The estimated reading time for this post is 3 minutes
Are you a fan of fiction? If you:
- can’t get enough of your favorite stories,
- have ideas for future story lines based on your favorite stories,
- have always wanted to be a fiction writer,
- want to earn money for your passion, and/or
- enjoy fan fiction,
check out Kindle Worlds.
What Is Kindle Worlds
Kindle Worlds is a hub for fan fiction. Fan fiction is just as it sounds: fiction from fans who want to write for their favorite characters so they write stories surrounding their favorite dramas that they share with other fans. Kindle Worlds is “the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so,” according to Amazon.
Amazon recently purchased the fan fiction rights from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries; Valiant Entertainment for Archer & Armstrong, Bloodshot, Harbinger, Shadowman, and X-O Manowar; Hugh Howey’s Silo Saga; Barry Eisler’s John Rain novels; Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines series; and The Foreworld Saga by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Eric Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, and Cooper Moo. Licenses for more Worlds are planned.
This means that fans who write stories for these dramas can sell their stories in Kindle Worlds and receive royalties of up to 35% of the sales of their stories. People who want can’t get enough of their favorite stories now have a source for more stories so they can continue to follow drama surrounding their characters. Win/win.
Here’s a video from Amazon introducing Kindle Worlds:
http://youtu.be/YKVEKwc0kJg
Reading Kindle Worlds Stories
You can visit the Kindle Worlds store to browse through your favorite topics. You can search by genre, story, publication date, customer reviews and price. You can also check out the best sellers on Kindle Worlds.
Stories range in price from $0.99 to $3.99 and in length from a couple dozen to over a hundred pages.
As with other Kindle selections, you can read reviews to try to judge the quality of the content before you buy. Kindle Worlds is still quite new so the story selection isn’t yet massive. But the store is off to a strong start, many of the stories have four and five star reviews from fellow fans.
Writing for Kindle Worlds
If you’re interested in writing for Kindle Worlds, go to Amazon’s Kindle Worlds How To page to find out how to submit your story to Amazon. Make sure to read the author’s agreement and content guidelines before you begin writing to increase the chances that your submission will be accepted.
Kindle Worlds has a tool to help you design the cover for your story, including free images, or you can use your own image. You can see how your cover design looks on the different Kindle platforms, such as Kindle ereaders, Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, Android, etc. Find out more about creating your Kindle Worlds cover from Amazon.
If your story is accepted by Amazon, you’ll receive royalties of up to 35% on the sales of your story.
Bottom Line
Whether you’re a fan of writing or a fan of stories, check out Kindle Worlds. If you get discovered through Kindle Worlds and become a famous writer, be sure to stop back by The Wonder of Tech and let us know!
If you have a favorite story you would like Amazon to license for Kindle Worlds, be sure to let them know in the Kindle Worlds forum.
Have you ever read or written fan fiction? Are you a fan of the Kindle Worlds licensed stories? What stories would you like to see licensed by Kindle Worlds? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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Carolyn is away from The Wonder of Tech on vacation, busy reading Kindle stories and will respond to comments when she returns. Articles will continued to be published while she is a away so be sure to check back soon for more Wonder of Tech!
Wow more & more “worlds” are being added. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as people have strong feelings for and against it.
Hi Tasha, Excellent point. Some people are against Fan Fiction to begin with, while other people can’t get enough of it. This program gives legitimacy to the genre and compensates the authors for their work.
You’re right, it will be very interesting to see how this develops!
Hi Carolyn
This looks cool. They have something similar in China. They write long online novels in China and add chapters each day for millions of readers and make money.
I have interesting pictures this week!
Hi Mike, Very cool that they have something similar in China.
I am a bit behind in responding to comments and visiting blogs, but I will be over soon!
Really interested in which site in China you refer to.
Hi Johan, I don’t know which site in China Mike is referring to but I will try to find out. We have a student from China living with us now so she might be able to help me research this if Mike doesn’t provide the link to the site.
Any writer can sell his work through kindle words? this is something cool …but the royalty margin of 35% is too low ..considering that the efforts in the book are solely of the writer ..the margin should have been at-least 60-70% ..Anyways , Amazon has done what right for them ..thanks for sharing the information Carolyn .
