Kindle Worlds: Bringing Fanfiction Into Line But Not Online?
Despite Kindle World's seemingly revolutionary legitimization of fanfiction, the venture appears to be a traditional publishing model in one crucial respect. Kindle Worlds and the form of the ebook itself fulfills a gatekeeper role for the World licensors, rather than being also an online vehicle for writing, reading and building community for the fans, which is what one might have expected of a fanfiction-based publishing venture.
The fact that Amazon has called it ‘Kindle' rather than ‘Amazon' Worlds clearly defines Kindle Worlds as an ebook venture, tied to the Kindle reading device/app. Amazon does not appear to have adopted nor explored the basic underlying interactive, dynamic mode of storytelling that is at the heart of fanfiction which, crucially, begins and lives online.
