Amazon just announced a new its brand spanking new publishing platform called Kindle Worlds. With this service YOU can write fan fiction about some of your favorite characters – ones you didn’t create, but you feel deserve a great new story or adventure.
With Kindle Worlds you are able to create new novels, novellas and short stories that are inspired by your favorite books, movies, comics, TV shows and even music.
But I’m sure you’re wondering how all of this is possible? We can’t just use characters created by other people….can we? Well, typically no. However Amazon has secured licensing for YOU to use the characters (aren’t they just fab?). Each licensor will provide guidelines for you to use their “worlds” and you gotta follow those guidelines.
It gets better. Amazon pays all royalties to the owners of the characters and to you. A couple of things you might want to think about though: 1) Your titles will be published by Amazon Publishing and 2) Amazon will acquire all rights to your story for the term of the copyright. You will own the copyright to all the original elements of your story (so don’t worry about that), however the licensor will retain all the rights to their World. And that is very fair! Everyone maintains rights to what they bring to the table. The trick is that the community built around the world gets an opportunity to build off any new characters you create in the world.
So this may not be for you if you want exclusive rights to your story and don’t want anyone using your characters. I however see it as a wonderful opportunity especially for new authors wanting to get their name out in the world. I suggest you read the details that Amazon has outlined very carefully.
The Kindle Worlds store opens in June!
As I begin to revamp my blog, I thought of ways that I can hopefully inspire all of you who are thinking about creating Kindle books, but are teetering on the edge of making the full leap.
I’m going to share the stories of Kindle authors who decided that they were ready to jump in and publish their first Kindle books! I hope these authors will give you a little motivation or that final kick/push/nudge you need to break open your KDP account and upload your book.
Visit the Authors page if you would like to share your story about creating your first Kindle book. I would love to add your story to my collection 
So, what have I been up to for the past few days? In case you have been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for my next blog post (c’mon and humor me, please) I just wanted to share with you some of the things I’ve been doing – and, if you’re a marketing misfit like me, you might need to do before, during or after you create your Kindle children’s book!
I’ve been getting the official site for Gift of the Moon set up and I’m happy to say, you can find it here: http://giftofthemoon.com
I have also been trying to keep up with posting daily to my new (my very first) Facebook Fan Page Gwen Tanner Children’s Books. Please visit and let me know what you think – go ahead and “like” it if you like the types of posts I make there.
I have also been picking the brain of my very good friend Melanie Kissell who is social media marketing genius (hi Melanie!) and she’s given me so many good resources and tips about marketing Gift of the Moon. With some encouragement from Melanie, I’ve finally set up some Pinterest boards and my next project on Pinterest is to create a board of my “ideal customer.” ( it’s a kid, right?)
And finally, I started a whole NEW YouTube channel because there wasn’t much going on with the old one. Honestly, there isn’t much going on with the new one either, but I wasn’t able to change the user name of it – so now I got two of ‘em!
Oh, and because of the disaster with the YouTube channels, I ALSO now have a Google+ account – by accident.
Ooooh and one more thing I’ve been working on for this site – a welcome video. So you can expect that soon.
Anyway, all of this to tell you that once you get your children’s book up and published to Kindle, that is when the work start. If you’re smart you will start marketing the day you get the idea in your head “I think I want to write a children’s book.”
Yes, there is a challenge among us and it is called NaPiBoWriWee. That is National Picture Book Writing Week! Here is your chance to work with a group of writers who will keep you motivated to write a book a day for 7 days.
The dates: May 1 – May 7, 2013
The place: Your desk (oh, and http://paulayoo.com/napi - the official site)
The goal: Write 7 picture books in 7 days
If you haven’t started as of right this minute, right now, today, dont worry! Write 6 books. If you start tomorrow write 5. Just get your kindle children’s book written and up for sale!
The short answer is no, you do not need an ISBN for publishing on Kindle. Instead you will get a very special number assigned by Amazon called an ASIN. This number will be unique to your book. You can however add an ISBN number when you upload your book if you have one.
Let’s say you want to have a print version of your book as well, perhaps through Amazon’s CreateSpace program. In this case you will need to have an ISBN for the print book, but it must be different than the ISBN for your Kindle book, if you choose to use one. The ISBN for your print book will allow it to be identified by bookstores, libraries, etc.
If you do want to purchase an ISBN, visit https://www.myidentifiers.com
Hint: If you ever plan on publishing at least two books (or even a translated version of your book), get the 10 pack deal!
One of the things that often hinders people from getting started with stuff online is the whole sign up or registration process, or even feeling insecure about entering personal information online. There are so many forms to fill out and you have to answer so many questions – and some of those questions can be a little uncomfortable to answer (e.g., entering your social security number and bank account numbers). Luckily though, signing up for selling your Kindle book is pretty simple. I’m writing this post to hopefully make those of you who are hesitant feel a little better about it.
First, there are no prerequisites for signing up. You don’t have to worry about income requirements, credit checks, college degree or any type of proof of your existence or worth. Anyone can sign up as long as you have an email address. It’s even faster if you already have an Amazon.com account.
You will enter basic information like your name and/or company name and address, which is pretty standard for about anything you sign up for related to e-commerce.
Be prepared to enter your Tax ID (SSN or EIN). As long as you fail to supply your Tax ID, you will get a nagging screen that tells you your account set up is incomplete. Your Kindle book will not go live until you enter it.
Finally, I suggest signing up for direct deposit. You don’t want your royalty checks getting lost in the mail You will need to enter your bank account number and routing number. Of course if you are not comfortable sharing that information you can always opt to receive a paper check.
Amazon is a very, very large and a very, very secure company that has been in business for almost 20 years with well over 200 million customers. So please feel comfortable entering your information with them.
Today is Earth Day – I missed most of it because I was indoors all day. So I figured I’d check to see what others did for Earth Day! I found some posts from my friends in the Ultimate Blog Challenge about Earth Day
Thanks to all of you wonderful ladies who posted about Earth Day!
