Write or wrong: Will Amazon’s Kindle Worlds help or hinder fan fiction?

Eeverybody has a book in them. Everybody has a story they want to tell. But does it matter if the characters in their story are the same as those chosen by everybody else?

Amazon, for one, doesn’t seem to mind. Last week, it announced the imminent launch of Kindle Worlds, a platform where writers of fan fiction can combine their literary love of particular books and TV shows with the capacity to make money.

Beginning in the US next month, Amazon will give amateur authors 35 per cent royalties from sales of their work made digitally available on the internet giant’s website and on its Kindle devices.

Fan fiction is made up of stories inspired by books, television, cinema, music and video games, written by those who love them and featuring already established characters and celebrities. There are millions of fanfic stories online and Amazon is keen to get a slice of the action, not least because it might find the odd diamond in the rough.

Publishing phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey, written by British author EL James, started out as a piece of fan fiction featuring the main characters from the Twilight books.

And with millions of online readers devouring a mountain of unofficial stories starring Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, Harry Potter and even the members of boyband One Direction, it appears to be a market that can no longer be ignored.

Kindle Worlds will start by seeking stories based on three book/TV series crossovers – Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars, all secured through a deal with Warner Bros’ book-packaging division, Alloy Entertainment. Amazon said more licenses will follow.

But there are concerns over what the deal means for fan fiction and those who write it, amid rumblings that they are selling out their fellow amateurs by signing up to Amazon, which, in turn, is being accused of taking advantage of writers’ desire to self-publish.

While fanfic authors will see a percentage of the revenue – albeit half of what Kindle authors would normally receive – Amazon will retain the publication rights. It has also placed tight controls on content: the stories must steer clear of sex, something which has a habit of making its way into fan fiction writing.

‘There would be a considerable loss of autonomy,’ said poet and novelist Sheenagh Pugh, author of The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context.

‘There’s a financial benefit to the writers, minor, but not – if we’re being honest – much less minor than the profits from your average novel, which does not make Harry Potter-like profits nor anything like it.’

The ban on sex and violence means a repeat of the Fifty Shades effect is more unlikely.

‘If the mega-success of that book was what has inspired this move, one does wonder if the source producers and Amazon have thought it through,’ said Pugh.

With such restrictions in place, she is concerned the content could be sanitised.

‘It is fanfic’s slant view on the material that often makes it new and interesting. It evolved in the first place because fans so often felt that source producers did not fully understand or appreciate the possibilities of their own source material.’

However, fan fiction’s penchant for thrusting well-known characters into strange situations has made it a subject of much ire in literary circles.

‘Fans are not professional writers,’ said Scottish novelist Ewan Morrison, author of Swung and Close Your Eyes.

‘They don’t know about story structure and they don’t know about characters, so they have like Darth Vader meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s really poor content.

‘It’s fine if it’s free – that’s just fans doing what they do – but once it starts to be monetised it’s a major copyright problem for everyone and very hard to police.’

Morrison is sceptical of Amazon’s move into fan fiction.

‘This is just another way of Amazon legitimising more amateur content to exploit naïve wannabe writers who think they can make a fast buck,’ he said.

‘Amazon doesn’t really care how it makes money. It can sell a million pieces of crap to a million individuals rather than selling stuff of quality – it doesn’t make any difference, it makes its own commission. Publishers have quality filters, Amazon doesn’t.’

He added: ‘We’re seeing already the effect that fan fiction and mashups are having on culture. We’re getting these ridiculous hybrids already starting to infiltrate the mainstream – very poor quality stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Cowboys & Aliens. It’s just diluting the meaning of cultural creation – no one’s really creating anything new.’

Pugh accepts that not all fan fiction is blisteringly well written, but insists this is true of any genre.

She said: ‘Most of the misconceptions come from those who’ve only ever read FanFiction.net and think it’s all as dire as some of what’s on there, or haven’t read any and think it must be dire because it isn’t “original”.

‘Funnily enough, these folk never seem to mind that Shakespeare nicked all his plots and many of his characters from other writers, nor do they condemn Jean Rhys for writing a prequel to Jane Eyre (Wide Sargasso Sea), or blame George Macdonald Fraser for appropriating Thomas Hughes’ character Flashman from Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

‘But it’s no different, except that Brontë and Hughes are out of copyright. What’s real literary work anyway? Jeffrey Archer, Dan Brown? I know plenty of fan fiction writers better than them.’

One of the biggest sources of online fan fiction is Canada-based reading and writing community Wattpad.com, which has 4.7m stories based on events and characters from books and TV.

Tastes may be changing – Justin Bieber and The Hunger Games have made way for One Direction and Star Trek in the past year or so – but demand remains high – fanfic story uploads to the site have increased by 60 per cent from 2012 to 2013, and this year is only five months old.

‘We see fan fiction as a truly social endeavour,’ said Candice Faktor, Wattpad’s general manager.

‘Fans write stories together, comment on each other’s work, vote, ask for and offer immediate feedback.

‘It’s about self-expression and celebrating a shared fandom. I don’t believe the majority of fan fiction writers are motivated by money. It’s about a deep love of their fandoms.’

She welcomed Amazon’s decision, saying: ‘It expands the pie.’ However, she questioned if Kindle Worlds would have a major impact, given that most fan fiction is ‘written for love, not money’.

The other issue is control – Pugh suspects that better writers will opt out to preserve theirs, particularly as Amazon would take ownership of their ideas.

‘I don’t think the best of fic will find its way on to Kindle Worlds,’ she said. ‘If the standard does prove to be low, that in itself will put off writers who care about their work, in the same way that they often won’t put their work on the FanFiction.net website because of its reputation for hosting acres of rubbish.’

For Morrison, would-be writers should hone their skills elsewhere.

‘Study what make the characters you love work and try to create new characters and new stories,’ he advised.

‘Try to create. Our culture needs the creation of new things. We don’t need just to be endlessly reprocessing things that have already been done.’