Filing Off The Serial Numbers

Filing off the serial numbers is a common fannish term for the act of taking a piece of existing fanfiction and removing any details that tie it to a copyrighted source. At the very least this involves renaming places and characters or replacing them with analogues.
Fans may decide to do this when they try to turn pro and sell the work as a piece of original fiction. Filing off the serial numbers is not always easy or successful, as fanfiction often depends a lot on the audience's shared knowledge of canon and thus elides a lot of information integral to plot and characterization.
An exception would be Xena uber fiction and other fandom AUs, because the characters already have different names, use different settings, and the stories can be (and often are) published as profic with just minimal edits.
In June 2006, there was a Con.txt panel entitled "Filing Off the Serial Numbers - Is It That Simple? Fanfiction Writers Going Pro." Uniquely Pleasurable, Original slash panel at D.C. con. Posted June 13, 2006. Last accessed November 16, 2008; WebCite. In 2007, storm grant held a panel at Escapade about "Origifying FanFiction" and then later posted Going Pro 101: The Slasher’s Guide To Converting Fanfic To Original Fiction or Origifying FanFiction (OFF).WebCite. See also the July 2009 article Do you mind if the serial numbers still show? by Erastes;WebCite. Among the suggested panels proposed for MediaWest*Con in May 2008 was another entitled "Filing Off the Serial Numbers: Going Pro with your Fan Fic." Dusk Peterson, The Slash Skinny. Posted April 2007. Last accessed November 16, 2008; WebCite.
Historically speaking, the practice of turning fanfiction into commercially published fiction was not widespread - the main hurdles were persuading a publisher to take a chance on publishing previously circulated fan fic. Some writers would not disclose the pre-existing fanfic version or, if they would mention it, would discuss it as an "unpublished draft circulated for feedback and comment among a writing group." Limiting access to the fanfic versions was also much easier in the days of print fanzines with fixed print runs.Morgan Dawn's personal notes about discussions with fan fic writers turning pro, accessed October 2, 2013.
In whole, these early fans were more accepting of the repurposed fanfiction, although the less work an author did to turn to their story into commercial work, the less inclined some would be to buy it. Others were enthused about seeing "one of their own" make it into professional writing. And, for many years, there was a feeling in the fan community that fanfiction could provide an important training ground for those fans who were inclined to take their writing into the commercial arena.
In recent years, fewer fans are supportive of these pro publishing activities. Ironically, this comes at a time where fans are finding it much easier to self-publish their fanfic or work through smaller, non-traditional presses. Fans may not appreciate having a beloved, or worse, unfinished WIP suddenly disappear so an author can publish it. Other fans have expressed dissatisfaction at buying a professional gay romance novel, only to discover they've already read the story in its earlier Slash fanfic guise.
There is no fandom-wide agreement on how open fans should be about distributing copies, paper or electronic, of deleted works, and it's very difficult to truly delete something once it has been published on the Internet. These older fannish versions of now published works often remain available.
Fandoms that as of 2012, are seeing more and more fanfiction being republished as original fiction:
* Supernatural (most popular types of fanfiction are J2 AU stories with only a passing resemblance to the actors' real lives).
* Twilight (see Het examples below)
* One Direction (see After)
==Origin of the Term==
The term originally comes from the practice of eradicating the serial number off a piece of sound equipment, electronics, an appliance, tool or firearm so that it is untraceable.
The term has been used to describe repurposed media fanfiction since at least 1996. On April 25, 1996, there was a post to Virgule-L on behalf of several pro publishers looking for submissions for m/m and other stories. The post stated that the publisher couldn't use anything that involved commercial, media characters but knew that many list members had stories written that "you can file off the serial numbers" and could change enough details so that the stories weren't as easily recognized.Morgan Dawn's notes, regarding an email forwarded by "Circlet Press."
