Kindle Worlds – Publetariat

Quick Links: Writing for Kindle Worlds – the Good and the Ugly

June 23, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

We all fantasize about being in the stories we love, and with Kindle Worlds, you can legally explore that fantasy and share with others. Kindle World writer Toby Neal knows, and she shares with us the good and the bad about writing fan fiction. Head on over to How-To For Authors to learn more.

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Writing for Kindle Worlds – the Good and the Ugly

Toby Neal

connected-world_Mksak_qu May 14, 2016

Toby Neal has her own Kindle World with 35 (and counting) books starring her characters, and has written two for others’ Worlds.

Whatever you feel about Amazon, they are cutting-edge as a company, and one of the most innovative programs they’ve come up with in publishing is Kindle Worlds. According to Nick Loeffler with Amazon, “Kindle Worlds is the first commercial publishing platform to enable any writer to publish fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters while earning royalties for doing so, and sell them in the Kindle Store. Until the launch of Kindle Worlds, selling stories based on copyright-protected material had been difficult.”

Not to mention, illegal!

Kindle Worlds has changed all that, by contracting with authors and other writers to legalize use of characters in a “World,” and providing parameters within which other writers can play. All benefit from this—writers get to entertain through known settings with their own stories, and readers get more of the characters they love.

Developed in 2013, Kindle Worlds includes graphic novels, TV shows, and of course, bestselling book lines. Kindle Worlds is licensed fan fiction, in a nutshell, and it captures the urge of writers since the dawn of time to write about characters they’ve fallen in love with as readers, and for readers to be able to enjoy storylines and characters they’ve become attached to long after original creators have stopped writing a popular series.

The Kindle Worlds site provides a quality assurance process that protects authors, and an easy review process that helps readers find the best of the bunch. I was nervous when my Lei Crime Kindle World launched in April 2015, wondering if readers would be willing to try new works by others using my characters—but I needn’t have worried. The Lei Crime Kindle World novellas, varying in genre from mystery to magical realism, have become some of the top-rated works in Kindle Worlds. It’s been a blast to read the expansion of colorful minor characters (as well as my main ones) into stories that I would never have imagined or had time to write.

What’s GOOD about writing for a KindleWorld?

KindleWorlds is an opportunity to show your stuff and hook an established reader base. This is an excellent reason to try writing a story or novella in Kindle Worlds—you have a chance to attract an established reader base to take a look at your back list! The back matter of your KindleWorld book can be linked to your other books, email list, and more, and if readers like it, they’ll follow you. Mystery/romance author ML (Mary) Doyle says, “Readers who liked my Kindle World novella went on to buy my entire mystery line, and even try my romances.”

Read the full post on How-To For Authors

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The Weird World of Fan Fiction

January 3, 2016December 3, 2014 by Publetariat

This article by Alexandra Alter originally appeared on The Wall Street Journal on 6/14/12.

What if Edward Cullen, the moody vampire heartthrob in Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling “Twilight” series, was an undercover cop? Or a baker who specializes in bachelor-party cakes? Or a kidnapper who takes Bella hostage?

It may sound like heresy to some “Twilight” fans. But those stories, published online, have thousands of dedicated readers. They were written by Randi Flanagan, a 35-year-old sales manager for a trade publishing company in Toronto.

Ms. Flanagan writes fan fiction—amateur works based on the characters and settings from novels, movies, television shows, plays, videogames or pop songs. Such stories, which take place in fictional worlds created by professional writers, are flourishing online and attracting millions of readers.

Ms. Flanagan started writing her own takes on “Twilight” three years ago, after devouring Ms. Meyer’s vampire books. She has since written 15 stories, including some that are as long as novels. In the process, she has gained groupies of her own. Some 1,500 readers subscribe to her account on fanfiction.net.

“A lot of people don’t understand why I would devote time to this,” says Ms. Flanagan, who writes at night after her young son goes to bed. “It’s just fun.”

Fan fiction has long existed under the radar in a sort of shadowy digital parallel universe. But the form has been bubbling up to the surface lately, as a growing number of fan writers break into the mainstream.

Read the full article on The Wall Street Journal.

10 Things You Need To Know About Publishing FanFic on Amazon

January 3, 2016June 1, 2014 by Publetariat

This post by Tara Maya originally appeared on her Tara Maya’s Tales site on 6/27/13.

Amazon is rocking the publishing world once again with a brand new kind of publishing: legal fan fic. Okay, there have been licensed novels before… Star Trek novels, Star Wars novels, movie novelizations… but this is far more accessible.

It’s called Kindle Worlds. Right now, there are only about twelve Worlds available to write in. Some biggies, like Harry Potter and Twilight, are not on the list. A few are television worlds, a few are author’s own worlds (such as Wool).

However, before you break out dancing and toss your Snape and Legolas slash romance/adventure into the ring, there are a few things you need to know about publishing fan fiction with Amazon.

1. This is not self-publishing, as with KDP.

Amazon’s self-publishing platform, KDP, allows authors to keep all rights to their own works. Amazon takes a cut of the royalties as a distributor, but Amazon is not the publisher. With Kindle Worlds, “All works accepted for Kindle Worlds will be published by Amazon Publishing.”

That said, this doesn’t seem intended to be as exclusive as the Singles program. Amazon wants your content, as long as it’s not something they will be sued over.

2. The steps seem pretty easy.

Click here to read the full post on Tara Maya’s Tales.

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