Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[Morwen]

How many people enjoy these tales written on fan sites versus the numbers who would be customers in mass market book form? I personally loathe trying to read lengthy fiction on a screen. I much prefer the printed page of a traditional book. I would make a wild guess that I am not alone.

CHILDREN OF HURIN - a tale that has been around for a number of years now in several forms and is hardly "new" - is selling some half a million copies.

Maybe someone here could tell me what is the single most famous and best written piece of Middle-earth fan fiction and provide the number of how many hits it has gotten. Then compare that to a traditionally published book.

And we are not talking about hypothetical legions of trained monkeys on typewriters. To compare it to that is simply not honest.

And why is access to fanfiction a concern of the Estate?
If you had to pitch this idea to Christopher Tolkien would you seriously tell him that he needs to authorise new stories to facilitate your reading needs or so that people can conveniently purchase books his father never wrote?
It seems to me that if the Estate were to be persuaded to authorise new stories, the reasons given would have to be less 'reader-centric'. It would have to be shown that this would benefit the Estate. Money I guess would be the easiest selling point but assuming the Estate might be more interested in the preserving Tolkien's legacy than in quick cash, why would it be interested in authorising new stories?