"I'm not sure how things are done on Earth so I'll go back to basics?  Authors usually start out by using better authors' worlds and characters and running variations on their storylines, in return for paying onward a small share of the gratuities, one-twentieth is standard for a lesser work that sells cheaply.  As authors ascend their career path, they start to create their own worlds and characters and sell stories set there.  When an author exalts to fame, it's usually with some particular variation of their original world and characters which turned out to be really good, good enough to become famous.  Which obviously raises the sales of other alts' adventures as well, and young authors will start to copy that world and pay gratuity fractions to it.  Some works are so legendary that ascended authors write secondary works of them, and then relatively more artistic writers have been known to write tertiary works varying on those, though that is less of something a young author would try to do.  And then that's as far as it ever goes, of course, because human beings can't track more than three layers of recursion."

"I'm not sure how things are done on Earth so I'll go back to basics?  Authors usually start out by using better authors' worlds and characters and running variations on their storylines, in return for paying onward a small share of the gratuities; one-twentieth is standard for a lesser work that sells cheaply.  As authors ascend their career path, they start to create their own worlds and characters and sell stories set there.  When an author exalts to fame, it's usually with some particular variation of their original world and characters which turned out to be really good, good enough to become famous.  Which obviously raises the sales of other alts' adventures as well, and young authors will start to copy that world and pay gratuity fractions to it.  Some works are so legendary that ascended authors write secondary works of them, and then relatively more artistic writers have been known to write tertiary works varying on those, though that is less of something a young author would try to do.  And then that's as far as it ever goes, of course, because human beings can't track more than three layers of recursion."

"I'm not sure how things are done on Earth so I'll go back to basics?  Authors usually start out by using better authors' worlds and characters and running variations on their storylines, in return for paying onward a small share of the gratuities; one-twentieth is standard for a lesser work that sells cheaply.  As authors ascend their career path, the prices of their books rise and the fees they'd have to pay go up, which encourages them to start to create their own worlds and characters and sell stories set there.  When an author exalts to fame, it's usually with some particular variation of their original world and characters which turned out to be really good, good enough to become famous.  Which obviously raises the sales of other alts' adventures as well, and young authors will start to copy that world and pay gratuity fractions to it.  Some works are so legendary that ascended authors write secondary works of them, and then relatively more artistic writers have been known to write tertiary works varying on those, though that is less of something a young author would try to do.  And then that's as far as it ever goes, of course, because human beings can't track more than three layers of recursion."

"I'm not sure how things are done on Earth so I'll go back to basics?  Authors usually start out by using better authors' worlds and characters and running variations on their storylines, in return for paying onward a small share of the gratuities; one-twentieth is standard for a lesser work that sells cheaply.  As authors ascend their career path, the prices of their books rise and the fees they'd have to pay go up, which encourages them to create their own worlds and characters and sell stories set there.  When an author exalts, it's usually with some particular variation of their original world and characters which turned out to be really good, good enough to become famous.  Which obviously raises the sales of other alts' adventures as well, and young authors will start to copy that world and pay gratuity fractions to it.  Some works are so legendary that ascended authors write secondary works of them, and then relatively more artistic writers have been known to write tertiary works varying on those, though that is less of something a young author would try to do.  And then that's as far as it ever goes, of course, because human beings can't track more than three layers of recursion."