Kindle Worlds

Kindle Worlds was an Amazon publishing service that was the subject of controversy in fanfic fandom when it was launched in 2013. The service was shut down in 2018., The Digital Reader, 15 May 2018.
==Overview==
In May 2013, Amazon announced:
Many fans promptly reacted negatively and with great skepticism, often comparing this enterprise with Fanlib, another for-profit outsider enterprise riding on the backs of fans. They chaffed at the legal constrictions, the literary constrictions "Fan authors were restricted to specfic media properties, and within those properties, further boundaries applied. For example, stories set in the world of Veronica Mars are required to fall within the timeline of the original series, which covered, in more or less real time, 2005-2007, and depicted Veronica’s last two years of high school and her first year of college. Speculation regarding the characters following the time of the series, including Veronica’s once-planned internship with the FBI and subsequent career, is not allowed. Other strictures applied to all Kindle Worlds stories relate to adult material, copyright-infringing content, and crossovers from other franchises." -- Authorizing Authorship: Fan Writers and Resistance to Public Reading, Cait Coker, Candace Benefiel, 2016 , the lack of community, and the general feeling of being corralled into a controlled environment, something that for many fans, was the antithesis of writing fanfic. 
A number of posts in professional and non-professional outlets described Kindle Worlds as crowdsourced media tie-ins.Malinda Lo. Amazon Tries to Monetize Fan Fiction; I Freak Out, Huffington Post, 22 May 2013.Inkstone. the first post after I come back from vacation and it's about this. god, why., posted to Dreamwidth 22 May 2013. Elfwreck commented that use of the term "fan fiction" was a red herring intended to generate more publicity.comment thread in flourish's dreamwidth post. 23 May 2013
 
See also: Filing Off The Serial Numbers
==Rules and Restrictions==
The Kindle Worlds features that concern fanfiction writers include:
* Amazon exclusivity, possibly with DRM.
* Amazon sets the price (probably based on word count)
* No "pornography," which is not defined
* No "offensive content," said to include racial slurs and graphic violence but otherwise not defined
* Amazon acquires global publication rights for the length of copyright
* While the author retains copyright of original characters, settings, etc., they are licensed for use by other Kindle World's authors, and the original copyright holder may use those elements with no further payment to the (fan) author.
==Licensed Fandoms==
Wanted | The Phoenix Agency | One True Mate | Corps Security in Hope Town | The Krinar Chronicles | First Street Church Romances | Memories with The Breakfast Club | Brotherhood Protectors | Imperfect Love | Paranormal Dating Agency | Fallen Empire | The Runes Universe | Wild Irish | Infidelity | Sex, Vows, & Babies | Dane Maddock | Vampire Girl | Crimson Worlds | Plain Fame | Plundered Chronicles | Extinction Cycle | Dallas Fire & Rescue | Sassy Ever After | Legacy Fleet | Hell Yeah! | Club Prive | The Drazen World | Special Forces: Operation Alpha | Laguna Beach | Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mysteries | Magic and Mayhem | Lone Star Burn | Sapphire Falls | Magic, New Mexico | Melody Anne's Billionaire Universe | Blame it on Texas | Barefoot Bay | Grayslake: More than Mated | Sydney Rye | The Omega Team | Montana Sky | Southern Roads | Hope Falls | The Royals of Monterra | World of de Wolfe Pack | Doublesight | Southern Shifters | Hot SEALs | JET | Muirwood | Shadow Ops | Vampire for Hire | The Remingtons | Codename: Chandler | The Lei Crime Series | The 100 | Jack Daniels and Associates | The Perseid Collapse Series | Dare To Love Series | Body Movers | St. Helena Vineyard Series | The Chronos Files | The Miss Fortune Series | The Kathleen Turner Series | Atlantis: The Origin Mystery | Sand Saga | The Arrangement | Game For Love | Four Weddings and a Fiasco | The Callaways | John Rain | Wayward Pines | Silo Saga | The Lizzy Gardner Files | The Abnorm Chronicles | The Dead Man | Veronica Mars | The Vampire Diaries | The World of Kurt Vonnegut | Pretty Little Liars | G.I. JOE | Gossip Girl | Harbinger | The Foreworld Saga | UNITY | Bloodshot | Archer & Armstrong | X-O Manowar | Shadowman | Ravenswood | Eternal Warrior | Quantum and Woody
==Some Responses from Fandom==
===Analysis===
flourish writes: 
rivkat writes: 
===Scorn===
Sunny Moraine writes: 
esteefee writes: 
liviapenn writes: 
===Ambivalence===
seperis writes: 
morgan dawn writes: 
==Some Responses from the Fan Community==
===May 22, 2013===
[sakana17]: 
[hesychasm]: 
[snacky]: 
[?]: 
[Rivkat]: 
[kiranaa]: 
[dsrtao]: 
[phoenix rising]: 
[mazarin221b ]: 
[sesperis]: 
===May 23, 2013===
[sophia helix]: 
[livia penn]: 
===May 24, 2013===
[mithen]: 
[bk03]: 
[Bradygirl 12]: 
[me ya ri]: 
[navaan]: 
[dragonbat2006]: 
[mithen]: 
===May 27, 2013===
[crooked halo]: 
===2013, Unknown Day===
[missl0nelyhearts]: 
==Some Responses from the Pro Community==
Some pro authors have said the restrictions are not notably different from those normally expected from work-for-hire writing assignments. Others have noted that the restrictions are not dissimilar from how licensed tie-in novels already work, and that this development may pose a greater threat to those who write and publish licensed tie-ins than to fandom per se. John Scalzi points out: 
Racheline Maltese asks: 
An author who had been commissioned to write something for Kindle Worlds' initial launch shared her experience: 
John Scalzi writes: 
Seanan McGuire writes: 
==Further Reading==
* Kleefeld's Fanthropology #11: Kindle Worlds And Professional(?) Fanfic by Sean Kleefeld (May 2013)
 
