Fanfic goes mainstream with Kindle Worlds
Interesting news for writers of fanfiction as Amazon announces Kindle Worlds, an e-book platform which invites published and aspiring authors to submit original titles based on licensed properties, to be sold in the Kindle Store.
Kindle Worlds titles of 10,000 words and upwards will sell for $0.99 - $2.99, with royalties set at 35% of net revenue. Short stories of 5,000 to 10,000 words may also be accepted for publication, with a royalty rate of 20%. The platform is to launch in June.
Many furry scribes, as well as mainstream authors, cut their writing teeth on fanfiction for series as diverse as Pokémon, Harry Potter and the Final Fantasy universe; famously, Fifty Shades of Grey started life as Twilight fanfic.
To date, all named participating franchises are from Alloy Publishing, a Warner Bros. subsidiary. Alloy produces titles largely aimed at teenage girls, including The Vampire Diaries. With further announcements to come, will we see opportunities to create officially licensed tales from the worlds of Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny or ThunderCats, to name but three popular Warner properties? Best not to hold your breath, perhaps, but this development has the potential to be a game-changer for fanfic.
Amazon has published author guidelines, and says:
Amazon Publishing is engaged with additional rights holders from different areas of entertainment — books, games, TV, movies and music — and looks forward to announcing future deals soon. To get started writing works in licensed properties, visit www.amazon.com/kindleworlds for submission guidelines and updates on licensed properties.
About the author
Huskyteer (Alice Dryden) — read stories — contact (login required)a web developer and Husky from London, UK, interested in writing, scooters, 1960s music, aviation and karate
Writer, Biker, Furry, Spy.
Comments
Somehow I don't think we'll be seeing Fifty Shades of Shaggy anytime soon:
Heck, they ban crossovers and offensive content, too! Then there's the (mandatory) content guidelines for each world . . .
Kindle Worlds appears to lack a major appeal of fanfic, viz. doing things with characters and settings that you can't do with a licensed work.
Welp, thanks for picking that out so I didn't have to hunt it down. A shame, too. I wouldn't mind getting paid to write fanfic fuckstories.
Yes!! I'm not so big on the graphic sex but I love my crossovers.
~ Huskyteer
Only three worlds so far, and none of them of any interest. Actually what's interesting to not is that all three shows are targeted to girls/women. Since this is the case, I guess women finally are getting paid more then men in something.
Unless of course it's a ploy to get girls/women to write fanfiction so that the content owner can use it to undercut the costs of their writing staff. Then they just made the gap even worse.
Well, fanfic is already unusual in that it's a female-dominated portion of the internet; things might have changed, but in my day on ff.net the majority of readers and writers were women.
~ Huskyteer
The BBC asks whether fanfic writers want to make money, interviewing Naomi Novik (Temeraire), Francesca Coppa and Jen West.
You know, if you're looking for some good Vampire Diaries fanfiction you could read the one where one of the minor characters attempts to send letter laced in ricin to public officials in order to frame their husband...
Oh wait... that wasn't fiction? http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/28/actress-charged-ricin-lette...
This is twice that ricin has been used to attempt to frame someone this year...
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