Kindle Worlds opens for business

Get your licensed fan fic here. (Should I feel concerned that I’ve only ever heard of two of the 12 “worlds” that they’re starting with?)

Posted in ebooks Tagged with: amazon.com, fanfic, kindle

More on Amazon.com and Fanfic

From Consumerist.com:

Oh and also, erotica might not fly with Amazon, as the content guidelines include the following restrictions: No pornography, no offensive content, no illegal/copyright infringing content, it can’t be a poor customer experience (misleading title, horribly formatted), no excessive use of brand names and no “crossover” stories that pick and choose elements from other series.

And then John Scalzi has some thoughts:

Essentially, this means that all the work in the Kindle Worlds arena is a work for hire that Alloy (and whomever else signs on) can mine with impunity. This is a very good deal for Alloy, et al — they’re getting story ideas! Free! — and less of a good deal for the actual writers themselves. I mean, the official media tie-in writers and script writers are doing work for hire, too, but they get advances and\or at least WGA minimum scale for their work.

Another red flag:

“Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright.”

Which is to say, once Amazon has it, they have the right to do anything they want with it, including possibly using it in anthologies or selling it other languages, etc, without paying the author anything else for it, ever. Again, an excellent deal for Amazon; a less than excellent deal for the actual writer.

Posted in ebooks Tagged with: amazon.com, fanfic, john scalzi, publishing

Amazon monetizes fanfic

The company’s today announced Kindle Worlds, a new publishing platform that promises to pay writers royalties for stories inspired by established works. Naturally, the original rights holder needs to be a willing participant as well, and they’ll also be paid a royalty for all fan fiction stories sold.

My question is: does this give Amazon or the rights holders any sort of control over the content of the fanfic published in this manner? (Authors of Kirk/Spock slash fic, I’m lookin’ at you.)

Read the full article @ Engadget.com.

Posted in ebooks Tagged with: amazon, fanfic, publishing