Licensed to Fic

Amazon. So freakin’ brilliant. So clever about making money.

For now, the only “Kindle Worlds” available for authorized, licensed fanfic-for-sale are Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars. But Amazon says more fanfic licenses are coming.

Royalties will be shared by Amazon between the license owner (Warner Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment) and the fanfic writer. Royalties will fall into two different classes, based solely on length.

On the dark side, Amazon Publishing owns your story. “Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright.” So if they lose the license, you’re kinda outta luck.

More info:

“Kindle Worlds is a creative community where Worlds grow with each new story. You will own the copyright to the original, copyrightable elements (such as characters, scenes, and events) that you create and include in your work, and the World Licensor will retain the copyright to all the original elements of the World. When you submit your story in a World, you are granting Amazon Publishing an exclusive license to the story and all the original elements you include in that story. This means that your story and all the new elements must stay within the applicable World. We will allow Kindle Worlds authors to build on each other’s ideas and elements. We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.”

So if you come up with a great piece of fanon or a new character, they own it and you don’t. You’re working for the company, just like somebody putting out a comic or a novel in the traditional licensing way.

Also, you don’t have control over how much it costs, and thus how much royalty you end up with, and you don’t have marketing control. “Amazon Publishing will set the price for Kindle Worlds stories. Most will be priced from $0.99 through $3.99.”

There are also guidelines. Which, oddly enough, will probably ensure that fanfic survives in the wild.

“Pornography: We don’t accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.

Offensive Content: We don’t accept offensive content, including but not limited to racial slurs, excessively graphic or violent material, or excessive use of foul language.

Illegal and Infringing Content: We take violations of laws and proprietary rights very seriously. It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that their content doesn’t violate laws or copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights.

Poor Customer Experience: We don’t accept books that provide a poor customer experience. Examples include poorly formatted books and books with misleading titles, cover art, or product descriptions. We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience.

Excessive Use of Brands: We don’t accept the excessive use of brand names or the inclusion of brand names for paid advertising or promotion.

Crossover: No crossovers from other Worlds are permitted, meaning your work may not include elements of any copyright-protected book, movie, or other property outside of the elements of this World.”

Yup, even when it’s all owned by the same company. Crossovers are tricky in the legal world.

So there you have it. Definitely not as restrictive as the traditional sort of work for hire, and you even get royalties. But still, it’s writer beware, so be careful out there.

If you’re interested, visit Kindle Worlds today!

Dept. of What Fresh Hell That Came From

Apparently, the incredibly stupid and simoniacal “service hours” requirements for Confirmation in some parishes are based on the incredibly stupid, illegal use of indentured labor “community service hours” requirements to graduate some high schools.

Well, of course somebody has to do something in the Church that “sounds good” but is stupid and illegal, just to parrot something secular that “sounds good” but is stupid and illegal.

Chris Hadfield’s Music Video of “Space Oddity”

At this point, Hadfield is definitely living the filker power fantasy.

Here’s a video put together by him and his brother, which apparently tickled the heck out of David Bowie.

Note the actually-pretty-daring stunt with the guitar. Wouldn’t have been pretty to kill your guitar when you’re up in space. It’s probably not the first time anybody in space has sung the song (a lot of astronauts and cosmonauts sing and play), but it’s definitely the most stylish!

How to Write a Novel, 1901

Gutenberg has a nice little 1901 book called How to Write a Novel, by Anonymous. He helpfully takes most of his material from interviews with various Victorian and Edwardian authors, mostly the genre kind, and includes “stories of other worlds” and “the supernatural” in his survey. A fair number of one’s sworn enemies from English class also show a human writerly face. There’s also an interesting section on short stories versus novels.

Anyway, the really fascinating bit is at the end, where Poe describes how he got the idea for “The Raven,” and makes it clear that he was in no way a poet who wrote on inspiration, but rather a construct-y type poet as well as a short story writer. He sounds like a Nashville songwriter, honestly. (And that’s not a bad thing.)

