I have always loved reading fan fiction so I can stay in a book world I love longer, to follow the characters’ lives or just see how other fans interpret and expand the book. There have been an ongoing argument on Goodreads on whether or not fanfiction should be added and counted on Goodreads as a book.
I recently finished a novel length Harry Potter next-generation fan fiction. It was better written than a lot of novels I’ve read, a good size (would be at least 300 pages if put to paper), and had a complex story expanding on the ideas in Cursed Child (here is the link if you’re interested, I thought it was fantastic). So my question obviously is, can I count this towards my Goodreads goal?
I know as book bloggers, there are what we call real books which are published books and then there are other reading material that aren’t published books. But there’s also the fact that there are many fan fiction that are published books: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro, even Harry Potter and the Cursed Child since it wasn’t written by Rowling. So if a printed fan fiction can count as a book, does that mean all fan fiction can count as a book? (I am speaking specifically of novel length fan fiction, short ones obviously do not count).
What’s your take on this? Do you think long fan fiction should count towards your Goodreads goal?
Through the Book Portal 
I think if you feel like it counts, then it counts. This is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. People read different books of different lengths at different speeds, so if you feel like it was something that counted, then I think it does! 🙂
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I agree with you! 😄😄 Especially with fan fiction that are fairly long and well written. Thank you for stopping by!
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Totally, and you know what. That person that wrote the fan fiction still put their heart and soul on the line by introducing their writing to the public, so that still makes them an author! And totally brave! ❤
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I personally wouldn’t, but I can see doing it because it’s a lot of effort to read something that long and then not have it count towards a reading challenge.
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Thank you! I’m glad you feel that way! And I understand why some people wouldn’t count it since they’re not technically “books”.
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As someone who reads a lot of fanfiction I definitely think it should count maybe especially the longer ones.
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Thank you! I completely agree! 😄😄
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Your welcome
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I think the challenge here comes with Goodreads as the platform. See, Goodreads is owned by Amazon. So, they want this to be a tool for them to sell and share more details about their books, too! I don’t disagree with you that novel-length fan fiction should count towards your reading goal. But perhaps not on Goodreads. It’s already a challenge for the GR Librarians to keep everything correct and up to date. GR would be overwhelming with all the fan-fiction included. Also, who gets to decide what is novel-length and how will they get that content not only entered into the system but also ensure it is accurate? From an operating model perspective, it’s too much work for not enough value from GR’s perspective. But I totally get you.
I mark novel-length (250+ pages for me!) fan fiction on my personal reading goal tracker. 🙂
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You make some great points Jackie! I actually didn’t know Goodreads was owned by Amazon so the lack of fan fiction makes sense now. I guess I’ll do something like count it towards my personal goal too instead of Goodreads. I just don’t like when Goodreads tells me how many books behind I am even though I know I’ve been reading content that isn’t physical books 😄 . But you’re right, adding fan fiction can be too much work for GR librarians.
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Isn’t it just the easiest to have GR auto-count all your reading? I wish we had some way to manually add content. I’ve read a few books this year which aren’t on GR, and I don’t want to become a librarian in order to rectify it. *shrug* Now I just have to track it manually. Oops.
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That would certainly make our lives much easier 😀
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Yes, I think novel length pieces should count. For instance Death comes to Pemberley, and other Austen spin offs. I have a personal bias I must admit as I wrote one of Little Women 😉
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Yes! Thank you! I agree 😀 . That’s so awesome, I’ve never read a Little Women fanfic (since I haven’t read the book 😀 ). Do you post your fanfics anywhere?
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The short ones I have on my blog Much ado about Little Women. The really long one that’s a full-fledged variation (it’s written in such a way that you can read it without reading Little Women first) is now published in paperback (also eBook), called The Courtship of Jo March; there are free sample chapters here if you’re so inclined 😉 https://payhip.com/marchandlaurencelittlewomen
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Yessssssss! I want to know how to add it towards my goal. I read twice as much fanfiction if not more. Almost always well over 150k words.
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I think some fanfiction (usually the more famous ones) show up on Goodreads if you search for them. Otherwise, you might just have to keep track of them on your own.
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