Posts Tagged ‘writers’
Amazon launches Kindle Worlds publishing platform for fan fiction, will pay royalties to writers and rights holders
Author: Dave Adams
Amazon’s taken a number of steps to bring different types of content to the Kindle Store, and it’s now venturing into an area that has a long history with the internet: fan fiction. The company’s today announced Kindle Worlds, a new publishing platform that promises to pay writers royalties for stories inspired by established works. Naturally, the original rights holder needs to be a willing participant as well, and they’ll also be paid a royalty for all fan fiction stories sold. So what are your options for now? For the launch, Amazon has partnered with Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment to open up three of its series to fan fiction enthusiasts, giving you the chance to write stories set in the world of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars or The Vampire Diaries. The company’s promising that additional licenses are on the way, but for now you can check out the finer details in the press release after the break and at the source link below.
Filed under: Amazon
Source: Kindle Worlds
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iBooks Author gets new EULA, aims to clear writer’s block
Author: Stacey Cook
We’ve waxed lyrical about iBooks Author at the technological level, but a good self-publishing platform counts for nothing if authors are put off by its terms and conditions. A particular source of antagonism so far has been the notion that, if an author decides to charge a fee for their iBook, then Apple will claim exclusive distribution rights and prevent them from publishing their work anywhere else. Check out the More Coverage links below and you’ll see that a number of writers tore up Apple’s licensing agreement and flung it into the proverbial overflowing trash can. Now though, Cupertino has done some re-writing of its own and come up with a new EULA. It clarifies that Apple will only demand exclusive distribution rights over .ibooks files that are created with iBooks Author, rather than the book’s content itself. It states that “this restriction will not apply to the content of the work when distributed in [another] form.” So, there it is — writers everywhere can happily go back to tearing up their own work again.
iBooks Author gets new EULA, aims to clear writer’s block originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Feb 2012 02:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Amazon grabs two more Kindle related domains, keeps gadget writers in work
Author: Dave Adams
Amazon grabs two more Kindle related domains, keeps gadget writers in work originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Contently Raises Seed Capital To Give Writers And Publishers An Alternative To Content Farms
Author: Ang Nguyen
Contently, a platform that connects brands with quality content and gives freelance writers the shot at a regular paycheck, announced today that it has closed a $ 335K debt round from Founder Collective. This comes on the heels of the news that TechStars had chosen Contently to be one of the 12 startups to take part in its New York City summer program, which began last week.
The startup is keying into the idea that content farms have become the bane of content production, spamming search engines with low-quality, SEO-optimized content that takes up space rather than inform. Contently hopes to fight this trend by building a business around real engaging, sharable content, rather than an anonymous, outsourced engine intended to game search algorithms.
As marketing dollars shit towards social media and content marketing (according to Custom Content Council, 68 percent of CMOs are shifting marketing budgets to focus on content marketing), and simultaneously, as digital content production ushers in a new era where many bloggers and journalists are now managing freelance careers, Contently’s value is twofold. On the one hand, Contently wants to help web marketers build content strategies optimized for readers online, based on content produced by real, accredited journalists.
Contently believes that marketers want to be producing magazine-quality content that does their brands justice, and for that reason, SEO manipulation isn’t a sustainable model for businesses — or those that take advantage of its rapid-fire content production.
On the other hand, Contently wants to become a source of steady work for freelance content producers. But, to assure brands that they will be getting quality content, the startup is currently only working with journalists and bloggers who have credentials that include “major publications and well known blogs”. Of course, “major” and “well known” are in the eye of the beholder, but Contently Co-founder Shane Snow says that writers from Boston Globe, Gawker, LA Times, New York Times, and Wired are already on board.
For its writers, the New York City-based startup is setting the minimum publishers pay for the work they produce to ensure that they won’t be given $ 10 gigs, a la Demand Media. Snow says that writers who blog full-time for Contently can make make more than $ 50K a year, a bold statement, considering that 66 percent of journalists make less than that.
Contently then aims to become a hub, where journalists can manage their careers, without having to worry about vetting clients or whoring themselves out for little money just to pay the rent. Plus, no more late checks. (And they can get bylines like this one.)
For businesses, hiring journalists, bloggers, or copy writers in-house is an expensive endeavor, which is why so many have turned to outsourcing production to freelancers. Of course, finding high quality freelancers on Craigslist, Odesk, or Elance can be more time-consuming than hiring in-house. This is where Contently’s value proposition comes into play, offering businesses easy access to quality content and journalists a steady source of revenue. For publishers, these writers become their stringers, Snow says, in a way that’s more like telecommuting than Mechanical Turk-style outsourcing — they want to get rid of the anonymity.
“Contently is something that literally every one of our portfolio companies could use”, Founder Collective Managing Partner Eric Paley told us. “Contently makes content marketing turnkey for it’s growing base of clients”.
Contently launched its closed beta in December 2010, and has since seen companies like Mint, Grasshopper, and Wix use the startup to hire freelance writers and plan their digital content strategies.
For more, check out the startup at home and sign up for here.
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East And West Coast Writers Needed (Also Maybe Someone In Between?)