* OTW Fan News Kindle Worlds Edition by the OTW (May 26, 2013)
* AV Club by AV Club (May 22, 2013)
*Amazon Unlocks The Value Of Fan Fiction With 'Kindle Worlds' by Forbes.com (May 22, 2013)
* Will Kindle Worlds Commodify Fan Fiction? by Elizabeth Minkel (June 9, 2013)
* Amazon sets up system to trade on fan fiction: Kindle Worlds' setup lets everyone win: fanficcers, authors, and Amazon. by arstechnica (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon Legitimizes Fan-Fiction for Profit: Amazon Debuts ‘Kindle Worlds,’ Where Your Gossip Girl Fan Fiction Can Earn You Cash by Oh No They Didn't (May 22, 2013)
 
* Pack(ag)ing It Up by gwendabond (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon tries to monetize fan fiction; I freak out by malindalo (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon brings disintermediation to the tie-in industry by Tobias Buckell (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon’s Kindle Worlds: Instant Thoughts by John Scalzi (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon Jumps Into the Fanfic Business by Jim C. Hines (May 22, 2013)
* All Your Fanfiction Belong To Us: What The Fuck Is Kindle Worlds? by terrible minds (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon’s Launching A Program To Sell Fanfic. Yeah, You Read That Right. by The Mary Sue (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon introduces 'Kindle Worlds' for … selling fanfiction? (May 22, 2013)
* Amazon allows (v. limited) fanfic as kindlebooks by elf (May 22, 2013) 
* It's Kindle Worlds, We're Just Living In It?, by Legally Heidi (May 22, 2013)
* News: kindle/amazon license deal allowing you to sell your fan fiction. (links) by Morgan Dawn (May 22, 2013) 
* News: kindle/amazon license deal allowing you to sell your fan fiction. by cymbalism (May 22, 2013) 
* Kindle Worlds reaction post by dragonfly (May 22, 2013) 
* Oh, Amazon. Kindle Worlds = FanLib, right? by havocthecat (May 22, 2013) 
* Amazon announces publishing platform for licensed fanfic by unjapanologist (May 22, 2013) 
* Amazon announces publishing platform for licensed fanfic by Fan Hackers (May 22, 2013) 
* Another corporate attempt to corral and profit from fanfic? by ithilana (May 22, 2013) 
* In which I have thoughts on Amazon trying to monetize fanfic (shocking, I know) by selenay (May 22, 2013) 
* Another way of looking at the Amazon Worlds thing by dafna (May 22, 2013) 
* The problem with Amazon's new fanfiction platform, Kindle Worlds by The Daily Dot (May 22, 2013) 
* Amazon Rewrites the Rules of Fan Fiction by WSJ (May 22, 2013) 
* Kindle Worlds = Worlds Burning? by forbeck (May 22, 2013) 
* Kindle Worlds would like to pay you for your Emaya and Paily fan fiction by afterellen (May 22, 2013)
*Fan fiction is in a different universe to Kindle Worlds by Mathilda Gregory in The Guardian (May 23, 2013)
*Amazon to monetize fan fiction, he moaned by Dustin Kurtz at mhpbooks.com (May 23, 2013)
*Kindle Worlds: Do fan fiction writers want to make money? by the BBC (May 28, 2013)
*Write or wrong: Will Amazon’s Kindle Worlds help or hinder fan fiction? by Ross McGuiness for Metro (May 30, 2013
*How Kindle Worlds aims to colonise fan fiction by James Bridle at The Observer (June 2, 2013)
*How Amazon's commercial fan fiction misses the point by Adi Robertson at The Verge (June 4, 2013)
*OTW Fannews: Pushback on Kindle Worlds by the OTW (June 8, 2013)
* by Keirdra for The Learned Fangirl (August 11, 2013)
*All of This Has Happened before and All of This Will Happen Again: Innovation in Copyright Licensing by Rebecca Tushnet, Georgetown University Law Center (2014)
*Writing for Kindle Worlds – the Good and the Ugly : Toby Neal at selfpublishingadvice.com (May 14, 2016)
*Amazon to Shut Down Kindle Worlds by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader (May 15, 2018)
* Authors describe losing thousands of dollars in monthly income when Amazon quietly shut down its fan-fiction service — and how they bounced back by Travis Clark (Business Insider) (January 15, 2020)
==References==
Category:Organizations & Corporations
Category:Industry