Another example, this one from alt.startrek.creative, is a 1997 post by a fan discussing a work of original fiction she and a partner had written: "...if by some miracle someone publishes it, we will certainly let everyone here know about it. (It'll be pretty obvious to you guys where we filed off the serial numbers.)" post by Alara Rogers at alt.startrek.creative, April 18, 1997
However, the term was in use as early as 1990 on usenet in discussions about the inspiration of commercial genre fiction. Examples:
* "Fowler Foulkes is mostly based on Arthur Conan Doyle -- or at least Dr. Derringer is Dr. Challenger with the serial numbers filed off"February 20 1990 post in rec.arts.sf-lovers
* "The cultural context is the-fall-of-the-Roman-Empire-plus-invading-barbarians with the serial numbers filed off."March 29, 1993 post in rec.arts.sf.written
* "_Glory Road_ is fairly close to your request as well; the fantasy is 'actually' skiffy, but it's file-off-the-serial-numbers fantasy. Somewhat similar is _The Flying Sorcerers_ by Niven and Gerrold, with the exception of slightly more things having their serial numbers filed off."July 22, 1994 post in rec.arts.sf.written
On 6 February 1995, J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, used the term in a negative sense to deny that his show was derivative: "I wouldn't spend a grand total of 10 years of my life getting, and making this show just to do LoTR with the serial numbers filed off."J. Michael Straczynski, collected Usenet postings, February 1995, at
=="Outing" Authors and Fannish Norms==
Some fans feel that without specific author permission, pointing to a published novel and saying it originates in fandom would be a form of outing and therefore should be avoided.See Talk:Filing Off The Serial Numbers. However, in this context, pseudonymity can also have its disadvantages. When J.J. MassaJ.J. Massa - The Edge. (Accessed 20 November 2008); WebCite. published her novel The Edge, it took a while (and only after it was published in print; the ebook version sold without problems) before a reader recognized it as the Chakotay/Paris AU Another Time, Another Place from Star Trek Voyager fandom. Said reader also knew who the original fanfic author was, and it was not J.J. Massa. When the author learned this, she began leaving comments on several reviews for The Edge claiming that it was actually her own story being republished without permission. Though she was initially met with skepticism, as she was a fanfic writer accusing a published romance author of plagiarism, the evidence was in her favor and the publisher withdrew the title.Emily Veinglory, The JJ Massa Thang, 01 December 2007. (Accessed 20 November 2008), now offline, link goes to archived version.Kayleigh Jamison, Accusations of Plagiarism Against Well-Known Ebook Author, 01 December 2007. (Accessed 20 November 2008); WebCite.Ash Arceneaux, JJ Massa plagiarism accusation!, 30 November 2007; holy cow. Massa VS Amanda debacle, 01 December 2007. (Accessed 20 November 2008) (all cites are now offline).
==Slash Examples==
Some early examples:
* Cowboy Blues (1985)
* many works by Jane of Australia—in 1989, this The Professionals writer turned the first of many of her Pros novels into books published by the UK Gay Men's Press
* Alexis Rogers filed the serial numbers off of The Cost of Love,Alexis Rogers S/H website, accessed November 18, 2008 a Starsky & Hutch novel, and sold it (with the same title) to Lavender Press. (1990)
* Wayward Books
===Slash Fic and M/M or Gay Romance===
The growing professional and self-published M/M (male with male) or gay romance market has attracted several slash fiction writers from a variety of fandoms. Some fans are open about their aspirations, discussing their attempts to get stories published or talking about the trials and tribulations of self-publishing ebooks. They sometimes give advanced notice to their readers when they are going to remove a fanfic from the Internet (sometimes under insistence of publishers) so they can publish the "filed off" version. Other fans more quietly friends-lock their stories first and then eventually remove them from the web.
A fan in 1994 pondered the bridge between slash fanfic and gay profic: 
=== Reverse Filing Off The Serial Numbers Case ===
A particular case of an author who, instead, used their own book for the creation of their fanfiction is molmor, who changed the names of the main characters of their book, High Rise, in order to post Beast, a Baldur's Gate III Halstarion fanfiction.
==Femslash Examples==
Melissa Good's story Tropical Storm was the first commercially released Xena uber novel. Originally written in 1998, the print publication came in 1999 and other uber novels such as Accidental Love by BL Miller and Lucifer Rising by Sharon Bowers followed within the same year and even more in the years after that.Lunacy's Commercial Fiction Reviews. (Accessed 18 November 2008); WebCite.Vielka Clavijo. The Ultimate list of Uber Xena novels ever published, lists #1 - #17, Amazon.com Listmania! Lists. (Accessed 18 November 2008)Bards In Print. A section of The Bard's Corner archive with updates about novels from authors who started out writing Xena fanfiction and who have ventured out into the publishing world. (Accessed 18 November 2008) A few Star Trek Voyager ubers, such as Course of ActionGun Brooke. Course of Action, self-published in July 2004, then published with Bold Strokes Books in August 2005. (Accessed 18 November 2008) by Gun Brooke,See FAQs Gun Brooke. (Accessed 18 November 2008) continued this tradition.
A fan in 2014 remarked about Xena fandom and fiction:
In modern fandom, republishing femslash fanfiction as original lesbian romance novels is usually done through small to mid-size lesfic publishing houses. Publishers include: Bella Books, Ylva Publishing, and Desert Palm Press.
