Amazon's Foray Into Shared Worlds: Not All That Different

There's been a lot of "oh my, the world is ending" about Amazon's foray into shared world fiction, which is being launched as Kindle Worlds in June.

In it, through licensed agreement with the original copyright holders, writers can set a story in another's world, such as Vampire Diaries, and receive payment for that story whenever someone downloads it.

After that, however, the ideas, the characters, the plot twists, belong to everyone who writes in that world -- not the original author.

The original author can still, however, continue with those ideas in the shared world and receive payment for any downloaded material that they actually write.

It is, as far as I can tell, the same type of copyright control already exercised by the publishers of Star Trek novels, Star Wars novels, or any "officially sanctioned" fiction set in various other shared worlds.  It is certainly similar to the type of contracts writers receive for superhero fiction from the big houses like DC or Marvel.

This type of work always has been a hybrid beast, with writers earning either royalties or flat fees -- or a combination of both -- but relinquishing control over their creations.  If you come up with the coolest villain ever to cross webs with Spiderman, you never owned that villain. Marvel did and always does.

However, if you wrote for Marvel, DC, LucasArts, etc., you did have long, long, and very detailed contract that guaranteed you payment. And, hopefully, an ongoing relationship with the copyright holder of those properties.

The caveat with Amazon Worlds, and it's one that giving fits to professional writers who depend on shared world income, is that you're not guaranteed payment. You can write about Vampire Diaries, but you won't be paid unless those stories sell.  Also, you're not doing the back-and-forth with the holder of that copyright that most shared world authors do with the editors and publishers of these works in large houses. So you're not building a relationship with them. John Scalzi, the outgoing president of Science Fiction Writers of America, does his usual good breakdown on why this is a better deal for the copyright holder than the writer.

However you may be building a relationship with readers of this type of work that can translate into sales in other areas.  Which is why some writers are giving this a serious look.

Am I interested in writing stories set in the world of Vampire Diaries? Not particularly.

But I'm interested enough to see how this develops to sign up for Amazon's newsletter about this project.

Thanks for all the critters and the inspiration, Ray!

I once stood in line for nearly an hour in the pouring rain, without an umbrella, for a chance to hear Ray Harryhausen speak and watch a big screen presentation of Jason And The Argonauts at the Seattle International Film Festival.

My mother, being the sweetheart that she is about my geeky passions, also waited in the rain with me. We still remember sitting in the theater damp, cold, and clutching hot drinks (this would be May in Seattle, by the way).

Then Harryhausen took the stage and, for me, all the discomforts went away as he talked about a long career of creating creatures. Toward the end of that talk, he pulled out a shoebox from under his chair and displayed the tiny skeleton that his "magic" made a life-sized opponent for Jason.

I grew up in the era when Harryhausen's movies were the weird stuff you found in the early afternoons or late at night on television. I didn't get to see his amazing creatures the way that they should be seen -- full size on a big movie screen with a bucket of popcorn -- until years later when he was "rediscovered" by fans of the fantastic.

But as somebody who keeps finding walking skeletons popping up in her fiction, I guess Ray and his critters are stuck somewhere in my brain in the drawer marked: "fun, cool, and incredibly nifty."

If you haven't seen any of his movies, watch one soon. Enjoy!

Awakened arrives on Kickstarter

Last fall, I was delighted to be invited into a new shared world created by Hal Greenberg. Along with a number of favorite fantasy authors, Hal asked me to create a story about a character who awakens with a strange new magic.

As people spoke up for the part of the world that they wanted to explore...and the consequences of the magic found there...I noticed most of the tales ventured far into the countryside, taking their heroes downright dangerously out in the wild.

So this city mouse wrote to Hal and asked if she could set her story some place with walls, streets, houses, and a bunch of humanity and other creatures jammed up together. Hal responded by sending me his description of a splendid city.

So, because I'm pretty much the opposite of "epic" when it comes to writing fantasy, I explored one house and particularly one rooftop with a girl named Birdie.

The inspiration for BIRDIE came from a variety of places, including my avian neighbors who fill the rooftops and chestnuts trees outside my apartment window. Also an early encounter with the song "Feed The Birds" -- a melody I have considered both haunting and vaguely threatening since kindergarten.

Dark Quest, a nifty publisher of fantastical fiction of all types (including my friend Phoebe's great vampire series), is committed to producing the book. But if you want a fancy, hardbound, signed-by-everyone edition, you have to Kickstart some cash their way.

Aphra, the model Adventurer

"A poet is a painter in his way, he draws to the life, but in another kind; we draw the nobler part, the soul and the mind; the pictures of the pen shall outlast those of the pencil, and even worlds themselves." - Aphra Behn

If you've never encountered Aphra, 17th century poet, playwright, and spy, take a moment now to dip her a curtsey (or make a bow) and be sure to wave a quill pen in the direction of her shade. As enchanting a character as ever waltzed out of the Restoration, Aphra wrote for the stage in a time when women were barely allowed to act upon it.

Like far more women than history books like to credit, she also traveled extensively, wandering about without much "male" protection that ladies were supposed to need -- although she may have suited up as a cavalier herself.  >

Aphra pops up in a number of novels and plays. One of my personal favorites is Or, (the comma is an important part of the title). It's a delightful comedy about the creative mind as well as funny a farce with slamming doors and people hiding hither and yon. If it plays in a town near you, do go and enjoy it.

If you're looking for a woman to serve as a model for a swashbuckling adventure, you cannot do better than Aphra.

All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." - Virginia Woolf

This engraving of Aphra is based on a portrait by Mary Beale, who supported her family by painting portraits (one area that women were "allowed" to work in the arts). I rather like Aprha's look here -- there's something very determined about it.

I always enjoy reading about woman swashbucklers and enjoy writing such characters too. The heroine of Cold Steel & Secrets was inspired by a number of real female rebels and spies, including Aphra.

Striding forth with Nellie

"Accept praise for its worth: politeness. Be brutally frank with yourself. It's safer. "
Nellie Bly (1864 - 1922) 

Have you met Nellie? She's not a fictional character, but a true adventurer who landed herself a newspaper job in New York at a time when women were regularly subjected to bombastic criticism for working outside the home (also denied the right to vote and a few other injustices too).

As shown here, she beat the fictional round-the-world record of Phileas Fogg as a "stunt" for New York World -- yes, the paper owned by Joseph Pulitzer (for you Newsies fans).

This picture comes form a series of trading cards devoted to her journey. I picked up a slightly different version of this one fairly recently. It sits on my desk, a reminder that anyone, even a slight young lady from Pittsburgh, can accomplish great things. But, as Nellie observed, we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously either.

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Nellie served as an inspiration for Lizzie, the heroine of "Wrecker of Engines." You can read Lizzie's story in Cobalt City Rookies.