Amazon on Thursday unveiled its Kindle Worlds Store and fan-fiction submission platform after teasing the service about a month ago. The new store offers a variety of fan-fiction based on popular franchises like The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars. The titles are priced between $0.99 and $3.99 and are Kindle exclusives.
While the Kindle Worlds store is unique in that it will only sell original work based on established canons and characters, the platform is perhaps even more noteworthy in that it is open to the public. Anyone can publish "authorized stories" on the site and Amazon will even pay you a royalty of up to 35 percent.
"Today, we launch the Kindle Worlds Store and the platform that will enable any writer to benefit from writing in one of the Worlds we've licensed," said Philip Patrick, director of business development and publisher of Kindle Worlds. "We look forward to hearing feedback from readers and writers, and hope to learn and improve as time goes on."
There are already more than 50 titles available through the Kindle Worlds store and Amazon hopes that the public unveiling of the new service will serve as a call to writers to join the platform. Reception from early adopters has so far been generally warm.
"I was intrigued by the opportunity to create something that absolutely had to fall inside a canon that someone else came up with. In one way, it was very freeing to do so. Because the universe itself exists, with all the richness of an already established background and history, I could get right into the meat of the story without having to explain everything to the readers," said L.J. McDonald, a writer in The Vampire Diaries. "I did try to make it understandable and enjoyable to a newcomer to the world, however. But there's a lot I worked to add that will hopefully tickle the fancy of the fans."
Amazon already has licensing deals in place with Warner Bros. Television Group and comic house Valiant Entertainment, among others. The company said additional licensing agreement would be announced in the near future.