==Gen (General Audience) Examples==
Dorothy Jones Heydt, one of the first Star Trek fan fiction writers, collaborated with Astrid Anderson on the Dorothy-Myfanwy series of short stories, featuring xenolinguist Lt. Dorothy Conway and xenobiologist Lt. Myfanwy Orloff. Beginning with "Bright Alpha", they were published in T-Negative from the first issue in 1969. A linguist and science fiction enthusiast, Jones created a Vulcan language and had begun exploring Vulcan culture and the wider universe of the Federation when the first Kraith story by Jacqueline Lichtenberg came out in T-Negative 8."It is no coincidence that there are no other major Vulcan universes in ST fandom... Probably the best reason that the original Kraith stories and articles deterred other Vulcan-orientated work is the simple fact that they were superbly written. There is nothing better for eliminating competition than having the best product. Competing with Kraith and its large, vocal fan following was quickly deemed not worth the trouble it would cause." Daniela Kendall (a pseudonym for one of the Kraith creators), "Inside Kraith". In Probe #11, 1977. Jones subsequently abandoned her narrative, but in the mid-1970s attempted to rewrite and expand it as a novel with characters changed and renamed. The manuscript was rejected by publishers as being "too much like Star Trek", and Jones went on to other things.
Also see Ragnarok (series) by Susan Matthews, about series of very early Star Wars stories about an original character.
==Het (Heterosexual) Examples==
===Twilight===
The Twilight fanfiction community has a robust ebook publishing market, with fic writers taking their het fics, changing names and sometimes situations/plots and republishing as original fiction. Publishers include Omnific Publishing,In 2010, Omnific Publishing launched with the following announcement: "Omnific Publishing is a publishing company specializing in the publication of authors with a proven track record of online success in transformative works. Omnific Publishing seeks to publish their original fiction in a number of different media, including ebooks, audiobooks, and print books. Omnific Publishing is a publishing house with a myriad of resources for author development and promotion, including post submission editing with Certified Editors, associated art development, publication in various media, national marketing, and profitability." Discussed in I don't even know what to say to this dated January 1, 2010 (accessed January 17, 2012); WebCite. See also Twilighted.Net Forums openly discussing republished fan fiction: "Yes, Boycotts and Barflies is one of the stories published by Omnific. Other former fan fics published by Omnific include: feathers_mmmm's I Love L.A., published under the title The Unidentified Redhead by Alice Clayton, qjmom's and someone else's...blanking right now..Passion Fish, Nicki Elson's Three Daves was a fan fic too, I think..." comment posted in twilighted.net's forum thread Who Is Published?, dated May 19, 2009, Accessed January 12, 2012. TWCS Publishing House (The Writer's Coffee Shop Publishing House), and Morgan Kearns."My fic "News to Me" is now available as "Fade to Black". For more information or to purchase a copy go to http://www.MorganKearns.com." comment posted in twilighted.net's forum thread Who Is Published?, dated May 19, 2009, Accessed January 12, 2012. Fans also are keeping track of stories published as original fic here. In the Twlight community this is known as "pulling to publish.""Pulling to publish has become such a pastime that it’s pretty much the default assumption when a story disappears." Twankharder Blog post "Betty Smith is the Messiah and we’re doing fandom wrong" dated April 3, 2011 (accessed Jan. 17, 2012); WebCite. See also "Dear d0t, Should I Pull My Fic? dated April 6, 2011 in which the blogger explains that "Pulling to publish is a MAJOR undertaking that most people don’t understand the ramifications of." WebCite.
Fifty Shades of Grey is, of course, a very famous example.
Like most media fandom communities, members of the Twilight fan community are divided as to both the ethics and legality of republishing fan fiction as original fan fiction. Some feel that the practice is acceptable if the plots and storylines are original (ex: a fan fiction AU) with the characters bearing only a passing resemblance to the TV or movie characters. Others feel that no amount of changes or differences make the practice ethical or legal.
More importantly, opponents feel that the more the story changes, the less marketable it becomes, making filing off the serial numbers a pointless exercise:
While there are few voices as loudly in favor of repurposing Twillight fan fiction as there are those who are against it, the fact remains that it is a popular practice, to the point where Twilight fans now routinely save their favorite stories to their hard drives in anticipation of the fiction being pulled offline a few months later in order to be republished as original fiction.See comments in Sharing Deleted Fanworks discussing how the practice has impacted Twilight fan culture.
In January 2012, the OTW links roundup offered the following example of the debate:
In August 2012, Sylvain Reynard entered into a contract with Penguin Group’s Berkley imprint for Gabriel’s Inferno and Gabriel’s Rapture, a series that also began as Twilight fan fiction under the title of The University of Edward Masen.Twilight Fan Fiction History of Gabriel’s Inferno dated August 1, 2012; WebCite. In November 2012, book publisher Simon & Schushter announced it would be republishing a reworked Twilight fan story called The Office under the title Beautiful Bastard.Simon & Schuster to publish more reworked Twilight fanfic, dated November 8, 2012; WebCite accessed November 13, 2012. See also Hot Fanfiction: The Office dated August 25, 2009; WebCite.
