Unjapanologist

• Organized references to prepare dojinshi research bibliography for publication on wiki, probably get to that next week
• Read Market Transformation in Transformative Works: The Effects of Introducing Incentives in Markets for Fanfiction by Hannah Yung
• Had long discussion with advisor about research progress and publishing a book, agreed that I’ll submit the final text of the dissertation by April 2014. Not the half a year earlier than planned that other prof proposed, thankfully, but still, umm… five months earlier than I’ve been planning for the last three years. This is going to hurt.
• Gathered list of CFPs for fall conferences to submit things to - must keep self motivated to write thesis bits in quick succession
• Spent over an hour trying to figure out university repository rules because I need to upload all my stuff there as well for a job application. Sent helpdesk a long list of questions along the lines of “can I submit *newfangled online format* please because I did actually make it as part of my research activities". I was very unimpressed with the repository when it was launched a few years ago, but now it's much better and more informative about open access. (On the less handy side, they now work with a journal lookup system instead of letting you enter the name of the journal by hand, and of course TWC isn't in there yet.)

Similar changes are eroding literary publication as direct electronic publication by authors on the Internet has led to erotic and reportedly pornographic works like Fifty Shades of Grey and spinoffs sweeping bestsellers lists for months. The issue is not whether erotica or pornography is or should be popular; rather, one wonders what literary work might have filled those slots on the bestsellers lists if traditional mechanisms of editor-evaluated publication had been applied, which consider more than simply the potential popularity of a work in deciding what to publish.