By its nature, fanfiction is a derivative work, and is 99.9999% of the time unauthorized (so, you can try to contact the all rights holder, ask them to sign a contract giving you permission to monetize likely in exchange for a big-cut/fee).  IF all IP rights are in the public domain, then you may be in the free and clear.  In either case, you’d want a copyright lawyer on call to cover your arse, and be prepared for an expensive fight.
A lot of fanfic writers claim “fair use” … one test is whether the use is being done commercially or non-profit educational.  But “fair use” is technically a defense used in court, you’ve already paid for a lawyer at this point.  And a hazard is that a court rules that fanfiction is *NOT* fair use at all, ever; not to mention other conditions that could arise.  Take Star Trek, after a big fanfic film involved lawsuit, CBS released some “guidelines” on fanfic films, restricting them to 15 minutes or less (no sequels), among other restraints – there went that fanfic studio’s dream of releasing a movie-length fanfic film.
Bottom line, serious threats loom once you monetize fanfiction.  It’s simply better to avoid it, make your money in original fiction instead.

@Desiderius Price Exactly, whereas the late Anne Rice had a firm of lawyers who hunted down anyone who dared write fan fiction using her property. She wasn’t above personal harassment, either. Her estate has not changed that stance, either, so anyone thinking that her passing means her work is fair game might think again.
And then there’s public domain, which is probably the least understood concept among fiction archives. 

@Deadman Keep it separate… fanfiction remains free, can even be a bit of a teaser to originals.  A monthly fee to the original content is your call.
Fanfiction is enough in that gray shakey legal area, where some people do argue fair-use, charging angers most authors.  JKR’s famously gave an approving nod to Harry Potter fanfiction so long as it was not-for-money. 

I’m ridiculously conservative when it comes to the fair use provisions of copyright law myself. I do write fan fiction for somewhat obscure fandoms, but one fandom is the property of Wizards of the Coast, and they are relentless in protecting their copyright.
As far as original fiction goes, I either submit to a publisher, or put it up here for free. It’s just simpler that way.

Let’s not defame sharks by associating them with lawyers…
More seriously, @Deadman money attracts lawyers.  Moment you take payment for fanfic is the moment you knock out a pillar of the fair use defense, and any money you make ain’t worth the lawyer fees you’ll incur.  (Think $100k to start.)
If you’re talking original writing where you own 100% of the copyright and the IP, then taking payment is alright.

@Deadman I’m hoping that this new site you found isn’t allowing payment for fan fiction, but only for original content. Payment for fan fiction crosses all sorts of legal thresholds, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone stick a toe into those waters. There’s a very good reason lawyers are compared to sharks...

@Deadman 9 times out of 10, I go to a website that claims “sexual material okay”, only to read the TOS/guidelines and realize they forbid quite a bit, which usually includes what I write.  Anyways, I’ve got a day job, so that’s why I don’t worry about collecting a paycheck from it.  (Of course, a jackpot style payoff would be nice, but I’m not sure I wanna write with deadlines & having to worry about “marketability”)

@Desiderius Price I suppose that is true. Though I have found that on this new platform, they allow for erotica. I probably won’t post my stuff from here on it but some of my longer form content, I probably will.

@Deadman My issue with finding platforms for posting is usually in the TOS/guidelines that more or less forbid the type of material I write.  Thus, I find places like AFF & AO3 due to the openness afforded in terms of content allowed.  So any cyberattack on one of these platforms irritates me because it stomps on an avenue I use for my speech.

@Desiderius Price Yeah, not necessarily looking for help. Just kinda pointing out why I’m not on the platform. While I’m sad for the writers who can’t post their content and make some fans, I can’t see myself ever joining or posting my content. I've recently come across a newer platform. I got a chance to ask the CEO about their view of fanfic and they said they are okay with it. The place also has the option for people to pay writers.

@Deadman My potter fanfic relies heavily on letters & articles, so I find that it helps to set them apart in the narrative.
As to search… noticed some gripes in the AO3 subreddit, so yeah, not a super-great feature.  Likely also complicated by the tag restrictions I mentioned above.  I only use the search when getting statistics, so bit tougher to assist.

@Desiderius Price Yes, I suppose that could be the case. But for instance, I have a particular interest in femmeslash content and I would exclude slash content from AO3 based on the filter. But then when I did a search, they included slash content in the results. I have also had a particular pairing that I say needs to be included. Then I look at the tags for the top stories, and none of the stories had tags featuring that pairing. This is part of what I mean by my issues searching.

I generally don’t have interest in offering people visuals like that in my stories. I have occasionally done that on Wattpad but it’s few and far between.

@Deadman Ah… I’ve used AO3 as an author, not as a reader. 
As an author, I can use the AO3 skins to, say, block out a newspaper article or a letter, make it stand-out.  Here or on FF.net, you’ve got the stricter anti-hack HTML filtering so I’ve got to resort to a funky effect with characters to give a similar feel, but it’s not the same.
And fairly recently, (maybe past year or two??) AO3 began imposing a tag limit, and I was rather annoyed that I had to trim down my comprehensive tag list (lots of warnings & pairings) to be underneath their limit.  Maybe that has an adverse effect on searching?

@Desiderius Price Well I haven’t done a big deep dive into the platform personally mainly because I was put off by the attempt to read anything. For instance, I attempted to read a story from Buffy on AO3 and I got pretty much nothing but crossover stories with various other fandoms. I had to exclude a large amount of things in order to try and get exclusively Buffy content and even then it was difficult. Then I wanted a specific pairing and I got a bunch of stories that don’t have anything to do with that pairing. I don’t have this problem on AFF. The same thing with FFnet too. It’s much easier to navigate.

@Deadman  Bit weird, as overall I find AO3 pretty easy to use.  Additionally, the ability to customize the CSS (ie “skins”) makes the formatting a bit easier too; something I wish AFF had (no, not pestering as I know we’re a one-person operation when it comes to the website code).

welcome back!

Thanks guys! I’m looking forward to my writing block to lift so that I can continue writing. Or rewrite: who knows

Hey, good to see you again!  

I hate when that happens.

I hate when that happens.

NEVER MIND, I FOUND THE AUTHOR

I mean… You aren’t wrong.♎

Are you sure that supercrazybonkers and something working are mutually exclusive? Maybe you need to be supercrazybonkers to make it work?

Are you sure that supercrazybonkers and something working are mutually exclusive? Maybe you need to be supercrazybonkers to make it work?

Are you sure that supercrazybonkers and something working are mutually exclusive? Maybe you need to be supercrazybonkers to make it work?