tfc-hockey

I feel like some folks aren't up to date on this whole thing so I'm writing it up here because I don't mind being That Bitch and getting blocked. I don't vaguepost, but I am courteous enough not to tag people directly. I am keeping my opinions off of this post because I am literally just intending to document the drama.

@/linskywords has broken into the traditional publishing industry. This happened, if I remember correctly, after she got an agent offer via being a popular AO3 account. Her pinned Tumblr post talks about her upcoming book and author socials, which are more important for a debut author than ever now that trad pub likes to outsource as much promo work onto their authors as possible.

I don't think it's out of pocket to say that she is now agented and sold her book because she has a large reader base online. This is not uncommon, and definitely not an insult. Unknown people get published too, but IN THIS CASE a lot of people in the hrpf sphere really seem to really enjoy Linsky's fics! And she is hoping that will convert to book sales and is currently (very lightly) promoting her book directly to her hrpf fanbase. This is literally in her pinned post, I am not conjecturing.

What's the drama, then?

The book, Teammates to Lovers, is a hockey rpf meta fic romance. The characters themselves are not serial-number-filed-off stand-ins for actual irl hockey players. However this book is all about hockey player real person fanfiction. Hockey player real person fanfiction is QUITE LITERALLY the backbone of this book. The plot (I'm not spoiling anything, this is literally on the Random House website) is basically old school meta fic, but about rpf. For those of you who don't want to hunt it down:

Player #1 gets sent hrpf fic about himself and a teammate, player #2. He reads the fic and realizes that wow, maybe I do feel that way. Player #1 starts commenting on the posts, develops a raport with the author, and then the author ends up having been Player #2 all along. HEA.

Okay! Believe it or not, this is not the first trad pub romance that I could name which has a famous main character who is discovered as a secret fanfiction author! I don't think that was a meta fic plotline, but there could be others out there that do!

Except: I do believe this is the first hrpf meta fic to go to trad pub?

(Now, as an aside, we do all need to understand how slowly the gears of trad pub work. It's not like Linsky could have seen Heated Rivalry blow up in December 2025, then decide to cash in on the moment using her fanfic credentials have this book to press by this year. That's indie/self-pub speed. We are talking yearsssss long processes for trad pub.)

As of this morning, the Penguin Random House bio for Linsky's pen name says she is a popular hockey rpf writer on AO3. This was apparently an accident, and she is asking to have it removed.

Her book also calls it AO3, by name.

This isn't fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off, this is original fiction that is putting the serial numbers back on.