Author: Gabe Hall
We’re looking for some East and West coast writers to round out the CG team. Drop me a line at john @ crunchgear dot com with two things: A post we recently did rewritten in your style and a fresh post on something we didn’t cover. The subject line should be WRITER THINGER. Got it? Good.
We’re looking for someone who can spend a few hours a day with us posting and covering breaking news. Ideal candidates would be in NYC or SF but some of the best minds of our generation have come from fly-over states and places like San Diego, so just let us know you’re interested.
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Sony Optiarc debuts 12x Blu-ray writers, makes ‘em friendly with BD 3D
Author: Gabe Hall
Not that we haven’t seen a 12x Blu-ray burner before, but it’ll be a cold day in the underworld before you hear us griping about a little friendly competition. Sony Optiarc has taken the cellophane off of its newest crop of half-height writers, the BD-5300S, BWU-500S and BWU-500S. These guys will soon be shipping in a variety of retail and OEM configurations, offering up Blu-ray 3D playback, 12x toasting of BD-R media (dual-layer steps down to 8x) and a copy of CyberLink’s Media Suite 8 with the latter unit. The outift’s not talking dollars and cents, but you can judge the value for yourself when they start filtering out in the next few weeks.
Continue reading Sony Optiarc debuts 12x Blu-ray writers, makes ‘em friendly with BD 3D
Sony Optiarc debuts 12x Blu-ray writers, makes ‘em friendly with BD 3D originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Robert J. Elisberg: The Writers Workbench: Photo Scanning and a bit beyond
Author: Stefanie Jenkins
Robert J. Elisberg: The Writers Workbench: Photo Scanning and a bit beyond
Once upon a time, people looked at photographs. The result, alas, is that there are houses around the world with closets dedicated to storing all…
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Jeffrey Deaver, 21 Other Best-Selling Thriller Writers Launch New Collaborative Vook for iPad
Author: Markus Smith
Jeffrey Deaver, 21 Other Best-Selling Thriller Writers Launch New Collaborative Vook for iPad
Two-Part Thriller Series ‘Watchlist’ Available Now for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
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Comics Spotlight On: Spider-Girl
Author: Mark Jeffries
Spider-Girl is not a character in regular Marvel continuity. She’s not a male hero. And she’s been canceled twice.
But she keeps coming back. Though no longer in print, she currently has a series of digital adventures, though those are coming to an end soon and her original stories may cease.
Still, May “Mayday “Parker is good at beating the odds.
When my eldest daughter was younger, Spider-Girl was her favorite comic because it was a cool mix of action, high school drama, and a teen dealing with slightly overprotective parents.
The First Appearance of Spider-Girl
Summary:
May Parker is the daughter of Peter Parker, the now-retired Spider-Man, and his wife, Mary Jane Parker. Â In regular comics continuity, this child was stillborn. In the alternate reality, she grew up to be a teen hero known as Spider-Girl. In many ways, the comic reminds me of the first few seasons of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. There’s the high school setting and the focus on social issues, along with a strong supporting cast, plus angst as the character seeks to both be a hero and have a normal life. Mayday first takes up her father’s mantle at age fifteen. Over the series, she becomes a more experienced hero and eventually gains acceptance not only from her father but from other Marvel heroes.
What Kids Will Like About It:
Girls interested in Spider-Man may be drawn to the more relatable Mayday, especially pre-teens. The series features a nice mix of action and humor, with the writers getting a lot of mileage as Spider-Girl struggles to juggle being a regular girl and a superhero. My daughter particularly enjoyed a sequence where Mayday has trouble finding a costume that’s not torn to wear for crimefighting. In a way, this series is closer to the early Peter Parker Spider-Man stories because of its emphasis on learning to become a hero.
What Parents Will Like About It:
This is a fun series for Spider-Man and Marvel Universe fans, as it gives readers a glimpse at a cool alternate reality. Peter Parker has a cybernetic leg, which caused him to retire as Spider-Man and has become a police scientist. The next generation of Osbornes is around, as are a set of new Avengers, the villain known as Caine, and Venom. It reminds me of how much fun I used to have reading about the adventures of DC Comics heroes on Earth-2.
Best Panel:
I really like the cover to Spider-Girl’s first appearance. The rest of Spider-Girl’s adventures can be found in the digest form popularized by manga. The series kicks off with Spider-Girl, Volume 1 Legacy. There are twelve volumes of the series available on Amazon, and five volumes of her second series, The Amazing Spider-Girl.
About the Creators:
Spider-Girl was created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, and her costume was created by Mark Bagley. DeFalco was also the creative force behind four other titles set in the same alternate universe but only the interest in Spider-Girl was enough to sustain a regular series. DeFalco has had a long career in comics and served as Marvel Editor-in-Chief from 1987-1994. Frenz also co-created the young adult superhero team, The New Warriors, for Marvel. His website indicates he accepts commission requests.
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Comics Spotlight On: Spider-Girl
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Tags: Amazon, armchair geek, comic, Comics, father, LED, Marvel, marvel-universe, peter-parker, vampire, villain, writers | 
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