HubPages for Fans

I've been a member of Hubpages for nearly three years now and I consider myself to be a proud hubber. But for many years before that, I was a proud fan, and I expect to remain a fan for many more years to come.

I do my best to keep my hubber identity and my fannish identity separate, but it's often occurred to me how perfectly suited HubPages is as a platform for certain types of fannish activities and over the years, there's been some overlap. One of my favorite aspects of HubPages is the freedom to write about what I want, when I want to, and in the throes of a new fannish love, I've often found that what I want to write about is fandom.

This hub compiles some of the tips and advice I've figured out over the years for fans interested in using HubPages to share and spread their passion.

HubPages can be used in many different ways, for many different purposes, but some of the uses of most interest to fans include:

• Posting book, movie, or tv show reviews, recaps, and meta. HubPages is not only an easy-to-use web publishing platform, it also offers a shortcut to becoming a professional reviewer, since you can earn money from sales of books or DVDs made through your hub! Snarky recaps are always a hit, too. If you've been frustrated by Television Without Pity's "Not Hiring" sign for years, HubPages offers a great alternative platform to share your wit with the world. And if your tastes run more towards thoughtful discussion and analysis, you can find a welcoming community of fellow readers, writers, and over-analyzers here to share your enthusiasm and wow you with their insight. Aca-fans may be especially interested in HubPages for Students, a new homepage for academic topics.
  
• Sharing knowledge. Fans tend to know a lot of interesting trivia and other minutiae about their favorite books, movies, shows, actors, and other fannish loves, and HubPages is a great place to share this kind of information. For just one example, check out embitca's hub listing and describing Hawaii Five-0 hottie Alex O'Loughlin's tattoos.
• Promoting your fansite, forum, or other community. HubPages is a high PR site that is frequently visited by search engine spiders. It's a great way to get backlinks and promote your fannish website or community. Just be careful to follow HubPages guidelines about overly promotional hubs.
  
• Sharing fannish experiences. HubPages offers an easy and attractive way to share fannish experiences such as convention reports, concert reports, and other multimedia fannish love letters. For example, check out this hub written by a fan who's been to seven Adam Lambert concerts: I've had Adam Lambert...And It's Ecstasy.
• Running a "Save Our Show" campaign. HubPages tends to rank high in the search engines, so it's an easy way to promote your favorite show through articles such as Five Reasons To Watch Supernatural or The Best TV Shows Canceled by Fox.

Of course, fannish topics aren't the only ones welcomed at HubPages. If you're a fan who just happens to love cooking, or small engine repair, or 17th century Ukrainian art, there's a place for you at HubPages as well. Just check out the Topics listing to get an idea of the tremendous diversity of subjects you can write about at HubPages.

Although HubPages is a great place for fans in many ways, there are certain fannish activities that are best kept away from the site. These include:

• Posting fanfiction. Especially sexually explicit fanfiction. Adult content is against HubPages TOS, and so is copyrighted content. Although I, like many fans, believe fanfiction qualifies as Fair Use under the "Transformative Works" clause, it still exists in a legal gray area in the larger online community. Because HubPages is a commercial site that allows members to earn money from the content they post, it must be even more skittish about copyright infringement than other sites, so it's much wiser to publish fanfiction on known fan-friendly sites such as Fanfiction.net and An Archive of Our Own. No amount of legalese disclaimers about how you write fanfiction for fun and no copyright infringement is intended and you don't make any money off your hobby will save you from getting sued if you actually ARE making money off your fic. Protect yourself and don't publish fanfiction on HubPages.
  
• Posting copyrighted pictures, videos, and text. Browse around HubPages and you may find a lot of hubs consisting of little more than a bunch of photos and some info copied straight off Wikipedia. These types of hubs exist in large numbers, but are discouraged by HubPages staff and by the community at large. They are frequently flagged for being substandard, or taken down for copyright violation. It is totally possible to share copyrighted content such as pictures or short video clips or HubPages, but it must be able to stand up to fair use guidelines by including plenty of original commentary or other content. An example of acceptable use of copyrighted content might be an episode review that includes relevant promo pictures, video clips, screen caps or quotes from the episode in addition to your original commentary.
  
• Posting personal content, such as blog posts about your daily life. Some hubbers have been very successful using HubPages as an alternative to blogging platforms to share rants, opinions, and memorable or meaningful personal experiences. However, when it comes to sharing the minutiae of daily life, you're better off getting yourself a LiveJournal or Dreamwidth account.
• "Outing" fellow fans. The cardinal sin of fandom is a real issue here, because Google's spiders trawl HubPages regularly. Be very cautious about linking to fanworks or other content posted on personal journals or blogs, and always ask before posting other people's fanart or graphics. I generally consider fanvids (such as "Us" above) that have been posted by the creator on public streaming video sites, such as YouTube, to be fair game, but if in doubt, ask.

Also note that you must be at least 18 to join HubPages.

Though these hubbers don't necessarily identify as members of fandom at large, their interests and enthusiasms clearly overlap. Go and give them some love!

embitca writes often about her favorite tv shows, games, and actors, and several of her hubs have already been linked above.

Katie Sheridan is a great source of commentary on Adam Lambert: the man, the music, and the phenomenon.

Mokibobolink writes frequently about fanfiction and does regular recaps of her favorite shows.

scifikathie is a relatively new hubber who's gotten off to a great start with some cool hubs on fan favorites Firefly and Supernatural.

Daniel Greenfield writes thoughtful reviews of many movies, comics, and games, with a focus on sci-fi.

Trekkiemelissa is another hubber who writes frequently about her favorite tv shows and other media.

Finally, yours truly has posted everything from picspams to meta to "recruiter" articles for various fannish obsessions.

Fellow fannish hubbers, did I miss you? Comment and let me know!

Sign up for HubPages and start exploring the site! A good starting point is the Frequently Asked Questions.