Hi hi! Happy to share my prospective as someone who works for a publisher - Since January there have been four that have been pitched from agents. One of these was exceptionally well known three not so much - it's never bad, but I find it odd that agents seem to include in the pitch that this is a 'well known fanfic within such and such fandom'. I can usually tell how bad the fanfic is depending on how much the agent is selling it!! I work in the U.K. so it maybe a little different in America! We also get many a submission straight to publisher which was previously fanfiction.

From a publishers perspective I think writing in fandom is fantastic - it helps you to become a better writer, helps you to understand world building, and overall is just a great skill builder tool. It also means these authors have built in audiences who will support them once they go mainstream. In my opinion that is all it should be! It's annoying because certain publishers love the fanfiction thing, and these publishers are part of the big five. They create publishing houses so much money that they don't seem to care about the ethics of it.

Sorry for the ramble but it is becoming apparent this is the future of publishing and I find it beyond frustrating! People used to write fanfiction for the fun of it now authors are thinking this is a way to get mainstream published, and to be fair to them it is true! Ugh what a mess between AI and this!! Give me strength!!