another reason for blanket podfic permission

[boxofdelights]

(Note: this is not addressed to anyone who has already decided not to offer blanket permission. Your decision is yours. If your reasons satisfy you, that is good enough for me.)

I'm signing up for a fic fest, for which I am offering to podfic. I'd like to check the "any" boxes, because I am willing to read anything. (I have read Berenstain Bears books to make people happy. I am willing to read badfic if it will make you happy.) But, however willing I might be, the only way I can be sure not to default is to only check the boxes for which there is at least one >1000-word fic available.

It is time-consuming but not difficult to check AO3 for fic's existence, but I don't know whether the fic is available for podfic unless I write to the author or the author has a blanket permission statement. And I'm not going to bother people to tell me whether their fic would be available if I got a request it could fulfill!

Comments

[twistedchick]

It is also not that difficult for a prospective podfic creator to make up a blanket request to send out to authors, a standard statement of intent that could be sent with one or two clicks.

[boxofdelights]

That is true, and it might work for this situation, but I really don't want to bother people when I'm not saying "I love your fic and I want to record it" but "On the off chance that your fic fulfills a request that hasn't been made yet, can I have your permission?" Really, really do not want.

Some people, in the most recent discussion of what podfic-permission etiquette ought to be, have said that boilerplate is rude; they want a personal, individually crafted letter to show respect for their individually crafted fic.

I think Miss Manners is right, that civilization works better when there are conventions for how to do a thing politely, when nobody has to make up an individual, unconventional way to say "I'm sorry for your loss." But we don't yet have such a convention for asking or granting permission to podfic.

I must be missing something

[redbird]

It sounds like the problem here is in the design/phrasing of the ficfest. Are you or they really going to consider it a default if you check "all" and someone says "read me a Chaka Zulu/Berenstain Bears crossover set in Las Vegas" and when you ask for help finding one because it's not on AO3, they say "that's your problem"?

I'm not a fanfic author, but if I was and was having doubts about blanket permission, I don't think I would find the reason you offer persuasive: it's about saving time or trouble for the well-meaning podficcer hypothetical-I don't even know. But hypothetical-I have already realized that blanket permissions make life easier for podficcers, and presumably have one or more reasons for hesitating, whether it's general nervousness or something more specific.

Re: I must be missing something

[boxofdelights]

The last fest I joined, which was podfic-only, did say not to offer "any" unless you were willing to write and record a 1000+ word fic to fill the request, if you couldn't find one available.

This fest has just added podfic this year. I can see a couple ways that podfic doesn't really fit with the fest's rules: "Don't tell anybody what you're making" doesn't work when you have to request permission. "Authors remain secret until reveals" doesn't work when I can hear your voice!

Anyway, as I said, I'm not trying to persuade anyone who has already decided. I don't want to persuade anyone who has already decided.