===Music RPF===
A number of young fanfiction authors have seen commercial success with novels that began life as band fanfiction, specifically fanfic of 5 Seconds of Summer and the boy band One Direction. In 2012, 16-year-old Emily Baker was approached by Penguin to write an original novel based on her One Direction fanfic Loving the Band, which had attracted more than 30,000 hits on movella.com, an online writing community for young writers.Teenage One Direction fan fiction writer gets book deal, The Independent, Published October 5, 2012 (Accessed August 20, 2017). Two years later, 25-year-old Anna Todd signed a "mid-six-figure" book deal with Simon & Schuster for the publishing rights to After, a One Direction fanfic serialized on the online writing site Wattpad.One Direction fanfic author inks worldwide book deal, The Guardian, Published June 4, 2014 (Accessed August 20, 2017).
In an article for Seventeen magazine, 17-year-old Ashley Royer details how she successfully became a published author after Blink YA picked up the manuscript for her 5 Seconds of Summer fic Remember to Forget, also serialised on Wattpad. She writes about her initial reluctance over being known as a fanfiction author:
===Other Examples===
Lady M. Harris of Sailor Moon fandom has two published romance novels that are basically two of her fanfics with the names changed. However, copyright dates muddle which came first, the fanfics or the novels. Lady M. Harris's fanfiction.net page Moonlight Midnight Glory - Goodreads Sensual Healing - Goodreads Harris herself admits that "Dance Beneath the Moon" and "Sensual Healing" are the same story for different mediums. Dance Beneath the Moon - Author's note
Senlinryu announced Manacled would be pulled for publishing.
Head Over Feet was pulled and published as The Love Hypothesis.https://www.vulture.com/article/fanfic-romance-reylo-publishing-trend.html
==Impact On Fandom Community==
Most discussion of filing off the serial numbers focuses on the negative impact it can have on a fandom community. Typical concerns range from increased visibility (and the possibility of increased restrictions) on fan fiction from TPTB as more fan fiction gets re-purposed into original fiction."This pulling to publish has gotta stop or there will be no more fanfiction. If it becomes apparent that fanfiction writers are publishing fanfiction (which is legally incredibly dodgy as all fanfiction are derivative works of a copyrighted story and characters) Stephenie Meyer could well ban it. Then no more FF stories for anyone." Anonymous comment posted in Kristen Stewart Coolspotters in 2011. Some fans feel that they've been treated as virtual guinea pigs by writers testing the quality of their writing on fandom, only to later demand money for the same or similar story later."You've just been made a guinea pig-and you're going to shell out money to BUY something that was previously available for free? Well, good for you, I guess." comment in Fan Fiction gets published: Brookelockart breaks it down, dated Jan 11, 2012; WebCite. Others argue that it might have a dampening effect on reader participation:
==Meta/Further Reading==
===Unknown Date===
* Fandom Authors Who Have Gone Big Time, fandom authors doing pro work from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom.
* "Dear Author" Blog posts tagged "Fan Fiction"
===2005===
* From Slash to Mainstream: Female Writers and Gender Blending Men by Liz Woledge (2012) Elizabeth Woledge. 2005. From Slash to Mainstream: Female Writers and Gender Blending Men. Extrapolation 46(1): 55-65. 
===2012===
* The Ethics of Reworking Fanfiction: An editor's opinion (2012)
* Loving the Band: When good publishers ruin bad fanfic (2012)
* by Jane at "Dear Author" (March 2012)
* Fanfiction: A Tale of Fandom and Morality by Has (March 2012)
* Why I’ll Never Pull My Fic by vamp (Jan 4)
* When Does Fan Fiction Cross an Ethical Line? by Jami Gold (March 6, 2012)
* (fans discussing the concept in the [starsky-hutch] LJ community) (March 14, 2012)
* Simon & Schuster to publish more reworked Twilight fanfic (November 8, 2012)WebCite accessed November 13, 2012.
===2013===
* Goodreads: Pulled to Publish Fan Fiction List of novels that are believed to have been fan fiction originally. Includes discussion in the many comments. List created June 28, 2012. As of June 2013, there were 117 listings, as of March 2016, there were 237 listings Goodreads WebCite created March 17, 2013; Reference link dated June 1, 2013.
* Fifty Shades of Grey: The Reddit Origins Essay (2014)
===2014===
* by Aja Romano at The Daily Dot (November 9, 2014)
* (October 12, 2014)
===2017===
* On deleting fics, going pro, and poetry and dreams by probablyintraffic (February 18, 2017)
===2021===
* (January 2021)
=== 2025 ===
* 3 Harry Potter fan fiction authors are coming to a bookstore near you - news article, NPR newsite on February 14, 2025 
==Links==
* Serial Numbers Filed Off on TV Tropes
==References==
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