Hi Pramod, The royalty percentage is only for the authors of fan fiction through Kindle Worlds. And the efforts aren’t only those of the author, but also of the original copyright owners who created characters, plot lines and settings. Since these are derivative works, they are in a special program with unique royalty compensation.
The good news is that Kindle Worlds is the only place for authors of Fan Fiction to be compensated for their works!
“”Writing for Kindle Worlds “” Thank You for your Info but 35% is too low as per my view . one of my fried in interested in writing and i search for online and got this . lets me inform him
Hi Ashvin, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, the royalty for Kindle Worlds is smaller than the regular royalty rate, but it’s better than 0%, which is what authors receive for writing fan fiction outside of Kindle Worlds.
Hey Carolyn,
My sister just wrote a Vampire Diaries story for Kindle Worlds, and I wrote up a post about it (link in the CommentLuv).
To me it’s a great idea for the IP holder, they can bring some of these unauthorized stories into the fold and make money off of it, even while not acknowledging it as series canon.
The pricing is set automatically based on page length, so we had no say in that. You can’t use the photos of the actors on your cover. I can understand that, but when I asked them if I could draw the actors, no one seemed to know the answer.
I erred on the side of caution when I created my cover. Even though you have to use their cover creator, you can still upload your own image within it, just make sure nothing important is covered up by the huge “Kindle Worlds” logo they slap on the bottom left.
As with anything, you still have to hustle to be seen. Usually if you fire off a tweet to @kindleworlds saying thanks and putting in your link they might retweet it to their followers.
Personally, I think any money you can get from legally selling your fan-fiction is gravy, seeing as how you could get exactly zero before.
Hi John, That is so very cool that your sister wrote Fan Fiction for Kindle Worlds! I agree, it’s a great program, certainly one that benefits many people, including the authors, readers and original copyright holders, not to mention Amazon!
That’s a very cool story about the cover creation. Since the program is new, you probably were the first to ask about a drawing of the actors on the cover. I will definitely be headed over to your place and check out your sister’s Kindle Worlds creation. :-bd
The idea is promising enough to give it a shot…but it would be much more nicer if the Amazon can come up with a little bit more flexible with the royalty percentage….Thanks for sharing Carolyn…..
Hi Aditya, Yes, this royalty percentage is only for Kindle Worlds, not for Kindle ebooks. For Kindle Worlds, the copyright owners of the original story and characters need to receive royalties too. Right now, Kindle Worlds is the only way to receive royalties legally for the authors of Fan Fiction so Amazon’s deal is a good one for those authors.
Wow, this is something new? I’ll introduce this to my cousin who loves to write and maybe she might get intrigued. Thanks for letting me know Carolyn.
Hi Manny, Yes, Kindle Worlds is new, just launched in June. But the initial success is very promising so I expect that the story offerings will continue to expand.
I’m a huge fan of Amazon, I love their campaigns and their products and Kindle is a top quality gadget. But I don’t have it. Well, I’ve got a tablet that I use to read books, so it’s like having a Kindle.
But I hope to save enough to buy a Kindle Fire HD in the future. Wonderful gadget 🙂
Hi Jake, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m a big fan of Amazon and Kindle too. It’s exciting to see how they are expanding their content offerings and giving writers the opportunity to earn money from their work.
But you don’t need a Kindle to read or write for Kindle Worlds! That’s one of the reasons I like Kindle so much.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here, Jake!
I haven’t read any fan fiction yet, but I am fascinated by it. There are so many creative people out there. It would be awesome to read a new story based on some of the books or TV-shows that I really enjoy reading/watching.
Thanks a lot for reminding me Carolyn. I’ll be visiting Kindle Worlds later today, to see if there are any interesting short stories.
Hi Jens, Yes, Kindle Worlds is very exciting and has loads of potential. It’s off to a great start and they continue to add storie lines for fans. Showtime Channel just cancelled a series called The Borgias and I would love to see that included in Kindle Worlds so the story can be finished. As a fiction writer you might be inspired by Kindle Worlds, Jens!
Hi Craolyn, it was great news. All those people with a zest to write stories have a great opportunity at their disposal. I am sure it will benefit a lot of people. Thanks for sharing such a huge opportunity.
Hello Jack, You’re right, this is a great opportunity for both fiction writers and readers. I’m so glad you enjoyed this article!