If this tale of Amazon’s latest betrayal to its users – in this case the writers and readers of fan fiction – doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, we’ll end up with many more tears in ours. (WTF did we just say?) Anyway…
by Travis Clark
Desiree Holt, affectionately known as the oldest author of erotic romance at 83 years old, climbed out of a financial plight in 2013 thanks to Amazon.
At the time, Holt was writing romance novels for the the publishing company Ellora’s Cave, which was collapsing and ultimately shut down in 2016. Holt felt her income was in jeopardy. But in 2013, Amazon launched a fan-fiction service called Kindle Worlds, a digital publishing platform that let authors publish fan fiction within certain licensed “worlds,” which at first included properties from Warner Bros.’ Alloy Entertainment, like “Gossip Girl,” “Pretty Little Liars,” and “The Vampire Diaries.”