Amazon Publishing has introduced a new publishing platform dedicated to fan fiction called Kindle Worlds.

The platform is designed to let writers create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters. And using licenses, writers can earn royalties from their work. Amazon has licenses for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Vampire Diaries, and plans to announce more soon.

Amazon will 35% of net revenue for works at least 10,000 words. Amazon Publishing is also piloting a new program for  short works which run between 5,000 and 10,000 words. These short stories, which are typically priced less than $1, Amazon will pay the royalties for the World’s rights holder and pay authors a digital royalty of 20%. Read more

The Air Force is hoping to lighten its paper usage with 18,000 iPads over the next ten years. The cost savings could bring in as much as $50 million in revenue, some of its as reduced fuel costs. Currently, paper manuals can weigh as much as 30-40 pounds of paper for each crew member. This number jumps to 490 pounds of paper for a C-5 with 10 crew members.

In an interview on The Street, Major Brian Moritz explains the fuel savings:

By removing all that paper, AMC will capture about $750,000 in fuel savings [annually] just based off the decreased weight Read more

The Gracie Awards were held last night in Los Angeles, celebrating “outstanding programming for, by and about women.”

GalleyCat Editor Jason Boog was there on the red carpet chatting with established authors about how emerging writers can succeed in their trade. Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight? author and Scandal actor Dan Bucatinsky gave GalleyCat this advice:

Know what your point of view is and find a way to express it. Even if nobody’s paying you to do it. That’s the most important thing. If you want to sing, sing and find a venue for it. If you want to write, wake up every day and at least write for 15 minutes a day. Whoever you are, if you have a point of view and you want to have that voice expressed, find a way.

MessageMe, a new app that rethinks the idea of an SMS by letting users send music, videos, photos, drawings and even location information, is taking off pretty quickly.

The company revealed this week that in its first 10 days, the app had been downloaded 1 million time. In the first 75 days, the app was downloaded 5 million times. The success is gaining the company some funding. They have just raised $10 million in venture capital funding.

Here is more about the company’s vision from a blog post written by the co-founders:

While communication means something different to everyone, whether it be our users in North America, Europe or Asia, or 15-20 year old males or females, what remains the same is the desire for freedom of expression.  Pencil and paper revolutionized communication by allowing for more accessible and ubiquitous mediums of expression; we’ve set out to build a service that accentuates this natural style on connected devices.

Travel publisher Lonely Planet has partnered with digital publishing company Inkling to create a new series of enhanced eBooks for iOS devices called Best Trips.

The eBook editions of the Best Trips series are interactive and dynamic. Like their print counterparts, they offer travelers suggestions for people who want to explore a region by car. They include recommendations on hotels and restaurants, as well as for fun activities. The eBook editions allow users to click to call or click to book online, and they feature interactive maps, and a weather forecasting tool. Each eBook has 30 trips that range from two days to two weeks.

The collection includes travel guides to California, Italy, New England, Ireland and France, among others. They are currently available for $14.99 through Inkling or as individual apps in Apple’s App Store.

Barnes & Noble is rumored to be updating its Nook tablet with email and web browsing capabilities as early as next month. The news came from an anonymously leaked email.

In addition to email and web browsing capabilities, the new update for Nook Simple Touch will also include a fresh new app store. Currently, only the Kindle fire tablet has email capabilities, so this could potentially boost flagging sales of the hardware. In addition to the software update, the company has already resorted to giving away its tablets in various promotions. given the tablet’s low price and new, minimal capabilities, Nook might be a great investment for those whose main interest is reading eBooks.

Hardest Game Ever 2 joins the top free Android app this week at No. 10, according to research from Google Play. The gaming app from Organnose Studio measures users reaction time through quick puzzles.

Below, we’ve listed the top free Android apps of the week. The list links to Google Play’s research about the individual apps, including user reviews.

As part of Mediabistro’s Media App Summit which took place last year, we spotlight the top free apps every week–helping our readers discover, enjoy and analyze successful content. Read more

Elvenkind: Rise of the Dark Ones by Ola Olsson is today’s Free eBook of the Day.

The novel is the first of three fantasy novels that involves elf murders. Check it out:

Elvenkind Trilogy: Have you ever wondered how an elven race could get divided into several sub-races? This is one version, spanning millennia in a world where only elves live. Book 1: In a world where elves live in tranquil and enlightenment, no one could have known that a single boy’s desire to live, could lead to so much death and suffering.

The eBook is available through Smashwords. To get it for free, use the coupon code UC26T. It’s good until May 27th.

For more free eBooks, check out our Free eBook of the Day archive.

Disney’s has released a new iOS app to help parents share family photos from their smartphone and make a story out of it. It’s called Story.

The app accesses a user’s camera roll and the user can add photos and videos to the app to create a story. Users can write captions and create spreads of their various pictures and content. They can add pages of text, themes and layouts.

These photo stories are designed to be shared. So a user can simply tap to share with friends on Facebook or via email. The photos are not public, and a friend or family member will need an invitation to view a story. Stories can also be embedded onto a website or blog. The app is also synced with iCloud, so that users can back up all of their stories.

A placebo app may be a hard pill for your brain to swallow, but it’s  fairly innocuous and relatively simple. How does a virtual placebo even work? As it turns out, placebos have been shown to be effective despite users being told a placebo was being used. Harnessing this mental illusion is the key to making your smart phone a virtual medicine cabinet, one that could travel with you so long as you have your phone.

If this idea strikes you as palpable, then you might be the right candidate for the Placebo Mobile App campaign on Indiegogo. The project is seeking to raise the necessary funds for Android and iPhone apps. The app allows you to select and personalize your placebo – along with alerts for you to take them at an appointed time. Read more