Hurray! A New St. Albert the Great Translation!

This is great! Look at this beautiful new scholarly translation of St. Albert the Great’s book on the Valiant Woman chapter of Proverbs!

Seriously, it needs to have more exposure, and having Dominican scholars do it is particularly fitting and cool. You WILL ENJOY reading this book. You will remember its points and find them useful. And there are pirates.

Also, you can buy the paperback now on Amazon’s CreateSpace, or on Amazon.

You can also buy the Kindle edition.

And yes, it’s kinda sad not to have had the chance to finish my own translation, but them’s the breaks in scholarly life and publishing. And yeah, probably God’s will to have somebodies better qualified take on the job.

Anyway, it’s a sweet, sweet book and a pretty loving medieval Scholastic take on us ladies and the Church, so take a look! If you don’t have a Mother’s Day present yet, you can stick this on Mom’s Kindle!

Also, there are pirates.

Bede on Anglo-Saxon Spinning

“And her fingers,” it says, “have taken hold of the spindle.” (Proverbs 31:19) Women are accustomed to holding the spindle in the right hand, and to hold the distaff in the left. For the wool is wrapped around the distaff, guiding a thread away from it, so that it lets it cross over onto the spindle when being spun. But often in the Scriptures, the right hand signifies everlasting life, and the left the gifts of God in the present: wealth in business, of course; temporal peace; bodily safety; as well as knowledge of the Scriptures and learning of the heavenly sacraments. When we gain these and similar good things from God, giving them bountifully, we carry them in the left hand like wool wrapped onto a distaff. But on the other hand, when we begin to practice in these things in a wholesome way, for love of heavenly things, then we pull the wool of the Spotless Lamb across from the distaff onto the spindle, from the left hand to the right. For from the gifts of Our Redeemer, from the pattern of His works, we make a “robe” ["stolam"] (Mk. 16:5) of heavenly glory for ourselves, and a “wedding garment” (Mt. 22:11-12) of charity.

For also, the “fingers” which are said to take hold “of the spindle” insinuate that same intention of discretion by which everything is to be done. Doubtless on this account — because none of the many members of our bodies are as pulled in different directions by the joints, or as suitable for bending, as the “fingers.” Therefore, everyone can say truthfully with the apostle, “But our turning [conversatio] is toward heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 3:20) Certainly her right hand’s “fingers” are to take hold “of the spindle” because she has learned to labor for eternal goods with attentive discretion. And “have taken hold” is well said, so that the more energetic one is commended; we must take the prizes with the Lord, for the sake of what is certain in this uncertain life, with as much eagerness and as much speed [as we can]. But what the “valiant woman” — that is, Holy Church, or any perfected soul — may have worked with the intellectual spindle, will be disclosed subsequently.

More stuff from Bede’s commentary on the Book of Proverbs, and specifically from the section called The Little Book of the Valiant Woman.

The words used here are “fusus” (spindle), “colus” (distaff), and “filea” (thread, yarn).

Castle Computer Game Plagiarism??

Okay… maybe it’s just an in-joke… but in the visual clues for the new hidden object tie-in computer game, Castle: Never Judge a Book by Its Cover, bookblogger and local newspaper reviewer “Jenny on the Book” has one of her book reviews quoted in full as the text of a fake book review by a game character. (Actually, two different ones.) And I guess it’s technically not plagiarism, since they include the entire text of this review, right down to the URL for imstilljennyonthebook.blogspot.com.

This is particularly weird since the game character/book reviewer is a guy with a wife, and the text of the review talks about the reviewer’s life as a woman with a husband. Yeah. Also, the game demands that the review be scathing, while the actual text they use is kind and flattering.

Soooooo why are they ripping off this blogger? Laziness? Inability to look up the text of “Lorem ipsum”?

And no, “Jenny on the Book” is not listed in the game’s credits.

Btw, the game also rips off the text of Hyperion’s copyright notices from the inside of their books, which is amusing because the Castle “Nikki Heat” tie-in novels are not published by Hyperion. Tactless, guys.