Amazon is preparing to launch Kindle Worlds. This is a new platform that will allow anyone to submit novels, novellas, and short stories inspired by the properties they’ve licensed.
If you’re thinking, “hey, that kind of sounds like fanfiction, doesn’t it?” then you’d be right. Amazon has now found a way to monetize fanfiction.
Of course, not all properties will be licensed. To date, Amazon’s Kindle Worlds page mentioned that they’ve secured the rights to Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment shows Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries. It remains to be seen whether or not you’ll actually get the chance to dust off that Batman story you have posted up at fanfiction.net and be able to publish it.
Now, some people will understandably be skeptical about this. After all, just what exactly are we looking at here? Well, according to the Kindle Worlds’ site, Amazon will set the prices of all works from $0.99-3.99. The standard royalty for these works is 35% for 10,000 words or more and 20% for works between 5,000-10,000 words. Amazon gets the global publication rights to your story, but you retain the copyright to original, copyrightable elements, such as characters and scenes, that you create (but you also grant Amazon a license to them, so other creators can build upon your work).
That’s…actually not a bad deal at all. 35% royalties sounds like a pretty decent cut. While you don’t retain the publication rights to the story, that’s also pretty much standard for work-for-hire contracts. So even if you got accepted to write something for Warner Bros., there’s no guarantee you’d get a better deal.
The platform will launch next month and Amazon is in the process of trying to secure other licenses. If this takes off, it could mean a chance for independent authors to get wider exposure by giving them a chance to work on some big-name properties.
When I started writing, it was fanfiction. I found it to be a great way to hone my skills and develop my writing style. Hopefully, Warner Bros. will allow their DC Comics’ properties to be used. Because I’ve got a Superman story I’ve had sitting around for a long time that I’d love to polish off and send their way.
“If this gets opened up to DC properties, things could get interesting.” 100% agreed. It’s going out of left field here, but look at what being a 7th place loser on American Idol did for Jennifer Hudson’s career. She won an Oscar. Any entertainment company that offers aspiring talent a chance to show off their skills is going to inadvertently create a few superstars in the process of exploiting their work. Ed Brubaker created the Winter Soldier and he gets zero $$$ for Marvel Studios use of both the story and the character in Captain America 2. But he walks out of that situation having made a very big name for himself that opens all kinds of doors for him to create properties he owns 100% and doesn’t have to share with anybody.