Amazon Publishing has reached out to fan fiction writers with Kindle Worlds, a platform allowing authors to write fan fiction based on someone else’s work and share royalties with the rights holders.

Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment division will work with Amazon on the program, letting fans write about Cecily von Ziegesar‘s Gossip Girl, Sara Shepard‘s Pretty Little Liars and L.J. Smith‘s Vampire Diaries. Fan fiction writers can publish their own work about these stories in the Kindle Store. The program launches in June. Here’ more about the payment structure:

Amazon Publishing will pay royalties to both the rights holders of the Worlds and the author. The standard author’s royalty rate (for works of at least 10,000 words) will be 35% of net revenue. As with all titles from Amazon Publishing, Kindle Worlds will base net revenue off of sales price—rather than the lower, industry standard of wholesale price—and royalties will be paid monthly.

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Amazon workers in Germany have called a strike, fighting the online retailer for better pay. The national trade union Verdi will lead the strike.

Reuters had the scoop:

Amazon employs around 9,000 people in Germany and has come under fire from trade union Verdi for refusing to implement a collective agreement on employment conditions, similar to other mail order and retail firms … The union is also pressing for higher basic pay and bigger supplements for night shifts.

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Amazon has unveiled its own currency for readers to spend inside the app universe of the Kindle Fire. All Kindle Fire owners get to start out with $5 worth of free Amazon Coins.

What do you think? AppNewser has more details:

Amazon’s virtual currency “Amazon coins” are now live on the Kindle Fire. The company introduced the concept of coins, a currency that lets users buy apps, games and make in-app purchases on the Kindle Fire, back in February in a push to get developers on board. To help get users started, Amazon is giving away 500 “Amazon Coins”  to every Kindle Fire owner in the U.S. This equals about $5. To encourage adoption, Amazon will give discounts to users. The more they buy, the larger the discount.

After selling 500,000 combined copies of Ian Fleming and Ed McBain backlist, Amazon Publishing has acquired books from the Saint series by Leslie Charteris and the Mrs. Bradley series by Gladys Mitchell.

Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint will publish digital editions and print editions (“where rights permit”) later this year. Jane Gelfman from Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents negotiated the deal for 49 Saint series books. A TV pilot for the classic series about a mysterious thief is now being produced.

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Amazon reported that net sales increased 22 percent to $16.07 billion in the first quarter of the financial year, compared to the same period last year. At the same time, the company reported that net income had decreased. Check it out:

Operating income decreased 6% to $181 million in the first quarter, compared with $192 million in first quarter 2012. The unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was $12 million. Net income decreased 37% to $82 million in the first quarter, or $0.18 per diluted share, compared with $130 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, in first quarter 2012.

In addition, the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library has swelled to more than 300,000 books that readers with Kindle Prime membership can check out once a month.

Alexandria, Virginia is the most well-read city in America once again, according to Amazon’s annual ranking that measures ”all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format” in cities around the country.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was the most popular novel purchased in that city, followed by the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

We’ve reprinted the top 20 cities on the list below–the survey counts sales data “on a per capita basis,” only focused on cities with more than 100,000 residents.

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Amazon has reportedly sold almost five million Kindle Singles since January 2011.

The new eBook format dominated online chatter this week as The New York Times profiled chief David Blum. AppNewser has more details:

Kindle Singles is designed as a place where journalists and authors can publish works that are longer than your typical magazine article but shorter than a book. This includes essays, novellas and long form stories. The format has attracted the likes of Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, and Lee Child, among many others. The New York Times points out that the business is profitable, having sold five million copies since it launched in January 2011. The Times even asserts, “…the program is as much about gaining entree into the literary world as it is about revenue.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos released his annual letter to shareholders this week, reminding them that “we want to make money when people use our devices – not when people buy our devices.”

Click here to download a PDF copy of the letter. While the letter focused on the overall business, he mentioned publishing a few times–taking time to mention royalty changes for authors.

Amazon Publishing has just announced it will start paying authors their royalties monthly, sixty days in arrears. The industry standard is twice a year, and that has been the standard for a long time. Yet when we interview authors as customers, infrequent payment is a major dissatisfier. Imagine how you’d like it if you were paid twice a year. There isn’t competitive pressure to pay authors more than once every six months, but we’re proactively doing so.

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Nearly 1,200 people have signed a Change.org petition urging Amazon to change its return policy for Kindle books. As you can see by the petition’s image,

Do you think readers are abusing Amazon’s digital return policy? The petitioners argue that Amazon gives readers enough time to read the book and still return it. Here’s more from the petition:

It is understood that if a customer goes into a store and purchases a tangible item, that item can be returned to the store within a specified amount of time for a refund. In this case, nobody is out of anything. The customer has their money back and the store has the original item purchased. But if Amazon sells our e-Book(s) and allow customers to keep that product for seven day (more than enough time to read it) and then, give them the option to return it for a refund, the consumer has already read our work and we’re out of the amount of money charged for that item. Is this fair or not? This is like going into a restaurant, buying a meal, then asking for a refund after you’ve already eaten it!
Something has to be done. We (authors/publishers) have invested too much time and money into creating our products to just let them (Amazon) give it away for free. Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book” Program makes approximately 3 chapters (sometimes more) of most books available so that customers can preview the book prior to purchase, so why would they allow someone to purchase the book, give them seven days to read it, and then give them a refund?

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The Authors Guild called Amazon’s purchase of Goodreads ”a truly devastating act of vertical integration” in an online dispatch. Guild president Scott Turow had this statement:

Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads is a textbook example of how modern Internet monopolies can be built … The key is to eliminate or absorb competitors before they pose a serious threat. With its 16 million subscribers, Goodreads could easily have become a competing on-line bookseller, or played a role in directing buyers to a site other than Amazon. Instead, Amazon has scuttled that potential and also squelched what was fast becoming the go-to venue for on-line reviews, attracting far more attention than Amazon for those seeking independent assessment and discussion of books. As those in advertising have long known, the key to driving sales is controlling information.

What do you think? The Guild cited Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson as an example. The book has 123 customer reviews at Amazon, but 469 reviews on Goodreads.

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