Kurt Vonnegut Fan Fiction Guidelines Lyrics

We are excited to announce that we have secured a new Kindle Worlds license from RosettaBooks for the books of Kurt Vonnegut, one of the most influential American novelists of the 20th century. Writers will soon be able to create and sell stories inspired by the iconic books of Kurt Vonnegut, including his most famous work Slaughterhouse-Five. What new stories will you imagine and create with Billy Pilgrim? What about Kilgore Trout from Breakfast of Champions?

The submission platform is expected to open in August, but you can get started writing your story now. See below for a sneak peek of the content guidelines. To familiarize yourself with Kindle Worlds, check out our FAQ’s here. Start writing where you want to be…

Content Guidelines:

1. Pornography: We don’t accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.

2. Offensive Content: We don’t accept offensive content, including but not limited to racial slurs, excessively graphic or violent material, or excessive use of foul language.

3. Illegal and Infringing Content: We take violations of laws and proprietary rights very seriously. It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that their content doesn’t violate laws or copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights.

4. Poor Customer Experience: We don’t accept books that provide a poor customer experience. Examples include poorly formatted books and books with misleading titles, cover art, or product descriptions. We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience.

5. Excessive Use of Brands: We don’t accept the excessive use of brand names or the inclusion of brand names for paid advertising or promotion.

6. Crossover: No crossovers from other Worlds are permitted, meaning your work may not include elements of any copyright-protected book, movie, or other property outside of the elements of this World.

7. The World does not include characters, scenes, events, themes or plots that are unique to derivative works such as books, movies and television shows based on Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, novellas, and short stories.

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Genius Annotation

Having secured permissions from the Kurt Vonnegut Trust, Kindle Worlds (Amazon’s fan fiction community) is soliciting fan fiction related to Vonnegut’s novels. According to trustee Donald C. Farber:

We’ve been very pleased with the success of the Kurt Vonnegut backlist on Kindle. With Kindle Worlds we have an opportunity to further his reach with today’s readers…Billy Pilgrim, unstuck in time, is going to quickly become a Kindle Worlds favorite.

However, KW’s guidelines have prompted some backlash from those who question whether Vonnegut himself could or would have abided by them.

Amazon’s full press release is here.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

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