Kindle Worlds

I had considered awhile back, that if I ever became a famous author, that I would like to do something different for fan fiction based on my books. Essentially my idea was that I would create a website where I would encourage people to write and post their fan fiction based on my fantasy world for others to read. The website would also allow others to rate the story on a scale from one to five on a variety of categories (plot, character development, pacing, etc) but NOT leave comments as; unfortunately the world of public internet comments tends to be rather harsh, juvenile, and unnecessarily cruel as you find if you scroll through the comments in Youtube and other sites where people can publicly post their materials. And finally, publishers that I’d worked with and trust could sign into the website and send messages to the authors, essentially using it as a tool to find prospective new talent.

 

So I was pleasantly surprised when I read in Forbes an article today that Amazon is doing something similar. Amazon is introducing ‘KindleWorlds’ which allows fans to write fan fiction in a variety of very popular fictional settings. Currently they already have TV franchises of Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girls available and they are working on including Harry Potter, Twilight, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I hope they also are able to use this to open up some of the older discontinued series like Firefly or the Sarah Connor Chronicles that have huge fan bases that were left unsatisfied by the abrupt cancelation of the show leaving so many things unresolved. It would also be amazing if Amazon could use their magic to acquire permission to write in worlds where the author is deceased such as Dune, Wheel of Time, and Lord of the Rings; although that would probably get very tricky with estates and such. Even better, what if they got into allowing fans to publish game scenarios for the World of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or other RPG worlds.

 

The Amazon model also includes something mine did not… Profit. Normally if you self-publish through Amazon you get to keep 70% of any sales, although if you do it that way you also can’t write using a popular and well established world like Harry Potter without getting slapped for copyright infringement. But under the ‘Kindle Worlds’ model the fan fiction author keeps only 35% of sales for a novel (20% for shorter works) with the rest being split between Amazon and the owner the copyrights to the world. I think that potential revenue stream will make a lot of published writers interested in allowing and even encouraging others to write fan fiction.

 

I am a little worried about the lack of editorial collaboration and proof-reading that you get with actually published work and the fact that you have to buy the work sight unseen, so you don't know what the quality you are going to be getting. But hopefully Amazon will keep prices reasonably low and people who have already purchased and read the work will leave some useful ratings to guide those that follow behind. 

I could also see some issues with what I'll call reverse copyright infringement; in that the original author incorporates parts of 'Kindle Worlds' published fan fiction in their later works (for example, the writers of Pretty Little Liars might see a really good idea in a Pretty Little Liars fan fiction that 'inspires' some future episode they write). This could lead to some interesting legal issues about the copyright.

Overall I’m very interested to see ‘Kindle Worlds’ in action and perhaps you'll one day see some of my stuff there. I think its a very interesting new way for aspiring authors to cut their teeth as well, especially if they are already inspired by that fictional world and don't want or like to create a whole new fantasy world to develop of their own. For myself, I'm about 15% into a massive Star Trek technical manual that I was just doing for my own fun... perhaps now I have a new goal for it.