A note, because this is now starting to happen more commonly.
Yes, Goodreads allows people to treat a work of fanfiction as a book and file it accordingly.
And while I find it really, really ironic/funny when an author who has P2Ped also has to deal with the fact that her fic was posted on goodreads by some well-meaning fans and so she can’t pretend the work was original, I don’t believe fic belongs on goodreads.
Fic is a fabulous form of writing. It speaks back to some of the most ancient literary traditions of expanding on an existing tale. And derivative works are in no way inferior in content or literary value to other kinds of books.
But I feel strongly that goodreads is for published books. Books that the author can legally claim rights to. If someone writes a derivation of a book in the public domain, and can legally publish that derivation as-is (without changing names and eye colors and trying to pretend the characters aren’t the characters the author wrote them as), then yes, you can feel free to list that book on GR.
As far as I’m concerned, while the words and the craft in my fics belongs to me, everything that shapes them belongs to Stephenie Meyer. It is disingenuous for me to do anything that pretends otherwise.
A fic listing on goodreads makes it look like I’m the sole owner of the content of that work, and I simply am not.
So while I’m flattered that you like my fics enough to want to track them along with all your other books, I ask that you please don’t. And I ask that when your listings disappear because I’ve requested them to be taken down, you don’t take it as a slight; it’s not meant as one.
My fics are up on 5 different sites where it is clear that they are unauthorized derivations of another’s works, and completed multi chaps are available as ebooks. Please—download them, keep them, share them. That’s what they’re for. I write stories I’d like to share, and am delighted when you do so.
But remember that I don’t own those characters, and I don’t ever desire to give the impression that I think that I do.
