the feminist librarian reads

This is a sad tale of an author who wanted to push her writing career forward, but made a lot of mistakes along the way.  I only hope that any inspiring writers who currently write fanfiction will take note of this incident and not make the same errors in judgment.  Don’t use a fandom to push a piece of original work like this.  Don’t attempt to sue critics or call the Army (or other employers) over negative reviews.  If you take a piece of fanfiction and want to file the serial numbers off like EL James or Cassandra Clare have done, be sure you file them thoroughly and completely off so that your work can stand on its own two feet.  And make sure your piece is edited and that you have a good PR team in place.  If you choose to be your own PR team, great, but make sure you have some thick skin because you will be criticized for your work.  Even the most successful authors in the world get bad reviews.  And if you are going to be your own editor… DON’T.  No seriously, you need a second, third, perhaps a fourth set of eyes on your piece before you even consider publication.