Starwars the extended universe

Do you see the star wars books as more fanfiction or rightful editions to the series? I mean this can also apply to the halo books. I see them more as overly glorified fanfiction. What separates fan-fiction authors from these "extended universe" books? Why do these guys get to make money while the work that we do gets no good exposure or recognition from the creators of what ever the author is writing about? Maybe one of the reasons the mega-authors are special is that they get to work with the makers but sometimes I believe that the fans know more about the series then the creators themselves. One more problem though is that with the amount of stories there are bound to be contradictions among all the books. I think though that these could sell as well. I myself enjoy a story even if it is not canon as long as it is written well and gone though an editor(beta). I think that we could just label these as non canon and still sell them. This could get lots of new writers out there. Though this would probably have to be regulated because there would be lots of crap but that is what an real editor is for. This way a new writer could show is skills to the group he is writing about and they could let him write stuff that is canon because that will always be a fanfiction writers dream.

Depends on the book. For example, the ones dealing with delta squad were awesome additions to the series, and I'm sure many, if not most, fall into this category. That being said, I think the ones that deal with overly-known and repeated facts is just over-glorified fanfiction, not that that's bad. But it is worth noting the amount of money they make off of someone else's work, even if the final wording was their own.

I know what you mean. I have this one star wars book that to me is really just the pure form of a fanficton. Which to me at its base taking one of the characters from the series and putting them into a situation they have never been in. Like with Han Solo and the driytal skull. If you think about it all that book does is take Han Solo though an adventure that didn't even help shape how he was in the future. The author really made it fell like this didn't matter what so ever. Though i believe that there is nothing in life that doesn't effect. Not the real small stuff but a real big adventure would really affect Han i think. I have seen fanfictions that actually attempt to make it so that there made up adventurers really help shape the character that they are about. This in sense is what makes a prequel like in movies. Fanfiction a lot of the time are prequels but i fell the extended universe doesn't reveal the characters past as much as it just take the existing character and says i wonder what would happen if i put them here. I fell nothing gets accomplished and that these authors really need to get to understanding what they are doing here. There supposed to be cannon but they don't actually "Expand" as much as "extended" would make me think.