Publishing Startup Out to Prove FanFic Authors Can Have Mainstream Success

With the Kickstarter funds, Big Bang Press will publish the original works of three talented fan fiction writers -- Erin Claiborne, Kady Morrison, and Natalie Wilkinson. Their novels, respectively, are A Hero at the End of the World, Juniper Lane, and Savage Creatures, which run the genre gamut from literary fiction to fantasy noir.

Along with proving that the fan fiction community can offer, in the words of the press's tagline, "original content for an original audience," Davies and her fellow editors hope to facilitate their protégés' transition from fanfic writers to published authors.

"It can be very difficult to transition out of fan fiction," says Davies, who is both a fanfic writer and professional novelist. "There is such a community feel to fandom. When you write fan fiction, you get immediate feedback on your work. That's really rewarding, but when you're writing a novel, you write it alone. We're trying to give them a supporting community to write in, a sort of microcosm of fandom, and give them the tools to write great novels."

Should Big Bang's novels find commercial success (expect the first, Claiborne's A Hero at the End of the World, in September of 2014), Big Bang will continue its mission of finding and nurturing new talent. Although the press's first three novels were hand-selected, Davies hopes to move toward a more open submission policy and continue to promote writers from the fan fiction space.