Amazon is shaking up the fan fiction arm of fandom with a very interesting new feature: Kindle Worlds.
Now, fans like yourself can write and sell fan fiction – and you’ll receive a cut of the profit.
Billed as “the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so,” potential authors can write stories about select fandoms and receive 35% of the sale price’s net revenue. The stories will be available for purchase in the Kindle format, and Amazon says they hope to add other formats in the future.
Kindle Worlds is only for particular fandoms because Amazon needed to team up with entertainment powerhouses to make this legal. Their sole license so far is with Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment. At launch, fans will be able to write and sell fan fiction in the worlds of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries, and several other fandoms. More licenses are planned soon.
“Seeing Pretty Little Liars fans adapt and create their own stories is both exciting and flattering, and I think what Amazon Publishing is offering through Kindle Worlds is a great way to reward their ingenuity,” said Sara Shepard, author of Pretty Little Liars.
Royalities will be paid out to both the fan fiction author and the original author. Amazon says it is a new revenue stream for franchises.
We love this idea and think it’ll shake up the fan fiction world. We’re eager to see what other licenses Amazon can scratch up.
Which fandoms do you want to see Amazon secure a license with? Our first choices are naturally Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, and Glee, but all fandoms would be perfect matches.
Kindle Worlds will open in June, and you can learn how to start writing on this page.
We see that one of Amazon’s rules is no pornography, so any Fifty Shades of Grey-style stories need not apply.
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