Amazon Wants You To Make Money With Your Fan Fiction

If you write fan fiction about the TV shows "Gossip Girl," "Pretty Little Liars" and "The Vampire Diaries," then Amazon has good news for you.

Amazon has just announced a new publishing service called Kindle Worlds that allows authors of fan fiction to make money by writing about their favorite characters. There are two caveats in the plan: you can only sign up for the service if the copyright owners have agreed to license their characters and you are not allowed to mash together characters from multiple properties.

The first company to sign onto Kindle Worlds is Alloy Entertainment, which controls "Gossip Girl," "Pretty Little Liars" and "The Vampire Diaries." Amazon says other deals are expected to be announced in coming weeks.

Kindle Worlds will select the price for the fan fiction offerings, generally between 99 cents and $3.99. For works of at least 10,000 words, authors will receive 35% of net revenue. As is the case with all Amazon Publishing titles, net revenue will be based off of sales price, not the lower industry standard of wholesale price. Royalties will be paid to the authors monthly and content holders will receive an unspecified percentage of the revenues.

Amazon will also experiment with a pilot program for shorter works of between 5,000 and 10,000 words. These short stories will typically be priced under a dollar and will pay authors a 20% digital royalty.

For more information, check out www.amazon.com/kindleworlds