I always got the feeling that the reason why fanart sold, and fan writing didn't, was because art has always required a financial outlay of some kind in fancy pens or nice ink or good paper, and later in software and printing costs. Most fanartists couldn't expect to sell something scribbled in pencil on a piece of torn-off notebook paper at a convention or for a commission; it had to be of at least halfway-decent quality for the transaction to make financial sense. Even people who had the equipment already (professional artists, graphic designers) generally had to be compensated for the costs of the consumable products (paper, pigments, ink) or the fact that high-end software is damned expensive. Fan writing, by contrast, comes as typed pages or electronic files -- neither of which usually can command a "price" in the same regard.
Or something along those lines. Perhaps I'm mistaken. But this was how I always viewed the line between charging for fanart and writing fic/meta for free.
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I always got the feeling that the reason why fanart sold, and fan writing didn't, was because art has always required a financial outlay of some kind in fancy pens or nice ink or good paper, and later in software and printing costs. Most fanartists couldn't expect to sell something scribbled in pencil on a piece of torn-off notebook paper at a convention or for a commission; it had to be of at least halfway-decent quality for the transaction to make financial sense. Even people who had the equipment already (professional artists, graphic designers) generally had to be compensated for the costs of the consumable products (paper, pigments, ink) or the fact that high-end software is damned expensive. Fan writing, by contrast, comes as typed pages or electronic files -- neither of which usually can command a "price" in the same regard.
Or something along those lines. Perhaps I'm mistaken. But this was how I always viewed the line between charging for fanart and writing fic/meta for free.