Fiction Fans Gaining Unprecedented Control

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - June 2, 2013 - PRLog -- Social media continues to ingrain itself in American culture, and the entertainment industry is looking for new ways to make the fan’s experience interactive.  Taking a cue from American Idol, NASCAR announced earlier this year that it would allow fans to vote on certain rules and race parameters for the 75-lap Sprint Unlimited (http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2013/01/21/sprint-unlimited-fan-vote.html).  And just this May, Amazon announced an add-on to its self-publishing services, dubbed Kindle Worlds (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57585662-93/amazons-kindle-worlds-will-pay-writers-to-write-fan-fiction/), which will allow fan fiction writers to actually sell their stories.  Taking this a step further, the website ww.kandanoria.com launched in May, giving fans an opportunity to build the fiction world of Kandanoria from the ground up and actually contribute to the ‘canon’, rather than forcing their fiction to remain separate.  “It’s like a massive choose-your-own-adventure that spans multiple stories; except instead of just a handful of people in control, you have an entire online community steering the direction of the world”, says Kandanoria Entertainment President, Brett Wade.  Currently, the site offers writing contests to fans that wish to write whole stories and allows less verbose fans to offer up suggestions for the world through forums and blogs, which are either accepted or declined by the community at large.  Items that are accepted for inclusion in the official canon are incorporated into the site’s world almanac (http://www.kandanoria.com/almanac), while authors of winning stories gain cash prizes and have their works published to the site.  There is little doubt that new options like Kindle Worlds and Kandanoria are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to giving fans more control over the destiny of their favorite entertainment brands.